Make them stay
The ultimate success metric
I was watching a small video of Gully Labs celebrating their $1M fundraise some 8 months ago. Something that hit me hard about the video: the last line that the Gully Labs co-founder Animesh Mishra said towards the end.
...but now the Indian dream is to stay back and build something here that makes people want to stay. And we’re just getting started.
This reminded me of another clip by IIP (Ashris Choudhury) where a 20 y/o boy by the name of TN Subramaniam is seen talking highly about India (clipped at the bottom of this post) and how he’d choose to stay and be a part of the Indian growth story1.
Maybe it was that I was watching these videos at about 2 AM on a Monday, or my latent feelings about belonging, that this hit me harder than it would a few years back.
After all, what we’re trying to do at Masala Dew is to build software that taps into Indian culture, gets inspired by it and shapes it in a way nobody ever thought of doing before (even if some of these products sure did shape our cultural fabric inadvertently2). We want to build things that feel awesome, which gives our users a sense of connection about using something which was built from here, for here and beyond.
Products built in India can very well serve the world, just as they can serve the variety that is the Indian population – dozens of languages, hundreds of dialects, gazillions of dreams and aspirations.
As my friend Mrdul Pandita says, “People vote with their feet”3. The best marker of success of Indian products is that people choose to stay with our digital goods, and find innate joy and satisfaction in using Indian clothes, driving on Indian roads and proudly stating their association with this country wherever they go. In other words, they vote with their valuable time and attention and deliberately choose to stay with us.
Our best talent in the domains of sports, scientific research, music and “just people” who’re looking to live a good life, should be able to find a home in our country and should be able to live here better than anywhere else in this world.
For those who reside outside this landmass may still be able to see the cultural narrative that speaks volumes about our own creativity as we craft our own tools and thereby our tools help us create more of that craft.
Therefore one of the key markers of success for an Indian brand like Masala Dew (and the dozens that will mushroom in the decade to follow) would be that we’re able to make them stay — both in the sense of software metrics (retention, engagement — plays on attention and time) and geographically (as in, opportunity to do great things).
Make them stay — in the hopes of being able to do something about this country, of being able to get back from it. Of feeling worthy of love and dignity in this country that we call home.
To make this happen, some of us will need to stay back and build while others look for an escape. We’ll need to address the root causes head-on, and make staying back the superior choice, both rationally and emotionally. We can draw on the knowledge of those who are out and away, to help us understand how things could be better for all of us, and for the world at large.
Oh yes, that’s the dream. Stay back and make them stay.
Sadly for us, he left the country to pursue a PhD in the States and went on to stay there. This follow-up video by Ashris speaks more about that.
He also borrowed the phrase from somewhere (Charles Tiebout, if I’m not mistaken), but I’ll give him the credit as he introduced me to it.
"The Indian dream is to stay back and build something here that makes people want to stay." Powerful stuff!