Make in India apps for the world

The opening fireside chat of the Dataquest Digital Leadership Conclave was on Make in India apps for the world. The participants were Varun Khaitan, Co-Founder, Urban Company, and Amit Gupta, Founder & CTO, TrulyMadly, in conversation with Arun Seth, Board Member, Narayana Health, Jubilant Pharmova.

App is just one of the way to access. India was into products way back, with Wipro and HCL. NASSCOM is also trying to build a product ecosystem. Everyone now wants consumer experience. Next, you need huge marketing to build a significant brand. There is also the issue of going global. 

Varun Khaitan, Urban Company, said the last two decades have been a journey of build-up and transition. The future is going to be magical for tech coming out of India. The world was afraid of Y2K. Soon, we were building software services out of India. We are leading the world in technology services and backend. Talent and engineering teams are now building for local markets. There is emphasis on user experience. There are products solving unique problems. Urban Company is just one example. 

If you are in the US or elsewhere, you have to put in a request on the Internet. Only 10% of service inquiries get delivered. In India, 98% of services get delivered. We have Meesho, and finance apps built on top of the UPI infrastructure, etc. India has over 200 million transacting users online. We are also leapfrogging all of these other industries.

Amit Gupta, TrulyMadly, said that we have a world-class service example of delivering a cake within 15 minutes. There is a global concern around apps and services. Some app developers insist on 30% cut. Building an app is not a challenge. We need to build an app that can be on end-user devices. In South Korea, they forced Google to open the app store market. With the help of the government and regulator, we can also build an app store.

Khaitan added they are present in three other geographies, such as UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore. They have similar consumer problems. We did not succeed in Western markets, as consumer problems there are much different. Markets are more mature in terms of structure. We are developing products that are solving global problems. We are also building products that can analyze your face, and come up with solutions. The next wave of e-commerce can come out of India. We can have affordable commerce, as well. 

Gupta said that healthcare from India will be very large, along with education. GenAI can help close the gap. We can serve masses of India. We need to have the infrastructure ready in the future. Startups are also developing healthcare tools that can be used at home. There is work going on in preventive healthcare.

Khaitan said India can surprise everyone, by 2030. We will start to see some greenshoots by 2030, and the game will probably change by 2035. We will also start to see companies do that to the world. Talent, capital, and a large, growing, domestic market, will also come together. We need to let markets and innovations flush, to enable that.

Gupta said we have built a great startup ecosystem. In the coming decade, we will see more products being developed and covered by India.