Where is the real opportunity in AI for Indian startups?

This is an in-depth jamming session on how Indian startups should look at AI, including real addressable opportunities, how to differentiate and compete against global competitors, what pre-AI SaaS startups should do to stay relevant, the India domestic AI opportunity, and finally, operating learnings for US go-to-market.

Joining me for this discussion is Thiyagarajan Maruthavanan (Rajan) - Managing Partner at Upekkha, an AI SaaS Accelerator that has invested in over 100 early-stage startups founded by Indian founders building global software businesses. Prior to this, Rajan was a product leader at Intuit and previously also built a computer vision startup. One of his passion projects is the 'For Kids' series of booklets, which use interesting illustrations to present concepts and mental models from the likes of Naval Ravikant, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, and Morgan Housel.

TIME STAMPS:

(01:28) Distinction between Generative AI and Enterprise AI

(05:49) Where is the real opportunity for Indian startups - infrastructure, applications, or dev tools?

(10:56) How to differentiate as an AI startup

(11:59) Can an infra company like OpenAI be built out of India?

(13:43) Workflow compression to unlock huge TAMs - learning from Tobi Lütke (Shopify)

(19:03) The India domestic AI opportunity

(22:41) Should startups build for Indian enterprise customers first, or go global from Day 0?

(25:36) Post AI, is SaaS dead?

(29:55) Important for Indian cross-border startups to focus on differentiation and owning outcomes

(34:04) How should pre-ChatGPT startups manage this AI tsunami and stay relevant - specific approaches for each stage [0-$1Mn ARR, $1-10Mn ARR, and $10-100Mn ARR]

(40:07) What are Indian AI startups doing to drive US GTM - learnings from Upekkha

Connect with Rajan - https://www.linkedin.com/in/thiyagarajan/ and follow him on X - @mtrajan

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Check out "An Operator's Blog" (https://operator.blog/) for weekly posts on Startups, Investing, and Life.

I am a venture investor focused on the US-India corridor. Feel free to reach out on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/soumitrasharma5/) and follow me on X (@soumitra_sharma).