'Silicon Valley' open mentality must be brought to India

The "open-minded mentality" to share ideas and collaborate on innovations present in Silicon Valley, must be introduced in India and other Asian markets to boost new start-ups and help them globalise their businesses, according to the Indian-origin CEO of a US-based company.

Work is in progress to bring across the thinking, innovation and investment from Silicon Valley to Asian markets through financial and technology hubs such as Mumbai, Bengaluru, Singapore and Bangkok.

"There is a certain open-minded mentality among the people in Silicon Valley," said Prashant Parekh, chief executive officer of Spinta Global Accelerator -- a boutique startup accelerator based out of Silicon Valley.

Spinta has a 500-strong team of technologists based in Pune and Bangalore. Besides funding, Spinta develops ideas and concept for start-ups and put a new technology on the market ahead of the competition.

Referring to the fast pace of development in Silicon Valley, Parekh said that the open mindset for sharing ideas and innovations happening on a daily basis in the world's biggest technology hub, must be brought to Asian markets and help to accelerate technology developments among new start-ups.

"Everybody wants to emulate and aspire to be Silicon Valley, which is a Mecca for start-ups. Most of the innovations happen in Silicon Valley and they make it big because it is a state of mind," he said.

"But in South East Asia, people are very protective of their ideas. They would not do anything unless a non-disclosure agreement is signed," said Parekh here, after organising a roadshow promoting Spinta expertise last night.

He urged that Asian technology start-ups to be "open minded" and share ideas and collaborate in product development for global business models are changing fast with new innovations.

"The experience that Silicon Valley has - they have been creating innovation for years now. The maturity the people have and the learning experience from failure over the years. That is what, we want to bring out to India and Singapore as well as other places."

Spinta has the capacity to help start-ups from the early stage and reduce the risk of failing, he said.

"We know that 95 per cent of the start-ups fail. And that is why they need help. There is a lot of help needed as they don't have enough resources for research work and the right kind of matured mentors," said Parekh.

Spinta, through its Indian team under KloudData, has expertise in mobility, analytics and cloud among others.

"There is no better time for entrepreneurs to start a company than now. Innovation is mother of everything and with innovation countries could do very well," he said.