Many young Indians dream of moving abroad to build successful careers. But one startup founder chose to do the opposite and says it has been one of the best decisions he has made.
Gautam Chadha, founder and CEO of cross-border e-commerce company Babaclick, recently shared why he left London and shifted to Gurgaon to grow his business. He said the move continues to surprise people, including some members of his own family, who cannot understand why he returned to India instead of staying in the UK.
Why He Moved Back To India
In an Instagram video, Chadha revealed that it has now been a year since he relocated to Gurgaon. “It’s been an exact year today since I moved from London to Gurgaon in order to scale my company,” he said.
According to Chadha,
many people still question his decision because most people his age are trying to move to cities like London, New York or San Francisco. “People to this day still act dumbfounded about why I did it, including some people in my own family, because everyone in India that’s my age seems to be dreaming about going to London or going to New York or to San Francisco, whereas I did the opposite journey.”
He believes that founders no longer need to be based in Western countries to build companies with a global impact. “But the reason that I made that move is that if you’re an ambitious person that wants to build a generation-defining company, then you no longer need to be in London or San Francisco or New York in order to do that.”
Why He Believes India Has The Advantage
Chadha said India now offers almost everything entrepreneurs need to build successful technology companies. “In fact, I would argue that India is one of the most underrated places to do this kind of work,” he said. He admitted that things were different a few years ago when startups needed access to top engineering talent, much of which was based in Silicon Valley.
“Maybe that wasn’t the case some years back because coding wasn’t quite solved and so if you wanted to develop something in tech then you had to be in San Francisco hiring the best tech talent and competing with all of the other companies out there,” he explained.
However, he feels that technology has changed how companies are built, making location far less important than before.
He Says India Has Everything Founders Need
Chadha believes only companies working on cutting-edge technology truly need to be in places like Silicon Valley. “However, that’s changed so much, so unless you’re coding something on the frontier — which you’re not — India is the perfect place to do it and you have every ingredient that you could need in order to make it succeed from within the borders of India.”
He ended his video by questioning why so many people still believe they must move to the West to build meaningful businesses. “So I don’t know why people are still glorifying the West and thinking that that’s the place that they need to be at in order to build something impactful on a global scale.”
Social Media Shares Its Views
The post received plenty of reactions from users who agreed with his perspective. A person wrote, “Wish my son would consider India – well done.”
Another commented, “The wisest move ever. Because India is booming in every sector. The West is unfortunately rapidly falling in every sector.”
A person said, “Thats so true, the US dream is inbuilt in us Indians so much, that we forgot the creativity and compassion is much bigger here.”
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