Shark Tank India's Aman Gupta: Benchmarking against China, US is smart strategy, not weakness

Shark Tank India judge and boAt co-founder Aman Gupta has defended Union commerce minister Piyush Goyal's stand on the startup ecosystem in the country. He said that Goyal was right to ask founders to dream bigger and to focus on innovation and that his message was misinterpreted.

"It’s not every day that the government asks founders to dream bigger. But at Startup Mahakumbh, that’s exactly what happened," Gupta wrote on X. "I was there. I heard the full speech. Honerable minister Piyush Goyalji isn’t against founders. He believes in us.His point was simple: India has come far, but to lead the world… we need to aim higher."

The "Shark" said the minister's speech reminded him of something he often says on the popular business reality show Shark Tank India: "If you want to build a world-class product, you must know your competition. That applies to India too."

Gupta added that comparing India with China, the US or other countries isn’t weakness, it's "smart strategy".
"We’re already the 3rd largest startup ecosystem in the world and the fastest-growing major economy. But if we want to be No.1 — We need to also go deep into AI, deeptech, climate, mobility, infra. We need LLMs and innovation stacks that compete on global standards. And to make that happen, we also need scientific risk, more patient capital, founder–policymaker collaboration and a long-term national vision," the boAt CMO said.