An interesting discussion took place in monthly meet of startups at Innov8, New Delhi which throws light on the sordid situations where Law is broken to solve critical problem of start up. The question is is this morally good? According to Pulkit Ahuja CEO and founder of CabsGuru, Hack first and apologize later. He hacked the API- The Application Programming Interface of Ola and Meru Cabs when they refused to share it with him. He reverse-engineered the apps to his requirement and developed his own app which evaluated the prices on popular ride on call services. With this app Pulkit managed a considerable raise of income in first year. He says that he gained courage from Ola and Uber who were operating despite ban in India on them. Now this app maneuvers significant number of seekers to ride services.
The other examples of being successful by breaking the law in India are Uber, Youtube and Airbnb. They created new production and disrupted the old ones. The common step they followed is marketing negligibly till they got full-size. Uber was in deep trouble, one of its drivers raped the customer. The TV news branded Uber as criminals. Uber had trouble with Central Bank and its offices were sealed and computers were seized but Uber Team in India did not give up. They ran the business from rooms of Hotel Taj Mansingh which is just two km from PM’s house. Uber hired Security guards to protect itself. It operated for almost two months from those rooms. It never gave local address on website. The company work despite of the ban.
Another example is of StayUncle. Thought there is a strict rule renting rooms to unmarried couple to restrict prostitution, all one has to do is call StayUncle and ask for a room for a few hours, you are given a number to call from which the room would be arranged. This company advertises on it webpage that a couple needs room and not judgement. The CEO of this company says that Sanchit Sethi tells that some hotels give rooms to unmarried couples.
