Iqbal Gandham has been involved with internet startups since before the days of Yahoo and Hotmail, when the coolest thing to do with a webpage was to make the text blink.

Initially based in the UK, Iqbal setup several ISPs, and then found his calling in India, where he went to set up Net4India (aka Net4domains and Phonewala.com), in 1999. Net4india was one of the earliest Indian dotcoms and is currently the largest web hosting company in India. It’s also the largest domain registration company, spanning the length and breadth of the country.

Having achieved his initial goal of establishing Net4India as a name to reckon with in the Indian internet space, Iqbal went back to the UK to form ipClouds, a VoIP startup, which he later left.

His passion for startups, and the dotcom industry has led him back to India. where he works with entrepreneurs, helping them take their idea from the drawing board to the marketplace, which he feels is primed for the next dotcom revolution — at least in India. All it needs is a few more risk takers, according to Iqbal.

In this interview, he shares his Net4India story, his views on the changing entrepreneurship landscape in India and compares the entrpreneurship/Web 2.0 scene in London with the scene in India.

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