It looks to me like the "acquire users first, figure out how to make money later" mindset does not fly in India in general. Would I be right in saying that such companies are a relative minority? How do Indian VCs respond to this mindset which is acceptable in silicon valley?
A lot of that is also tied in with Indian culture - the youth here cannot afford to have the let's-try-and-it's-okay-if-we-fail attitude. By their early twenties men are usually expected to have steady jobs by which they can provide for a spouse and a family.
A lot of people do want to do startups, though - so they tend to gravitate towards ideas that provide a steady source of income, which will let them fulfil these obligations.
Early (and arranged) marriages, social pressure to be financially secure... there's a lot of reasons for this kind of attitude.
Not to mention that being 'educated' means having at least an undergraduate degree - so there are few dropouts. Leaving college to pursue a business idea is looked upon as an act of extreme idiocy and disgraces your parents / family too.
Yes. Such startups are a minority in India. Barring a few exceptions, VC money in India is available only for companies whose money making model is absolutely clear. That's why the startups that don't focus on making money early on, die out pretty soon.
Not necessarily - they've got branding deals going on, notably with CocaCola and distilleries. I'm sure restaurants also pay handsomely to be featured on the city homepages.
There are many more that normally haven't taken a deep marketing track (and that remains a challenge).
For example check out colama - http://www.colama.net - using VMs for college education; http://www.emee.co.in/ (note - this is my employer's product) - gamification of enterprise workflows, and http://www.kpoint.com/ - which allows you to record videos and embed them in the website (and often used in many conferences, for internal company presentation).
Companies, with diversity in the culture would always win in the long term. Simply because these companies would be able to hire the best, from larger pool of candidates.
