Gurgaon has often been termed as Millennium city, similar to how Bangalore is often compared to Silicon Valley. I chose Gurgaon as the home for both start-ups I founded i.e. ShopClues.com and Droom.in. The reason I zeroed on Gurgaon as the breeding ground for my startups was because I found the required talent pool, near to one large international airport and the perks of being in the national capital region and its economic contribution. When I look back now, I feel choosing Gurgaon was a good decision as I was able to team up with thousands of dedicated and smart people, find dozens of new friends and was able to create to very large-scale technology companies. So, in all I cannot complaint.
However, Gurgaon has long way to go if it wants to be millennium city in true sense of the term. The single biggest drawback of Gurgaon is that it has no credible infrastructure when it comes to roads, water, sewerage, and electricity. In my view the city must invest in infrastructure with 50 years to 100 years in horizon vs. 3-year horizon. It is the largely unorganized and fragmented Indian market, lack of clear and transparent policy initiatives, lack of knowledge and exposure, complications in doing business etc, are what keeping the region from realizing its maximum potential. Besides, mobile and Internet connectivity in the city is significantly worse than any of the world’s top 50 cities. Gurgaon has serious problem of public transportation. Also, Gurgaon does not have parking for high rise buildings or public places or most frequently visited places. However, these issues are slowly being identified to counter, for the better of the ecosystem. Factoring in the swiftly evolving world of entrepreneurs, the framework and course of regulations need to not only be updated, but also be adopted as per the changing circumstances.
One more thing you can see very clearly if you spend six months or more in Gurgaon is that it is a progressive city when it comes to entrepreneurship, foreign investment and overall economic contribution by the private sector, but government led initiatives would consistently disappoint you. In my views if region want a boom in startups, a lot of emphasis should be given to creating infrastructure for mentoring startups. Various stakeholders viz. government agencies, corporates, educational institutions should come together in unanimity to build a better ecosystem for the youth.
I feel Gurgaon was lucky for me and I will always be positively biased for Gurgaon. However, the infrastructure, Internet bandwidth, mobile infrastructure, parking and public transportation in this city have to be among the best in the world for this city to maintain its attractiveness.
