Dreaming of my start-Up

My experiences

You probably already read it on my LinkedIn feed last month.
I found myself on my “digital nomad” journey in India to experience what it’s like to travel and work there. And I was there especially because I was curious about my fellow professionals working with Microsoft products — colleagues I regularly meet on Teams. I wrote a separate article about this. In the end, I stayed in India for a month and visited several cities including Bangalore, Jaipur, and New Delhi. In this article I want to share my experiences and what it’s like to work there.
I’ll also give you a few handy tips and tricks. ✈️💻

Tip (must-do): get an Indian phone number at the airport. 📱
I immediately discovered that a non-Indian number doesn’t work in India, which meant I couldn’t arrange an Uber to my hotel at first. Once in Bangalore I was able to get an Indian SIM at a phone shop, though it took some doing because the internal system didn’t quite align. Luckily I was supported in this comms struggle by my Indian friend Lalit Rawat whom I met through LinkedIn. In India they speak excellent English, while there are 22 official languages — roughly every 100 km you may hear another language — but people are equally friendly. 🙂

Still, the IT-comms remained tricky. For almost every app you needed a local phone number for verification. And since you can’t receive SMS from abroad,
it quickly became difficult; for example with short trips from your Airbnb to a coffee place using the Uber app. I didn’t want to risk getting scammed 😉.
(It did happen once when I booked a ride without Uber, but that’s part of the adventure 😅.)
What also struck me is the mutual-rating culture — it reminded me of a Black Mirror episode. In addition, my advice is that if you travel through India, take your time to get from A to B. Traffic can be very busy/hectic at times. 🚦

The coworking space in Bangalore suited me well: fast Wi-Fi, comfortable chairs, good coffee, and a lively atmosphere. Registration was via the app; cash wasn’t possible, but credit card worked fine. In that environment I connected with fellow digital nomads and Indian startups. One team showed a platform where you can generate studio-quality video ads within minutes based on a script.
The voice-over and presentation are handled by AI actors/avatars. You enter your text, choose an (AI) creator, and multiple variants roll out for your marketing channels. 🤖🎬

If you like hostels for overnight stays, also check what else they offer.
My first days I was in a hostel that attracts entrepreneurs and Digital Nomads by organizing networking evenings. This way I met fellow IT’ers and startup owners in a low-threshold way. I really enjoyed hearing what they were working on. 🧑‍💻🤝

On Bali there’s a coffee place on almost every street where you can work.
The Indian cities I visited were much larger. So sometimes it took a while to find a good, nice coffee spot to work in. It helped me that I had a number of friends who gave me recommendations. It wasn’t a problem to work on a laptop there. ☕💻

I also noticed there were few international convenience stores like 7-Eleven/M Market — more local shops. From what I understood, people use Zomato (food delivery) and Blinkit (grocery) a lot. Dinner and snacks usually arrived within ~30 minutes — handy apps to have on your phone. 😉📦

Since I was only there for a short time, an Indian bank account was a bit too much for now (but who knows 😉). I used cash a lot and sometimes a credit card.
But make sure you can pay cash for taxis/tuktuks/helicopters/drones (so to speak); often they don’t have change.
I also noticed a lot of QR-code payments (I saw few debit cards — maybe those are disappearing in the Netherlands too by now…). 💸🔳

I got the impression that India is fully committed to digitalization in society: I saw it in daily life and heard it from conversations with IT pros.
For example, students already learn to use AI at school and AI is applied across multiple sectors. Together with my friend Ritik Kumar I wrote the article ‘AI Across Borders: Perspectives from India & the Netherlands’. 🧠🌏

If, besides working with your laptop, you also want to soak up culture, then I can recommend Jaipur — a city full of colors and large forts. But actually India is bursting with culture and rich traditions. Every city/state has its own history.
The hospitality of the local people was truly a new experience for me compared to what I’d known so far. They would love to show you all of India if they could…. 💜🕌

Also have the ambition to work and travel in India? Feel free to message me. ✉️

With cheerful Indian greetings,

Sander

NB. In the conversations I had, the Tata Group came up regularly, also because of the link to the Netherlands via Tata Steel. Only in those talks did I realize how big that enterprise is and how highly the (former) top man is regarded in India — praised for long-term vision and social focus: profit follows real problem-solving, sustainable relationships, and lasting investments in quality and people, not short-term tricks.
That mix of entrepreneurship + impact inspired my new venture Mister Blanket(Instagram/Store), which I launched in recent months and which will serve as a compass for my further entrepreneurship.
I will certainly take his vision with me as inspiration for my future challenges.
A warm blanket for the winter that makes you smile and maybe adds a little spice to your relationship… 😉🧣✨