For decades, India’s best and brightest migrated to the West in search of opportunities. That changed a while ago and India has become a hot destination for foreigners who are working in the IT and BPO sector, which employs approximately 30,000 foreigners here. Now, Americans and Europeans are enchanted not by incredible, mystical India, but the heady professional opportunities available here—even for small and medium businesses. Of late, there are foreigners exploring India not for jobs, but for entrepreneurial ventures, where they can combine their specialised skills with this dynamic environment.

Earlier this year, a German businessman, Michael Brecht launched a business social networking site for Australians, ZaaBiz.com. Since this month, August, ZaaBiz.com has expanded to India. “Within a few weeks of launching in Australia I figured there were 30,000 users from the Indian diaspora,” explains Brecht, “I thought, why not launch it formally in India?” According to Brecht’s figures, Indians could constitute 70 per cent of ZaaBiz.com’s projection of one million members, the largest in the Asia-Pacific region. His team back in Australia has 10 employees of which four are Indians. “I plan to set up a full-fledged office and have a separate marketing team over here,” says Brecht, who is currently in Mumbai for an official launch and promotion of the portal. His members are mostly small and medium scale entrepreneurs from industrial sectors, finance, retail and real estate. ZaaBiz.com has a popular online group called Gateway to India, for entrepreneurs abroad to discuss business opportunities here. Brecht’s clients in Mumbai include PR and travel companies like Adfactors and Blue Lotus Communications.

The business landscape in India has traditionally been hard for start-ups, Indian or foreign. Outsiders doing business here say a lot of entrepreneurial activity included getting the basics done efficiently and creatively, despite constraints. “This is a country which was born through disobedience and yet it has gone passive,” says Thom Petty, 48, an Italian-American chef and restaurateur, sitting in his very American garage basement restaurant, Sparky’s Diner in central Chennai. Petty is frustrated: there hasn’t been power for many hours and the gensets can’t help run the ACs for long.

Born in South California, Petty operated his own restaurants in Hawaii and Albania before moving here. Today, he’s forced to use the bare minimum of lighting to conserve power. “My restaurant looks like a brothel,” he rues, with a slight smirk. People always ask Petty what he’s doing in Chennai, nowhere land for potential entrepreneurs. “I am here because this is my home. I’m here because I love it. Do I get frustrated? Of course I get frustrated!” he says. Petty first came to India as an exchange student in 1980 and was hooked. Petty started his Chennai restaurant in 2005, which is built on Brand America, decorated with flags, baseball bats, surfing boards and even pirates—yet his clients are overwhelmingly Indian. He uses 47 vendors but he says it’s the American ones that drive him crazy. “Pepsi can’t ensure regular supply. Why blame only India?” he says.
When it comes to working the Indian system, no one’s figured it out better than Doris Delassard, 24, who’s been a real estate agent in Delhi for almost two years now. Delassard has positioned herself as the one-point-person all foreigners call when they reach India and they need essential services like a house, furniture, gas connection, Internet and phone. In the last year she has found and furnished apartments, office spaces, and houses for over 50 French, German and Brazilian people in Delhi and the NCR.

In two years, the number of foreigners who’ve got homes through her exceeds 200. Delassard made it for this interview after showing a CEO of a Danish company homes in Jorbagh, Golf Links and Sunder Nagar and she’s also busy negotiating 20,000 sq ft of commercial space in Jasola, Delhi. When we interviewed her exactly a year ago she was also providing domestic help, but she has since disbanded that business and got into packing and moving instead. “I want to be known as a complete relocation agent for people coming to India,” says Delassard. “There wasn’t enough money in finding household help, besides it was becoming difficult to verify the staff.” Delassard’s business model works, she says because of how intimidating India can be, for an outsider. “In France getting an Internet or a gas connection will take two hours. Here, god knows,” she says.

Taking the services business further, Delassard has also cashed in on foreigners who need to register their visit in India, according to procedure. In the Foreigner’s Registration Office in RK Puram, Delhi the queue is long and it’s not unusual to see foreigners crying in frustration when they’re asked to return the next day. Delassard guarantees the foreigners the process will take an hour only and has hired people to do the running around. She says business is booming for her, in real estate, packing-moving, and visa processes.  “People talk of a recession. I say what recession?” she grins.

The biggest gripe of foreigners in India is bureaucratic hassles besides the occasional cultural conflict that makes life difficult. “We had to wait endlessly for a liquor licence,” says Choi Young Jin, 32, co-owner of K2, a popular Korean restaurant in Gurgaon, that’s just over a year old. Jin first came to India in 1996 as a tourist and then in 2006, when she decided to start a restaurant here with her brother, Choi Byung Jun. K2 is a cheerful space, done in black and red. Jin works from 11.30 am to 11.30 pm and samples all the food her Nepali cook produces (he was trained by a Korean chef).

The going was hard to begin with since the siblings speak very little English, but they fit in quickly with Gurgaon’s global food culture and the restaurant’s Karaoke nights are a huge success. They’re enthusiastic about future prospects and are planning another K2 in Noida next. “Establishing standards is difficult sometimes but you have to be firm,” says Jin. Samai also faces staff issues with most of her trained masseurs moving to The Oberoi and the Ananda Spa right after she spends two months training them. “I’ve started signing contracts but if they move there’s little I can do,” she says. Samai says she just doesn’t understand how sometimes people just don’t land up for work, and don’t call either. “So what if it’s raining?” she questions. Delassard changed 14 real estate partners before zeroing in on her current associate whom she’s been working with for over a year now. “We have a good understanding. He finds the houses, I find the clients and we split the commission,” she says. If foreigners out there were worried about their jobs fleeing to India, it’s time they chased them. “I go back to France every year. After two weeks I’m itching to get back,” says Delassard.
(With inputs from Gopu Mohan in Chennai and Deepa Venkatraman in Mumbai.)