There’s More To India’s Startup Potential: Dr. Tausif Malik

Even as Indian including Muslim startups are gaining ground making the country the third largest startup ecosystem in the world and despite the startup boom having captured attention of every dreamer and doer alike, there is more to India’s potential than what has been achieved.

“The timbre of India’s innovation, compared to the West, United States in particular,  is under-utilized. Innovative entrepreneurs and their start-up companies have a formidable potential to strengthen India’s economy on the global front, and help India in realizing its optimum potential”, believes enterprising politician, businessman and serial entrepreneur Dr. Tausif Malik.

In an interview to GAWAH, the Indian-American politician, the first overseas Muslim representative of the Democratic Party of USA, and Pune-educated businessman believes in real-life social networking, and profusely attends to challenges in leveraging business interests in Muslim community. “I always try to instigate people in my social connections to innovate.  Innovation is the key to success”, he explains.

The Indian economy has a growth rate of over 7.1% annually. According to Dr. Tausif Malik, “when the global economy increases, India will have to be stronger, and only innovative start-ups can make India formidable.”

“We should think, act and innovate to suit the ‘desi needs’, and such innovation has a magnetic charm for success,” he says referring to Aryabhata, the genius Indian mathematician who invented Zero (0), and made the binary code possible.

A personage of no mean stature, Dr. Malik fierily advocates for business and economic development programs. His recent project All India Muslims Business and Startup Network (AIMBSN) has brought together Muslim start-ups and businessmen from across India on a common platform. The purpose, he says, is “to motivate people and connect them with each other as they innovate, incubate, create new businesses.”

There is huge talent in the Muslim community which goes untapped, and even it’s tapped by any change, it goes unnoticed.

Having founded GCCStartupFest.com, IndiaStartupFest.com, MuslimHallofFame.org, Schoolpreneur.biz and more recently AIMBSN.com, Dr. Malik believes that “Innovation can help develop not only the Muslim entreprenuers and the community, but their neighbourhood, the societies and ultimately contribute in national development.”

“We should seize the opportunities offered by the Prime Minister’s programs for Startups and Entrepreneurship, and channel it for adequate professional leverage. India, by virtue to its population and diversity, is a fast growing market with huge talent and diverse potential.”

His web series christened as ‘New Swadeshi Movement’ on social media platform YouTube, focuses on finding and foregrounding young talented individuals or organizations.

Having founded America’s largest community-based Muslim Spelling Competition in the United States, and being the first Muslim to be elected as overseas representative of Democratic Party of USA, Dr. Tausif Malik believes, compared to United States where people tend to invent solutions to problems, India has mostly adopted solutions and sparingly innovated. As Indians we should be even more innovative, and creative in inventing solutions. When we build a solution for the ‘desi market’, it will be an instant hit as it will connect with the people, solve problems fellow Indians are facing, and refrain from merely imitating the west.

However, the Muslim contribution to the startup ecosystem even in the United States in unmissable, he observes. At least 5% of total start-ups in the United States cater to the ‘Halal’ needs of people or to the Muslim market, he exclaims, which is fair enough since United States is home to nearly 3.3 million Muslims (comprising 1 percent of total US population) according to Pew Research Centre.

With 69% of Muslim millennials in the United States leaning towards Democratic Party which Dr. Tausif Malik represents, the Democratic Party has a strong support from Muslims in US, against the Republicans which with a meagre 13% share.  Adroitly, Dr. Tausif Malik aims at tapping into this potential for greater good of the community and the country. He is organizing the Startup awards in association with Zee Television in November in Pune, where Muslim entrepreneurs and startup bees will showcase their unique ideas, and the most radical and practical participants will be presented with Startup awards.

Reeling out advice to young entrepreneurs, he says “entrepreneurs must not be afraid of challenges and be always prepared to take risks. If one is willing to launch a startup, the focus must be on providing credible solutions and building customers, and funding which is considered the biggest challenge for any startup – will follow naturally.”