10K India Style

Today I walked part of the Hyderabad 10K with my coworkers, mostly just to promote our company.  It started with a group warmup and a live band, followed by the start of the race.  There were serious runners vying for serious prize money, but most people saw it as something fun to do on a Sunday.  Like many participants, we had no intention of completing the race.  I think we maybe completed 2K and in that distance I saw participants buying and eating ice cream and stopping for chai.  During and afterwards, the band played patriotic songs and the crowd danced and drank water and tried to get noticed by the camera for the big screen.  As a white girl with a clearly Indian company, I stood out a little.  I was interviewed by 2 local news stations (I don’t have a TV so I don’t know if I actually got air time).  Hopefully it’s all good press for GreenMango.  It was sure fun for those of us who turned out.

Other parts of the race were pretty much the same as what I’ve seen in the US.  There is a lot of corporate sponsorship and corporate groups running together.  This particular event was the first major public event in Hyderabad since the recent events in Mumbai, so there were moments of silence and words of support for everyone there.  I was impressed that the event had a large turnout despite the Mumbai attacks.

What I've Learned About Startups in India

I’ve spent a few weeks at GreenMango, an in Indian startup, and the first thing I noticed is that there are a lot of universals when it comes to starting a business. We manage with few resources, we are outgrowing our office space, we wear many hats (like our new hats shown here!). But there are some things that are unique to India:

• It’s hard to get good senior managers: Unlike in much of the US, it is NOT particularly glamorous to work at a startup. In addition, families are very tight-knit and it is likely your family doesn’t look too kindly on risky ventures either.
• Cultural norms affect operations: Our sales associates often recruit vendors into our database from their homes, particularly women who are tailors or beauticians. It is not very acceptable for men to enter women’s homes when they are home alone, so our sales associates work in pairs with one woman and one man (depending on the area the women may not feel comfortable going out alone).
• The office is rather hierarchical: There’s really nothing wrong with this in theory, especially if you enjoy being called “madam” all the time, but it can inhibit an open work environment. It can take some work to get employees to feel empowered to contribute their ideas.
• Lunchtime is awesome: Maybe Indians are just better at sharing, or maybe it is because the typical Indian meal has several dishes, but all of my co-workers share their lunch with me and everyone else. This is particularly good for me because the cook at my hotel is not from this area, so I don’t get local food for lunch. And many of the ladies I work with are great cooks. Plus it’s a good time to practice my Telugu.

Workin' for the Man-go

This is my third week at GreenMango and I’m loving it. I’ve had a chance to go out “in the field” and see our sales staff recruit vendors for the website. These sales associates go down every narrow street and alley in their territories. One of the biggest hurdles is gaining the trust of these vendors, as they are initially skeptical of any new model. It is also difficult for some of these vendors to understand the nature of a web search; they don’t see how customers will find them using the GreenMango platform. As the GreenMango brand becomes more recognized, this will be less of a problem.