Russ: This is the BusinessMakers show heard here and online at the businessmakers.com. And it's guest time on the show and as many of you know, the global economy has been our topic here many times. And often, that has led to talking about the significant emerging entrepreneurship world of India and that's our subject today because my guest is Gautam Ghandi. Gautam, welcome to the BusinessMakers show.

Gautam: Thank you so much. A pleasure to be here.

Russ: Why don't we start by you giving our audience just kind of a rundown on your background?

Gautam: Sure. I am actually born and raised in the U.S., and my family moved to India when I was very young-when I was six years old. Lived there for a couple of years 'til I was about ten, then moved back to the U.S. and predominately grew up in America in the New York City region.

Russ: And then today though, you're doing business in India. Correct?

Gautam: Yes, so it's very interesting. I'm actually back in India. I'm working for Google in India. I'm running the new business development group out there, and it's a big contrast to what's happening to the economy in America. And being in India right now is a very exciting time. And as you mentioned earlier, everyone talks of business in India and in China, and it's great to actually be out there and participating in the economy out there.

Russ: Cool. Well I know that you're skilled and educated in the area of contrasting entrepreneurship in India versus entrepreneurship in the U.S.

Gautam: Yes. So actually before I joined Google, I was in India on a Fulbright teaching and studying entrepreneurship in India. Very, very different than entrepreneurship in America. Some of the differences in terms of entrepreneurship between India and America is the amount of risk that one can take in India is actually very difficult. There's a lot of social, political and economic risks to be an entrepreneur-and the journey of entrepreneurship is not one that is really respected or rewarded within society as it is in America.

Russ: Wow. And you know it in America very well because you are an entrepreneur with at least one start up that I know of under your belt. Perhaps even more.

Gautam: I actually have done two start ups before. The first start up I was involved in was one of the early employees in the company called Blue Mountain Arts. It was the largest e-greeting card company and was acquired by Excite@Home in 2001. I then-several years later started a company that originated out of the Rice Business Plan Competition, a company called ClearCount Medical Solutions. It was co-founded with another classmate of mine named Steve Fleck who actually is still with the company, and the company is still up and running. We just closed a venture around five million dollars with DFJ and product is FDA approved and being distributed by Cardinal Health currently.

Russ: Cool.

Gautam: So just to let you know what Clear Com Medical Solutions does, we created a company that tracks surgical sponges and instruments so they are not left inside the body.

Russ: That's important.

Gautam: That's important. So very quick, as you can imagine, very easy to understand the problem, we use RF technology to track all the sponges and instruments.

Russ: Cool. In what year was it you that you did that at the Rice business Plan contest?

Gautam: That was in 2004.

Russ: Okay. Let's go back-you said some interesting things about India. I mean there is so much entrepreneurship going on over there. There's so many Indians that live in America that are entrepreneurs. But I just never envisioned a difference in the way that society recognizes it.

Gautam: Yes. A lot of entrepreneurship in India-there's really two types. One is entrepreneurship for survival meaning you really have no other choice. You run a small Mom and Pop store, you're a tailor, you do some small ends to sort of-you know-meet your needs. Everyone's small Mom and Pop shop. So that's one type of entrepreneurship. The other type of entrepreneurship where we classically see in America of someone starting a company-growing it organically, trying to do an IPO or acquisition and trying to grow-you know-a hundred million dollar company-that type of entrepreneurship is not really as prevalent in India as it is in America.

Russ: Is that the type of entrepreneurship that creates some of the larger technology companies that a lot of work from the U.S. is outsourced to?

Gautam: So there are a couple of companies that people may be familiar with-Reliance and Tata to name a few.

Russ: Right.

Gautam: But most of these companies were originally come from big family conglomerates, almost like so much of the Rockefellers, Kennedys and Carnegies-

Russ: Right.

Gautam: --more to speak. So they weren't really started from scratch as it were. There's no really-if you look at it-Microsoft or Google, for example just two companies.

Russ: Right.

Gautam: Those type of companies you don't really see coming out of India-

Russ: Right.

Gautam: --today.

Russ: Interesting. Well we're talking with Gautam Gahdhi, an expert on entrepreneurship in India and presently with Google in India. And we're going to be back with more with Gautam after this. You're listening to the BusinessMakers show heard here and online at thebusinessmakers.com

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Russ: This is the BusinessMaker show heard here and online at thebusinessmakers.com. And continuing on with Gautam Gahdhi, India entrepreneurship expert. So Gautam, I found it real interesting what you said about the way society reacts in India to entrepreneurship. Tell us a bit more about that.

Gautam: Entrepreneurship is a path that among the very educated is not really as respected as a path that has a high sense of job security.

Russ: Okay.

Gautam: Security is very important in India.

Russ: Okay.

Gautam: So for example, the risks-social, economic and political risks-are very high and I'll explain to you what I mean by that. For example, most entrepreneurs are very young when they start out-

Russ: Right.

Gautam: --and the social risks of being an entrepreneur is one that makes it very difficult that your chance of success is pretty low initially-

Russ: Right.

Gautam: -- being an entrepreneur. So the social risk is very high of being an entrepreneur in India. One of the main things that people look at is job security, and being an entrepreneur is very high risk, and you don't really have much job security when you're trying to be an entrepreneur. You don't really have as many role models in India as you do in America. So when a young kid out of graduate school-you know-out of one of the top graduate schools in India, the IIM school-the India Institute of Management, equivalent to maybe like an MIT-when that young kid sees like the founder of Facebook or the founder of Google or the founder of Microsoft, he has some role models he can look at and say, "You know, I want to grow up and be just like them." You don't really have those role models in India. That makes it very difficult.

