Legendary executive and investor Nikesh Arora wants e-commerce start ups in India to focus on the customer proposition and look to delight them, instead of burning cash through the heavy discounting model.
Arora, who is President & Chief Operating officer of Japanese giant SoftBank Corp, expressed hope that sanity will prevail on the e-commerce start ups and the short term tactics of “discounting” are just short-term tactics.
“Part of my message to every Indian company (e-commerce) this past week is don’t go out there and burn your money. They should focus on us as customers and not look at us for just giving Rs 50 or so. I hope it (heavy discounting) is not sustainable," Arora told a gathering of about 1,500 people at TiEcon Delhi 2015 here on Friday.
The whole idea has to be that e-commerce firms should create a delightful experience to the end customer and that experience persists. “This is what will allow you to create a great company”, Arora said.
BusinessLine is the print media partner for the two-day TiEcon Delhi 2015 event that commenced today.
Not a zero sum game
Arora also advised start-ups to get away from any fear of failure, stating that entrepreneurship was a state of mind and the best way to embrace failure is forget about it as quickly as possible.
“The fact that I succeeded does not mean somebody else would fail. It’s not a zero sum game. Everybody succeeds in their own minds. We all have different compass. We all have different set of aspirations and we define success the way we want to define”.
At the same time, he also highlighted that no start-up was “out of the woods in India yet” and there was no successful start-up in India.
Some $2 billion has gone as investments into 400-odd start ups in India in the last two years.