New Delhi, Apr 10 (PTI) The nation that produced the world’s cheapest data and a battalion of app developers now needs to train its sights on more complex problems and larger prizes in building its own Tesla’s, Huawei’s and TSMCs, a top marketing professor said weighing in on a debate triggered by Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal’s recent comments about India’s startup ecosystem.
Rajendra Srivastava, who is considered India’s Philip Kotler, writing on medium.com, said the past decade’s consumer-tech successes has helped create a vibrant digital economy but for India to emerge as a true technology powerhouse, it must go beyond quick-service apps and aggregate deeper capabilities in science and engineering.
While consumer tech has flourished, India has to pivot toward deep-tech industries — areas like artificial intelligence (AI), electric vehicles (EVs), clean energy, robotics, and semiconductors — sectors are far more R&D-intensive and require “patient capital” and long-term vision to bear fruit.
“Unlike a food delivery app that can be built and scaled in a year, a cutting-edge battery chemistry startup or a semiconductor fab might need 5-10 years of sustained investment before showing results,” said Rajendra Srivastava, who is the former Dean of the Indian School of Business (ISB) and the Novartis Professor of Marketing strategy and Innovation.
This long gestation period, he said, clashes with the fast exits and quick returns many Indian investors have traditionally sought.
Deep-tech ventures often entail higher technical risk and uncertain near-term profits, meaning early-stage capital must be willing to wait longer for payoffs.
“Historically, India has lacked the patience, long-duration funding and policy consistencythat deep-tech innovation demands. Private venture capital in India — much of it from global investors — gravitated toward less capital-intensive models (mainly apps and software) that promised rapid user growth.
“The result was a glut of on-demand services and consumer platforms, whereas hardware and deep science startups struggled to raise money,” he said, adding that building deep-tech industries also requires steady, coordinated government policy over decades.
He cited Chinese examples, which, through programmes like Made in China 2025 and 14th Five-Year Plan identified strategic sectors and backed them unwaveringly with funding, infrastructure, and procurement.
“India, by contrast, took a more hands-off approach until recently — focusing on improving ease of doing business and digital infrastructure but not actively steering investment into specific high-tech domains,” he said.
Stating that consistent long-term policy support has been missing and that initiatives for manufacturing and R&D were often half-measures or spurts, he said only in the past couple of years has the Indian government drafted a comprehensive National Deep Tech Startup Policy to provide long-term funding, an IP framework, and regulatory sandboxes for deep-tech firms.
“These moves are promising, but they are belated first steps — India is just beginning to lay the policy groundwork that countries like China have built over decades,” he said, adding that in deep tech, policy consistency is as important as capital.
Goyal speaking at the second edition of Startup Mahakumbh, a government-led start-up conclave, earlier this month sparked a massive debate on social media after he took a hard look at India’s consumer startup.
Poking fun at the rise of food delivery apps, artisanal brands and online betting apps in the country, Goyal stated while India’s startups were still largely focussed on lifestyle products like gluten-free ice creams, the Chinese were working on machine learning, robotics and building next-gen factories.
“Goyal’s critique may have ruffled feathers in the startup community. Still, it rings true: the nation that produced the world’s cheapest data and a battalion of app developers now needs to train its sights on more complex problems and larger prizes. This is not a repudiation of Flipkart’s and Zomato’s but a recognition that the next growth phase will come from building the Tesla’s, Huawei’s, and TSMCs of India,” Srivastava wrote.
Getting there will require uncomfortable changes — more patience, investment without immediate payoff, and more collaboration between government, industry, and academia than India has managed before, he said.
“The global technology landscape is evolving in S-curve cycles, and India missed the first few waves (semiconductors, electronics manufacturing) while riding others well (IT services, mobile software). The coming waves — AI, clean energy, space, advanced manufacturing – offer another chance to climb up the value chain,” he said.
“A recalibrated strategy that values both the convenience of a food app and the complexity of a silicon chip is the need of the hour.”
In sum, consumer apps have served India’s present; deep-tech innovation will shape India’s future, he said, adding that striking a better balance between the two — with an overdue tilt towards deep tech — will pave the way for India’s emergence as a technological and economic superpower in the coming decades.
