Unlikely lessons from Kalabulgari“When I see problems, I see opportunities.” Our project manager, Sireesh, was explaining his decision to leave a prestigious job as an aerospace engineer at NASA and come back to India to run a startup. “India has a lot of problems. But that means that there are that many more opportunities to make things better.” During my 4 months living in Hyderabad, India, I had the opportunity to work with a social impact startup called SSMAS (pronounced just as it looks) along with 8 others of my classmates. Our project was aimed at fulfilling their goal of helping women entrepreneurs launch businesses and establishing a startup incubator that would house a handful of ventures from around the Karnataka region. The company is located in Kalabulgari—a small, developing city originally known as Gulbarga. During our whirlwind first visit with the team, we were shuttled around to different universities to talk with students, gave 2 press-conferences with the local media about the plans for our project, and got to meet with about 25 women entrepreneurs who were in their training program. The whole experience was a bit surreal; I was still getting used to the fact that I actually lived in India, though I felt very much like an outsider—gaping at herds of cows that would nonchalantly interrupt the traffic and feeling more at home eating with my stainless-steel utensils than my seemingly-uncoordinated hands. During that day in Kalabulgari, I was continually nudged by the idea that the core of “entrepreneurship” is really about solving problems that actually need solving, as Sireesh had eluded to in our first meeting. Not really about creating a showy website that moves in real time as you scroll and showcases the newest blockchain-based, VR, AR startup that creates a platform for businesses to meet their strategic goals—with the help of AI, of course. In many ways, I had been blinded by the flashiness of Silicon Valley, as that was the first place I’d been exposed to the startup world. In my mind, “startups” were largely run by the 20-something White male, donning a pair of Warby-Parker Glasses and AirPods. My mind was loaded with buzzwords like “funding rounds,” “unicorns,” and “lean management.” But here I was, in a small town in Western India, walking into a humble single-story building, surrounded by beautiful female entrepreneurs wearing an array of colorful, iridescent Sarees; I could not be further away from Silicon Valley. After those action-packed 2 days, we took the midnight bus back towards Hyderabad—exhausted, but motivated. Since Kalabugari is about 4 – 5 hours by bus or train, we would spend the next month or so working remotely and checking in through Skype calls. Our first meeting took place about a week after we had returned home. The 9 of us had communicated our plans through FB messenger, set up a google drive, created a new Slack workspace, and started a list of action-items. We felt as though we were very much on top of it. But we quickly realized that we were acting on assumptions, before taking the time to understand the context—assumptions that Slack was a necessity, that meetings wouldn’t happen without gcal invites, and that silicon valley’s way… was the way forward. We were too caught up in the tools to make things happen, rather than understanding how to actually make things happen. And it took many frustrating phone calls, confusing slack threads, and honest reflection before I came to realize that different does not mean inefficient. Nor does it mean lacking or undeveloped. Different is just different. I do think that India’s business culture needs to evolve in aspects that will make the country more competitive and equip to collaborate on a global stage. But in order for this to happen, we need to open silos that are so easy to create between work styles that may seem incompatible, to seek first for understanding, before coming in with a formula for success. "Different is just different." Working, living, and studying in India was unlike what I imagined. I will admit that I came in with a narrow-minded, Westernized version of India—the kind that you see in National Geographic and in documentaries— of poverty-stricken villages, people bathing in the Ganges river, and continual political turmoil. But those are so far from the full story. I marveled at India’s growing education and tech scene, was inspired by startups tackling everything from climate change to women empowerment and was touched by the stories and perspective of many people I was fortunate enough to meet during my 4 short months.
If anything, living here has humbled me and shown me a glimmer of immense possibility. As an echo of Sireesh’s words, the focus should be on the opportunities within rather than the problems throughout.
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About MeThanks for visiting my blog! My name is Megan, I work in Marketing and I graduated as part of Minerva's class of 2021. Enjoy a collage of reflections, poetry, and late-night thoughts. Archives
October 2023
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