Here is a statement, which maybe a bit controversial. But let's just say it:- "If you throw enough money into a product, the product is bound to be successful, even if it is not the best product in the market." After being in the automotive industry for almost 8 years, and primarily working on EV's for Indian OEM's to Indian Startups I have realized that success of a product has very little to do with its actual engineering. Its more to do with the story that you build around the product. Recent example:- There have been so many incidences of people complaining about their recent scooter purchase. Varying from a spectrum of people complaining about the scooter on Social media to burning their showroom itself. So this is not a new incident, the product itself has not been very great from the beginning, it had a lot of issues, but with enough money in their pockets, they were able to push it throughout India, without any dealership, which usually takes a lot of time. This inorganic growth and capturing of the market shows the real power of money. They tried making the most futuristic product possible, with all the premium features, and sold it at a price that just throws basic economics out of the picture, which make sense as a lot of startups who get VC funded and need to show growth, do the same. But this company was not funded like a normal company, it had unimaginable amount of investments, for which they needed to just decimate their competitors. So their engineering timelines were really skewed, bought a company from Europe, reengineered its internal parts to get the famed FAME subsidy. Did the internal testing and announced its entry as the next big thing in the market. They hyped up the product with all cool features(which again not the most important thing in a scooter), the longest range, the best features and asks just for 500Rs to book the product. People booked it in huge numbers, and this was the first testament of their pseudo success. But with delayed delivery of the product and delivering only 1 variant out of their 2 variants announced, people at the end were just happy to get their hands on it. Forget about the claimed range which was so hyped up, that it threw basic science out of the picture. I had so much difficulty in explaining this pseudo range claims when I myself was working on a similar product for a startup. So ultimately people were still happy that for this price point this is the best thing in the market, even if they were not able to deliver half of the features they promised. Now forget about the features, it was not able to deliver its basic functionality as a scooter, that’s when the whole drama started. I would still appreciate the resilience of Indian people that somehow they were still justifying their purchase that at least we are buying something Made in India.
Devbrat Pandey
3mo
Well said Samved
Digital Marketer | E-commerce Marketer | Performance Marketer | Web Developer
3moThat's the problem of most Indian startups. They do aggressive marketing at first, give hope to consumers and after a few years after making money and establishing themselves they start to show their true nature. Ultimately they lose their way or shut down.