Prelude
Back in the mid 90s, when I was still in college, I was an active member of the “Literary and debating society”, and we used to publish an annual magazine. In my last year in college, I wrote a silly sci-fi story about a chip designer. The premise was when the guy designed the chip, he instilled some sort of AI in it and when an enemy country stole the chip to build their weapons [using time travel nonetheless], it backfired on them at the last minute 
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The hero of my story was a classmate, Baskar Subramanian. I don’t remember if I wrote the story and made Baskar the hero or if I picked Baskar first and wrote a story around him. It really doesn’t matter – it was my way of showing how cool Baskar was, as a geek . And boy, was I right?
Impulsesoft
Not too long after I wrote that story [4 years to be exact], Baskar and 4 of his classmates quit their lucrative jobs in Texas Instruments to float this startup in Bangalore, called Impulsesoft. Just before that I had heard that Baskar almost relocated to France and thanks the ultimate wisdom of immigration officials, got to stay back in Bangalore. They started off creating device drivers, moved onto bluetooth devices and created excellent products.
Seven years and many successes later, SIRF technology, a Silicon Valley based company acquired Impulsesoft, for about US$ 16 million.
So, what is the big deal?
you may ask. After all, startups are created EVERY day in the Silicon Valley and they make zillions more than what Impulsesoft did.
Heck, even my last startup, Collation Inc was financially more successful. Or was it? Let us put things in perspective to see why Impulsesoft is so special.
- For starters, can you count the number of successful high tech product startups from India? How many can you count? India’s high tech successes have mostly been software services firms, fuelled by outsourcing. How many core technology companies can you count?
- From what I understand, Impulsesoft never raised any VC funding. Part of which I hear was the risk averse VCs in India [yeah, risk averse Venture Capitalism - go figure ], wouldn’t fund a product based startup out of India – since they perceived it as high risk.
- Remember, we are not talking about a dot.com success story, fuelled by the stock market alone
. We are talking about a core technology company that invents and created excellent hardware.
And I can go on and on. Bottom line – It is a difficult to create a startup, tougher to do so in India and even more harder to do a hardware startup out of India. I get asked at least once or twice a month by someone in the valley – “If you all say that India is as good as it is in high tech, why don’t we see them do as many startups or open source products from there?”. I used to beat around the bush in the past, these days I start by saying “So, there is this startup out of Bangalore floated by 4 of my college mates called Impulsesoft …”.
Yes, the Impulsesoft team gives us hope
I forwarded the Impulsesoft acquisition story to a bunch of my friends, many of them who had returned from Silicon Valley to India, either working for startups or creating their own startups. One of them said it best. “Glad to hear that your classmates made it. News like this is the encouragement that is required to keep the dream going”.
Stories like these don’t get big press in India, they are usually buried behind dot.com IPOs or some services firm hiring another 7,000 people. The focus of IT in India is usually misplaced in the body count, the number of people these companies hire. Somehow, the number of people who get hired defines the IT prowess and success of a company .
Impulsesoft gives us hope. Hope to innovate, hope to succeed – no matter where you are, no matter what your obstacles are. Companies like Impulsesoft are those that are going to shape India’s IT industry in the next few decades. I can’t wait to see what the Impulsesoft guys do next . Good luck folks.
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