How liberalisation of geospatial data laws will affect start-ups

Bottleneck removed

From weather apps to food delivery or ecommerce, there has been an increase in use of geospatial data in the past decade. However, there were significant restrictions on creation and dissemination of maps, requiring Indian companies to seek licenses, follow a cumbersome system of pre-approvals and permissions.  The move would allow start-ups, especially in ecommerce and other consumer-facing technology sectors, to conduct surveys and mapping, build their own maps and improve location based services without any restriction or prior government approval. Indian start-ups will also be self certified to get access to geospatial data.

Pave way for innovation 

No permits will be required to make the next-generation hyper resolution maps of India. Start-ups have been subjected to unnecessary red tape with regulatory restrictions in the sector, hindering innovation in map technologies for decades. However, with new laws, the barrier has been removed which will pave the way for innovation. For instance, if start-ups tie-up with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and others, they will get access to a huge database and technology on a continuous basis and India will have its own company that will have these maps and won’t have to depend on Google Maps.

The Transerve Story

Transerve’s data analytics is a unique proposition in the world of data analytics as it puts the result of large data on a map. Visualisation of data on an arithmetic map helps Transerve’s clients realise the power of data in realtime to assess the geography in a more complete (mapped) sense. Ashwani explains how the larger goal remains to utilise data for business, “Like managing territory for the sales team, understanding consumer behaviour on top of a map, marking zones for targeting customers and other demographic information has become necessary for larger businesses who are still struggling to penetrate the market. At one point in time, no matter how much you are spending on marketing, you don’t generate revenues and there is a need to reach out to each and every potential customer and that is where mapping technologies can take you.”

Ashwani, despite Transerve’s healthy growth, isn’t satisfied with the lookout of investors towards niche markets, “Without the validation model, investors don’t get much confidence. Awareness is one issue. Secondly, there are not many companies in this space. If an investor is investing in every country on the globe, they might catch a global trend and extrapolate it in India. Though, for an Indian investor who has not seen such businesses, it becomes difficult for an entrepreneur to validate his prospect. India being a highly volatile market, investors are already low on confidence and, economically, India hasn’t shown promising results. This is why there are not many SaaS based startups that have succeeded in the last decade,” he remarks. Have things changed, I ask him back and Ashwani answers, “Yeah! As far as the Geospatial industry is concerned, people have realised it is going to be a game-changer. Thanks to Covid19, companies have understood that they have to deploy Geospatial engines or Geospatilaly enabled IT solutions in the company. This is because all of them have a large market base, customers are spread everywhere, their presence is in all parts of the country and they want to penetrate even more. So they are more open to us.”

Instability Of Ecosystem and Leadership

A stable ecosystem from both financial and policy-making side is important for startup culture to thrive and sustain in a  country. Almost every time there has been a knee-jerk reactionary type decision making from the government, Ashwani as the Founder of a company, shares how it has acted like almost a professional setback every time. “The lowest I must have been, was 2012, then 2014, then demonetisation, then GST and now this draconian lockdown which came in place. Back when the dollar started strengthening and the rupee’s value depreciating, we lost a lot of contracts. Then the demonetisation and a badly implemented GST followed. We being at the bottom of the pyramid, it affected us a lot. My opinion is, when you have such a huge structure of the base on which everything is standing for the last 60 years, you can augment it but not suddenly change the whole foundation. Startups generally function hand-to-mouth, we are not sitting on a pile of cash. In such tough situations, we can barely sustain three to six months with some planning.”

How do you handle such rough patches as the guy on top of the vertical? Ashwani answers by exemplifying absolute acumen of a leader. “During such phases, I get into the mode of being a father to everyone. I imagine the company as my family. So if something happens to a family, the father takes the hit. He takes the pain and brunt but never reveals it. I think one has to really behave like that. It is very difficult, I know. You get lonely and you cannot share things with anyone, but it is the need in such times. In such scenarios, leadership will develop naturally in you. This also includes listening to great people, your family and taking all kinds of pieces of advice. That is how leadership will slowly develop in you, naturally.”

Previously many inspiring leaders have spoken with Dutch Uncles while discussing the idea of networking. Some have called it an irreplaceable part of the business to some shunning it as an overhyped concept. The discourse keeps on moving while taking different routes and perspectives. Ashwani Rawat adds his cogent opinion to it, “Irrespective of differences, I go out and network with everyone. I’ve done many beautiful deals with almost strangers whom I met, like by an accident. 

Networking is important but it takes time and effort to build a relationship for a longer-term. Also, you will meet people who will give you great feedback, they’ll ask you brutal questions and you’ll get to learn a lot of your shortcomings that way. It will make you uncomfortable but trust me, we all need that devil’s advocate in our lives.”

Don’t Dare To Give Up

Sharing the turning points of his life, Ashwani mentions his selection in IIT was a humbling experience where he learnt an important lesson, “You meet all these people who are smarter than you and you realise, you need to learn a lot. It is a great experience. You then know that you need to start learning afresh.”

“The second turning point for me was these Covid days. There was a lot of uncertainty. I realised this that okay surprises can come at any point of time. In business, personally, I hate surprises, be it good or bad.” He further admits how awareness could have saved him even more and that he has learnt from it. “Had we been clearly aware of everything happening around us in November or December, we could have been better prepared to tackle this challenge of Covid. We need to come out of our silos. You can’t be an Ostrich! You have to look around. It is a great learning for all of us, especially for me.”

Ashwani calls out young fellow entrepreneurs to not, at any point, give up despite chaos around. “Giving up is not a solution at all. In India, business is chaotic. Every day there will be some fight, money problems, every day you’ll be chasing customers, this is just the nature of the business, so embrace it. You might fail but you have to try and learn from it.”

Generally asked at the start of Inspire interviews, Ashwani is asked right at the end, what kind of a person he is, to which he replies succinctly, “I’m absolutely a tough nut to crack. No matter how much you try to beat me, I’ll never give up. I hate to give up!”

Counting more goof-ups in his personal life than professional, in his youthful voice, Ashwani says he is going to bed peacefully. “I don’t have any regrets in life. Goof-ups happen but that is part of life. An entrepreneur is always going to be lonely, I tell all fellow wannapreneurs the same. However, the thrill you get is just yours. That is also something others are never going to get. So yes, I’m sleeping well.”

Co-founder of Transerve, Ashwani Rawat continues to make the most of his time in the serenity of Goa. As he concludes by sharing his love for nature and related photography with a promising smile which conveys that his modelling ambition in a parallel universe still stands a chance somewhere.