Russ: That's interesting. That surprises me that that's the way it is.

Gautam: It is. It was very surprising for me in my own research. So a lot of kids, they say-when I was lecturing at the different business schools-they said, "I want to be an entrepreneur. It sounds so exciting. It sounds so great." And I would ask everyone, "Raise your hand if you are going to start their own company out of graduate school". And no hands would go up.

Russ: Wow.

Gautam: I would ask them, "Why? You guys just said you think it's exciting-you think it's great, but why is no one pursuing that?" And they basically-it would always come down to the social, economic and political risks. The social risk is that it's very difficult for them, for example, to get married.

Russ: Wow.

Gautam: If you're an entrepreneur-

Russ: Oh, no.

Gautam: --can you imagine? You're an entrepreneur-no family wants to join with you because you're not sure that you're going to be employed-you're going to be able to take care of their daughter. So like I said, the path of entrepreneurship, the journey-you know-people are very skeptical. And the journey in America is the difference. Journey is really celebrated in America.

Russ: Right.

Gautam: If you go to a cocktail party-

Russ: Right.

Gautam: --and you say, "I have my own company" everyone's surrounding that guy saying, "Hey, what do you do? How do you do it"? We really respect a person-

Russ: Right.

Gautam: --who takes risks, even if he fails.

Russ: Right.

Gautam: In India, it's not necessarily true. So you have this political risk-if you do fail, it's very hard for you to get another job. People don't respect-they said, "Oh, he wasn't really that smart. Look at the mistakes he made. It's very difficult for you to get another job". And then you have the economic risk-bankruptcy law. You have to put your own personal liability, and you're not really protected as you are in America.

Russ: Ah. So it sounds like-

Gautam: It's makes it difficult.

Russ: Yeah, it sounds like the-uh-price of failure in India is much higher-

Gautam: Much higher.

Russ: --than it is in America. We're going to be back with more with Gautam Gahdhi after this. You're listening to the BusinessMakers show heard here and online at the businessmakers.com

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Russ: This is the BusinessMakers show heard here and online at thebusinessmakers.com. And continuing on with Gautam Gahdhi, entrepreneurship expert in India, particularly comparing India and America. Well, share with us more of the comparison, Gautam.

Gautam: So one of the other interesting things in India is that you don't really have the infrastructure as you do in America. So if you want to start a company-you know in America today you can get angel investors-it's a very common thing. How'd you start your company? Who are your investors? Oh I got a couple of angel investors.

Russ: Right.

Gautam: No questions asked.

Russ: Right.

Gautam: In India, you cannot find that infrastructure of angel investors.

Russ: Man-I'm surprised there's any entrepreneurship coming out of there. The results of failure are much more punishing, and it's much more difficult to start too.

Gautam: It's much more difficult to start. And then also-let's just say you were able to start, and now it's time to recruit employees.

Russ: Right.

Gautam: It's ... people want to work for a name brand. They want to work for the IBMs. They want to work for the Microsofts-

Russ: So it's hard to recruit too.

Gautam: So it's very hard to recruit as well. So there's a lot of difficulties and the notion of stock market to giving options and your company going public and having that type of liquidity-that's not really a normal in India.

Russ: Wow.

Gautam: So stock options does not really attract anyone like as it does over here.

Russ: Well then, explain to me why there are so many Indian-Americans that are very successful entrepreneurs.

Gautam: One thing about America is that it in general attracts people that are risk takers. For anyone to come from one country to another country, you have to have a certain profile-a certain risk profile. So you're attracting people who inherently are willing to take risks, and when they come here, they can see that the risks here are actually less. You don't have those social, political and economic risks as you do in India. So this environment actually incurs entrepreneurship. You have an established infrastructure, you have role models, you can get mentorship, you can recruit people-actually that's what makes America great.

Russ: That's so cool. Well before I let you go, you have to tell us what you're doing for Google in India.

Gautam: So I am right now working in the new business development group. I am leading that group, and we are examining from a strategic stance what new products and services that we can launch in India and Southeast Asia. So I help do that and also we work with the mergers and acquisitions team when we have to do acquisitions. So some of the new products that we launched recently-we launched G-mail in Hindi which is a local language. One person can send an e-mail to another person without knowing English. And you open up the Internet to a whole group of users that couldn't e-mail before.

Russ: That's cool.

Gautam: Other product we just launched-you can take any Internet page on the fly and translate it to seven different Indian languages.

Russ: Okay.

Gautam: So now, a local villager can read "The New York Times" in his own language and get a whole different viewpoint of the world which he didn't have that access to before.

Russ: That is so cool. Are there any products that you are developing with that group that are intended for markets other than India?

Gautam: Yeah. So for example, "The New York Times" can use this product.

Russ: Okay.

Gautam: They can-

Russ: Right.

Gautam: --now-not only can they serve the U.S. market, they can serve the Indian market, the-

Russ: Right.

Gautam: --the Russian market, the Chinese market. So once we get this product up and established and-you open up a whole new adjacent set of uses that "The New York Times" probably couldn't reach before.

Russ: Great. Well Gautam, I really appreciate you giving us some of your time and sharing this incredible perspective with us.

Gautam: Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to join you and-uh-I look forward to seeing you guys again.

Russ: You bet. We've been talking with Gautam Gahdhi-with Google these days doing new business development in India and an expert in comparing entrepreneurship in America and India. And you've been listening to the BusinessMaker show, heard here and online at the businessmarkers.com.