Thread by @bmerton

Met another VC in India today who was concerned about whether I would be moving my early-stage #SaaS to the US (since all our customers are there).

@SeanB @LakshmanThatai @mrgirish @svembu @prasanna_says @skirani @sureshsambandam @avlesh @cbkrish

I find selling #SaaS from India to SMB US companies way easier when I’m based in India. I am a US citizen with a predominantly India-based team.

VCs in India ask me about whether I am moving far more than US VCs. I find this odd since they should understand the productivity benefits better than most, given most of their LPs will probably be in the US.

As a founder, you’re working 14-16 hour days anyway. The 9.5 hour time difference works perfectly to break this up if you’re based in India.

The routine in India is to start the day at 10/11am and work til 6.30pm with your team here, then take customer calls with the US until 1/2am. This allows you some semblance of ‘normal’ sleeping hours.

Whenever I am in the US, my productivity comes down by up to 50% because customers will only take calls from 9am - 6pm EST.

So, if I want to get the same hours in with my team India, I would either have to work 1.30am - 9am US time OR make my India team wake up at 3.30am…

At Unifize, we got to our first 25 customers from India to the US and I see no reason why we can’t get the next 100 in a similar manner.

(This doesn’t mean I don’t do US trips at all but they can be very focused on customers in the pipeline for 2 weeks every 2-3 months)

During the current economic climate, VCs should be actively encouraging companies to adopt this model given the obvious capital efficiency of India-based startups selling to the US.