'Phenomenal time' to be an entrepreneur in India: Softbank VP Nikesh Arora

New Delhi, Oct 16: Doing business in India is not easy but the growing pace of innovation and the government bringing in policies to foster the "startup culture" are making it a phenomenal time to be an entrepreneur, Softbank Vice President Nikesh Arora today said.

Speaking at the TiECon Delhi 2015, the India-born executive said SoftBank itself is optimistic about India and has invested here, despite the challenges.

"It is a phenomenal time to be an entrepreneur because the pace of innovation is only increasing, the ability to innovate is becoming more and more mass market. Its becoming an opportunity for each one of us. There is optimism and the opportunity in front of us is phenomenal but the question is are you ready? Do you have the risk apertite to be an entrepreneur in this market?" Arora said.

He added that environment here is "ready" much like that in Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley in the US is known to be testbed for latest technology and is home to thousands of entrepreneurs.

"I too have eternal optimism and that is the reason we have invested in India. You have to be an optimist to invest in India. You move two steps ahead and few steps back, that's alright, that's called risk management," he said.

Stating that he understood it is "difficult doing business in India", the former Google executive said the situation in the country has changed post the new leadership taking over.

"In the last 10-15 years, when have you had a situation where the leadership of the country standing up and saying let's create a start up culture. That hasn't happened in the history of India...(there are) different sectors, different policy initiatives.

I think its great. Sometimes just that directional hint from the top creates a much better better, easier environment for us to operate. I know doing business in India is not that easy, but if you guys (entrepreneurs) can execute it here, you can execute it anywhere," he said.

Last year, SoftBank, which has invested in e-commerce firm Snapdeal and Taxi aggregartor Ola) had announced to invest nearly USD 10 billion (around Rs 60,000 crore) in India over the next few years.

PTI