Masayoshi Son warns startups in India about the 'big cheque' from 'big investors'

It isn’t always that you get to hear one of the world’s largest investor, Softbank’s founder, Masayoshi Son talk about India’s startup ecosystem so candidly. So, we list down some of his interesting observations about the country’s growing entrepreneurial system.

The Matrix
I look at the eyes of the entrepreneurs and then I look at the field. Is it challenging and growing? The next is the idea and how good the team is. When I saw Kunal Bahl and Ritesh Agarwal’s eyes, they were sparkling.

India is the place to be
India has a young population over 800 mn young generation, it has IT, sunshine, English speaking, largest democracy in the world—all these things makes me believe that 21st century belongs to this country.

Scale up
Softbank has that ability to invest at least $10 bn in India over the next year. If I rescale, I will scale up. At least in the last one year, invested $2 bn. We would only accelerate.

Smart or Silly
Three years from now, new business models have to come. Investors should invest in a smart way. It depends on the company. But the companies that we have invested have made smart investments.

Challenges
Two things that India has to work on is the license, which is a huge bottleneck.and then they have to go through the process of licencing which is a long process. And secondly infrastructure! Startup companies cannot take care of infra. Infra requires lot of capital.

Goal
Startups should aim at becoming a big fish rather than eye public listing in the first 5-10 years.

On big fat cheques
Just because big cheques have been signed and entrepreneurs have got money, doesn’t mean they are successful.

Virtual Reality and AI
The traditional business model would be disrupted. It’s not only the companies that build these, but those who use that technology to disrupt.

Image credit: Indiatimes