Why is there no Indian Tik Tok and why is Tik Tok a Chinese company anyway? It is India that is supposed to be the software superpower, not China.
Now, till about 10 years back, the following statements were uncontroversial:
Software products designed primarily by Indian companies are poorly designed
Software developed for the Indian market is badly designed
Software designed for Indian markets by Indian companies is worse designed than software designed for Indian markets by foreign companies, and sometimes a worse fit for Indian conditions than software designed for foreign markets by foreign companies.
This has become less true in recent times, but why was this true? India has good programmers. But because India's software business is heavily focused on exports, most good programmers want to work for foreign clients, which means that those who are left to work for the less-lucrative Indian accounts aren't the most talented.
But this is only part of the story, because programming is only one part of software development. Accepting requirements and formulating them into specs is an important skill, which was difficult to move offshore because you have to be close to the client to perform the role. Designing a product that will be used by many customers is an even higher order skill, which explains the first point - software products developed by Indian companies were poorly designed, because product design is a difficult skill that took longer to develop in India.
Being the client who works with the vendor to get software developed also requires an important set of skills which naturally took time to develop in Indian companies. Imagine an Indian bank that is getting software developed by Infosys. Infosys has the experience of developing software for many international banks which it can transfer, albeit imperfectly, to this engagement. But the Indian bank is on its own when it comes to developing expertise in getting software developed, and will therefore take longer to develop the skills required, which explains the second point, i.e. Software developed for the Indian market was badly designed**.**
Software designed for Indian markets by Indian companies was worse designed than software designed for Indian markets by foreign companies, ****because foreign companies with global software development expertise could transfer their design skills to develop for the Indian market better than Indian companies could design software for Indian conditions. For example, I switched my salary account from an Indian bank to a foreign bank only because the online banking user interface of the Indian bank makes me weep tears of agony every time I use it. The foreign bank's online banking features aren't great, but still vastly better than the Indian bank's.
Secondly, Indian software is sometimes a worse fit for Indian conditions than software designed for foreign markets by foreign companies**,** because software designed by foreign companies is often a better product overall and this factor overcomes the lack of customization for Indian conditions. Also, software products have high fixed cost but low marginal costs, so an MNC with a global product can sell it in India for a much lower price than an Indian company with an India-focused product can, and the low price can also overcome the lack of customization.
All of these were true in the past and to an extent are still true, but the exceptions are piling up in sufficient numbers as to make my statements debatable. For one thing, there is an Indian company Zoho - that is making a reasonably successful product for the global market.
For the Indian market, there are many products like Flipkart, PayTM and Ola that are well-designed software products that are giving competition to foreign products. Of these, Flipkart has effectively lost to Amazon, PayTM may lose, or at least deserves to lose to Google Pay, while I find Ola much better than Uber, but the fact that they are comparable at all is what is different now. Of course, one reason is that the Indian market is profitable now and Indian product design skills are maturing. But another reason is also that the markets these products are in have a significant offline component - Flipkart has to not just run a website and an app, but also ship physical goods to customers, PayTM has to transfer money through the Indian financial system and Ola has to run actual cabs. So one can argue that the companies that are doing well in the Indian market are not necessarily doing so because of their software development skills.
But why isn't there an Indian Tik Tok - a social media product that is designed in India, for the Indian market? Software products for the Indian market have done well only when protected by a moat of an offline business. Except for Zoho, I can't think of an Indian product that has done well only based on the strength of its product development - and by product development, I don't just mean technical brilliance, but also the ability to develop or market features that respond or anticipate the needs of your user base.
You would expect that there would be a market for an Indian social media product, given that Indians are big social media users. You would expect at least one Indian social media product to have gone viral within India by now, as Orkut and Tik Tok did. That no Indian product has managed that tells me that our product development and marketing skills aren't there yet.