How many global consumer digital products has India produced? I struggle to recall any.
Indian engineers have built Chrome, led Microsoft, run Google and dominate the tech world in the west. Yet, there’s no Indian app that is used daily by Americans, Europeans, or even Southeast Asians.
Zoho’s Arattai just hit 7.5 million downloads. But downloads alone don’t promise longevity. Koo had millions before it died. Hike raised $261M before it slid into irrelevance.
Early signs from Arattai are not encouraging.
The Fatal Philosophy: Nehru’s “Second-Rate” Doctrine
“I believe, as a practical proposition, that it is better to have a second rate thing made in our country, than a first rate thing that one has to import.” – Jawaharlal Nehru (1950s)
Despite the big bang reforms in 1991, this psychological framework persists today.
Building FOR India
- Local constraints define the product
- “Good enough for India” is acceptable
- Result: Compromised product delightful to no one
Building FROM India
- Global excellence is the standard
- India is a market, not a defining constraint
- Result: Competes on universal merit globally
When “Made for India” Turned Catastrophic: The Bhopal Gas Tragedy Precedent
Union Carbide’s Bhopal plant was identical to its West Virginia facility; same design, same chemicals. But India’s Import Substitution policies mandated “indigenization”:
- FERA restricted foreign experts, forcing local substitution
- Automated safety systems were replaced with manual controls operated by workers who couldn’t read English manuals
- Refrigeration for deadly MIC storage, a standard in the US, was deemed “too expensive”
Result: About 3,500 people were dead instantly, and it’s estimated that about 25,000 have died overall
Ideas have consequences. Accepting “second-rate but local” over “first-rate but foreign” because “Indian conditions are different” is one such idea that resulted in the tragedy.
The digital equivalent today is accepting user experience primed for “Indian constraints” and then wondering why users choose products with global quality standards.
This is Ambition Ceiling in action. The cost may be less fatal, but the mechanism is identical.
The Four Traps: Why “Made FOR India” Fails
Trap 1: The Services Hangover
India’s tech industry was born serving American clients. They mastered the skill to support client requirements. This created world-class services companies. But this also created an inability to say “no” to features, which slowed the rise of product companies
WhatsApp succeeded by refusing features for years. Indian companies struggle with feature obesity because saying “no” is culturally difficult.
Proof: Hike added stickers, then news, then gaming, then payments. Koo added vernacular, then video, then everything Twitter had plus more. Both died as they had no clear value proposition apart from India-first.
Trap 2: The Three-Indias Trap
India isn’t one market, it’s three incompatible segments:
- India 1: Affluent, English-first, iPhone users (urban elites)
- India 2: Aspirational middle class, bilingual, mid-range Android (tier 2/3 cities)
- India 3: Working class, vernacular-first, ultra-low-end devices (rural + urban poor)
Koo tried serving all three simultaneously. While acceptable to everyone, it was essential to no one.
The discipline required: Pick one India. YouTube Lite works because it is optimized for one universal constraint (bandwidth) that incidentally happened to be severe in India. It was positioned as “YouTube for slow connections” with universal utility. Significantly, it was never marketed as “”YouTube for poor Indians”.
Trap 3: Why Zoho’s B2B Success Doesn’t Transfer
B2B (Where Zoho Wins):
- Rational, feature-driven buyers
- “Better + cheaper” wins
- 5,000 customers = billion-dollar company
B2C (Where Arattai Must Win):
- Emotional, habit-driven users
- “Better” isn’t enough without network effects
- 5M users with no network = dead app
Zoho won B2B through patient capital and feature excellence. Neither advantage transfers: WhatsApp is free (can’t undercut) and more features dilute consumer value (unlike B2B).
Trap 4: The Network Asymmetry
When Instagram hit 100M US users, the world felt compelled to join. When Koo hit 10M Indian users, the world moved on.
Why: American adoption creates global FOMO. Indian adoption signals “regional product.” Even with 500M Indian users, Arattai cannot pull in Americans. The network effect stops at India’s borders.
This compounds with nationalist positioning. When Koo called itself “India’s answer to Twitter,” it guaranteed its ceiling.
What Arattai’s Positioning Reveals
When asked if Arattai is India’s answer to WhatsApp, Jeri John (Global Product Head) said it’s designed around:
“India’s linguistic diversity, privacy concerns, and citizens’ desire for a homegrown product they can trust.”
Decoded through our framework:
- “India’s linguistic diversity”: Three-Indias Trap (building for 12 languages simultaneously = optimized for none)
- “Privacy concerns”: Could be universal, but paired with “homegrown” reads as “not American spyware” (nationalist positioning)
- “Homegrown product they can trust”: Patriotic USP (much like Koo’s playbook)
Looks much like “Made in India, for Indians” positioning.
This is building FOR India, not FROM India.
The Litmus Test: One Decision Reveals Everything
Will Arattai be positioned as a global app or India-first?
India-First (Current Trajectory):
- Product optimized for Indian constraints (low-end phones, poor connectivity)
- Features prioritize Indian requests (vernacular, UPI, housing society groups)
- Marketing emphasizes “Made in India”
- Network effects stop at border
- Outcome: Regional champion.
Simultaneous Global:
- Product meets global standards (delightful on all devices)
- Features prioritize universal needs (speed, privacy, design)
- Marketing emphasizes utility, never geography
- Network effects can compound globally
- Outcome: Possible global challenger.
The roadmap will reveal much: If it prioritizes vernacular features and UPI integration first, it suggests a regional focus. If it prioritizes universal utilities, speed, reliability, design, it signals global ambition.
The Ceiling Remains Unbroken
India will keep producing engineers who build world-class products—at Google, Microsoft, Meta. To build global consumer products, we must solve all four traps simultaneously.
This requires violating every instinct:
- Violating the “client is always right” training (say no to features)
- Violating the inclusive impulse (disappoint 2 out of 3 Indias)
- Violating patriotic desire (build for the West first)
Arattai’s positioning suggests unwillingness to violate these instincts.
In my view, Arattai will get 50-100M Indian users, be celebrated as a success, and stop at that.
The Two Paths Ahead
Unless Sridhar Vembu asks the question no Indian founder has dared ask:
“What would we build if we pretended India didn’t exist? What would the world’s best messenger look like if we had to win in San Francisco first?”
If he asks that, and builds that product, Arattai might shatter the ceiling.
If not, we’re headed towards the rise of a regional heavyweight, not a global challenger.
To be clear: Zoho is uniquely positioned among Indian companies to break this pattern. Its B2B success proves it can compete globally. Its patient capital means it can afford the 5-7 year horizon consumer products require. And Sridhar Vembu’s track record suggests a willingness to think differently.
The question isn’t whether Zoho can build a global product. It already has. It’s whether Arattai’s current positioning reflects that ambition or falls into the familiar traps.
Musings by Madhav 
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