A few months ago, I was in a meeting with two of the sharpest minds in consumer internet space in India, both of whom had built massively value creating companies in their previous avatars. It was a brainstorming session and their experience shone through in how quickly they asked the relevant questions and how many things they intuitively understood from my narrative. While discussing geographies, products and everything under the sun, one of them asked me,

So, have you decided to make India your Karm Bhoomi?

– implying if we were tied to doing things only in India.

It has been many months since this conversation and we have made more progress from where we were back then, but this question has stuck in my mind. Talk to any entrepreneur about what keeps them up at night and you get varied answers about policies, regulations, different government departments not in synch with each other, finicky customers, expensive marketing platforms, investors who may or may not value your time, and so on.

Yet, they will all want to build their companies in India and most (if not all) are passionately Indian at heart. They want to build out the ecosystem, they are generous with their time to help other startups, give time pro bono to startup accelerators and so on.

Here’s something that came out of that thought:

Acchi naukri chhod ke

Startup karni kyun?

Nau se paanch chhod ne ki

Bewakoofi samjhe na yun

Factory mein jo

Saanp dikh gayi

Adhe din production

Ki toh lag gayi

Labor mangalwar ko veg hai

Baki sab ko chicken khaani saath

Saath din ke hafte mein

Menu chahiye aath

Sarkari afsar aaye

Karne humari inspection

Ease of business chhodo

Sab bandh ho jaaye section

Series A se pehle

Investor ke office bhaagte raho

Baad mein metrics badhe toh

Apne office mein investor milte raho

Customers mange sabse sasti

Cart bhar shopping kar li

Ek din ki bhi hui deri

Toh sunaaye acchi gaali

Par hum ne toh chuna hai

Bharat ko karm bhoomi

Kaam karna hai bada

Duniya bhar jo ghoomi

Anjaana sa hai junoon

Kucch toh karne ki

Ek aisa kaam karein

Matlab miley jeene ki

I hope the founders reading this resonated with some of this at least. Hope to hear thoughts and experiences!