A book on India’s SaaS industry by Manav Garg. “Entrepreneurs in India have founded 1000 funded SaaS companies in the past few years, creating ten new unicorns just over the course of the pandemic. A wake of brave young Indian startups are following exemplars like Freshworks, Zoho, and Eka to break new ground in terms of funding and market reach. Together, these Indian SaaS companies generate up to $3 billion in revenue and represent 1 percent of the global market. Impressive as this is, it is just Day One. By 2030, the Indian SaaS industry is projected to generate revenue of up to $70 billion and win 4 to 6 percent of the global market, creating $1 trillion in value, according to a report by SaaSBOOMi and McKinsey.”
Andy Mukherjee: “It’s impossible to become a factory to the world by coaxing firms to substitute imports with domestic production. Take mobile phones. Two years of tariff increases on camera modules, display and touch panels, printed circuit boards, and parts used in chargers have pushed up the cost of assembly in India by 8%. That’s about 6% of a phone’s ex-factory price and fully negates the 5% subsidy on offer, according to a study by the country’s Cellular & Electronics Association. The net benefit for Make in India is zero. Contrast this with Vietnam, which is copying the winning formula of East Asian Tiger economies: free and frictionless trade. Out of 120 tariff lines of relevance to the handset industry, 59 are duty-free in Vietnam, compared with only 32 in India. And while India imposes import duties of 15% or more on 28 items, Vietnam’s tariffs are that high only for 16 components. These, too, are mostly sourced from countries with which Vietnam has free-trade deals. So they’re effectively zero-duty imports as well.”
Tish Warren on freeing up time to daydream: “Our days, which are so full of work and thinking, of arguing and learning, of disappointments and confusion, of striving and creating, must have moments when nothing much is happening. I filled those moments with loud, funny, angry and interesting voices online. But leaving these small moments empty is what makes the difference between noise and music.”
