印度蓄势引爆创业潮

    大多数创业者都对自己决定独自闯天下时的情形记忆犹新。悉达多•阿卢瓦利亚的这个时刻出现在2009年，当时他正在吃早餐。那年他22岁，是瓜廖尔印度信息技术和管理学院（Indian Institute of Information Technology & Management）工程系的学生，正在印度顶级研究生商学院——印度管理学院艾哈迈德巴德分校（the Ahmedabad campus of the Indian Institute of Management）实习。该校一名学生在阿卢瓦利亚的桌前坐下，然后开始聊起了自己经营的生意——一个技术平台，为火车站提供电视广告。

    阿卢瓦利亚回忆说：“艾哈迈德巴德分校充满了创业能量，能见到许多新的创业者。”心动不已的他拉来了三位朋友作为联合创始人，四个人开始着手制作一个诊所广告平台。

    阿卢瓦利亚来自密拉特。这是一座工业化城市，距新德里50英里（80.5公里）。在那里，他挨个拜访每位医生，希望他门能对自己的产品感兴趣。密拉特是印度发展最快的城市之一，人们经常把它称为印度未来的增长中心——密拉特国际机场和德里-密拉特干线公路都在修建之中。对阿卢瓦利亚和他的朋友们来说，更重要的是密拉特有多家医药公司和医学院。

    他们从医生那里获得反馈后开始把业务重点从广告转向电子病历。在与密拉特相邻的一个邦，他们的项目在一所工程大学举办的商业计划竞赛中拔得头筹。但随后他们就毕业了，开始作为工薪族面对严酷的现实。

    阿卢瓦利亚说：“那时我们还是学生，没人愿意为我们提供资金。”接下来则是家庭的影响。“在印度，供子女读书的父母都希望孩子们能找到工作，安定下来。”

    阿卢瓦利亚也不例外。他在德里一家为海外企业制作、管理运营软件的公司找了一份IT方面的工作。他在那里工作了11个月后开始觉得单调乏味。这次他求助于一位亲戚，恳请后者为他提供启动资金——许多年以来，家庭储蓄一直是印度初创型企业的种子资金源泉。

    2012年4月，阿卢瓦利亚再次开始走访各家诊所。但这次他发现人们的态度出现了变化。他说：“媒体对创业给予了很大关注。”当初父母对他的计划态度犹豫，现在也变成了他的支持者。“而且，有几家公司已经成功上市，生存了下来。”

    国内的成功事例提升了印度创业者的可信度。6月底，一家中国-南非合资公司斥资约1.25亿美元（7.72亿元人民币）收购了印度最大汽车票销售网站RedBus。这是迄今为止海外战略投资者对印度互联网公司的最大规模收购，证明印度创业者能针对国内市场建立起有价值的网络企业。

    Most entrepreneurs remember vividly when they decided to strike out on their own. For Siddhartha Ahluwalia, the moment came over breakfast, in 2009. Then 22 years old and an engineering student at the Indian Institute of Information Technology & Management in Gwalior, he was interning at India's premier graduate business school -- the Ahmedabad campus of the Indian Institute of Management (IIM-A). An IIM-A student sat down at Ahluwalia's table and started to talk about his own business -- a tech platform that served TV ads at train stations.

    "IIM-A is full of energy regarding entrepreneurship," Ahluwalia remembers. "You meet a lot of new entrepreneurs." The fired-up Ahluwalia enlisted three friends as co-founders, and they started work on an advertising platform for doctors' offices.

    Ahluwalia went door to door in his hometown of Meerut -- an industrial city 50 miles from New Delhi -- trying to get doctors excited about the product. Ranked as one of India's fastest-growing cities, Meerut is frequently cited as a hub for future growth in India -- an international airport and a major Delhi-Meerut highway are in the works. More importantly for Ahluwalia and his friends, Meerut has several pharmaceutical companies and medical schools.

    After receiving feedback from doctors, the team switched its focus from advertising to electronic medical records. They won first place in a business plan competition at an engineering college in a neighboring state. But then graduation hit, along with the harsh realities of the working world.

    "We were students, so no one would give us funding," he says. And then there was the matter of family. "In India, when parents fund a child's education, the expectation is that he or she will then get a job and settle down."

    So that's what he did. Ahluwalia moved to Delhi and got an IT job at a company that created and managed operational software for companies overseas. He lasted for 11 months before the monotony of it got to him. This time, he went to a relative -- for many years, family savings have provided seed funding for most Indian startups -- and asked for an initial investment.

    By April 2012, Ahluwalia was knocking on doctors' doors again, but this time, he noticed an attitude change. "A lot of media attention has been given to entrepreneurship," he said, noting that his parents, who initially balked at his plan, had turned into supporters. "Also, several companies had successful IPOs and exits."

    Local success stories have boosted the credibility of entrepreneurship in India. In late June, RedBus, the country's largest online bus ticket vendor, was acquired by a joint Chinese-South African venture for around $125 million. The deal, which is the biggest acquisition to date of an Indian Internet company by a strategic overseas investor, validated the notion that Indian entrepreneurs could create valuable online businesses catering to the domestic market.