Except a couple of credit on UPI/wealth tech companies, I haven't seen any cool digital B2C companies pop up in recent times.  Are new B2C ideas too risky for investors? What cool early stage consu...

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Except a couple of credit on UPI/wealth tech companies, I haven't seen any cool digital B2C companies pop up in recent times.

Are new B2C ideas too risky for investors? What cool early stage consumer products (other than GV) do you use?

Are early stage B2C products dead?

Product Manager

Are early stage B2C products dead?- Grapevine

Welcome to Product Managers's Private Community

9/10 companies in the same space have the same feature set. Bigger companies are legit morphing into the exact same super app.

More and more, it feels like it's all about execution with fintech. 

Do cool things only come out of iSPIRT?

Are there any cool B2C fintech products around anymore?

While there are lot of VCs coming out with their ‘expert’ outlook on 2024, let’s be real to share our own predictions. Idea is to share and learn and not just mudsling.

Let me go first with few of my own

1. Neobanking will go belly up - it’s really hard to make money in just Savings account led neobanking I believe. With lending increasingly difficult, I think we will see likes of Jupiter going belly up

2. Gold mine of climate tech - climate tech will become more mainstream stream (similar to content and community in 2021, D2C in 2022 and SaaS in 2023)

What are yours?

What are your predictions for 2024 Indian Startup ecosystem?

Founder

willl try my best to be honest, ask me anything

AMA - I work at a VC fund

Analyst

Amazon's own business lines and new policy changes coupled with the recession's impact on consumer spending finished Thrasio. They were primarily dependent on Amazon for identifying good D2C businesses, acquiring them and turning them into profit-making machines.

What's next for Indian D2C aggregators like Mensa?

Another platform-dependent startup bites the dust

Software Developer

I am starting a D2C lifestyle brand. Which are the pre-seed venture firms to approach for funding?

Pre-seed VC Firms for D2C Brands

Product Marketing Manager

When will founders learn that it is almost impossible to make a profitable consumer oriented startup in India.

India is NOT USA. In India, people are not easily going to pay for your service. 

It is just a matter of time before most of them packs their bag.

Gloomy future for 99% of Indian startups

Software Engineer

Welcome to News Discussion's Private Community

What an absolute shit show
https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/technology/fraud-threats-sexual-harassment-zilingos-ankiti-bose-files-fir-against-co-founder-ex-coo-12706929.html

Zilingo CEO files FIR against COO & CTO

Zilingo is already defunct. A once billion dollar startup that is now literally 0. 
One of the major startup scams. Investors just kept lapping up the GMV growth.

And now when everything is over, co-founders filing FIRs against themselves.
Disappointing.

My only appeal to everyone: please call out if you're at a startup that's doing similar stuff. A lot of careers can get saved...

Corporate Strategist

Was asking for some advice on fundraising. Got to know if you are building something with no revenue, literally impossible to raise.

He explained how hard it is even for the current founders and expecting 100s of startups to fail next year with talent going cheap due to all the layoffs.

Very hard to think how to monetise B2C if people don’t even link their credit or debit cards with Apple Pay and Android for in-app purchases. Also for B2B Saas, it’s better to build for US from India than building for India.

Just “profit” over growth now. Nothing else matters 💭

Had a chat with a Unicorn Founder

Team is less than 10 people still, slowly growing. Net profit could be higher, that's top priority to work on now. Total cash invested by founders was 15L over 3-4 years.

Yearly revenue :

2019 - less than 30k 
20 - 1.5L (after pivot)
22 - 50L

Getting to the first lakh and then to 10 lakhs was probably the most challenging part.

We thought of shutting down multiple times, struggled through multiple fights between founders. Glad we didn't stop working and pulled through.

This is my 4th or 5th attempt at starting up. Except for 1, other attempts didn't even get to incorporation stage.

Would love to hear from other bootstrappers and their experience.

Personal milestone: 1Cr in rev as a bootstrapper

We’re at about $400K bootstrapped with a team of 2 (me included), started in 2019. Revenue almost doubled in last 18 months. 
  
 My personal observation is that if you’re going to bootstrap, you need to go after high margin, niche markets (unless you’re doing services) because you don’t have a lot of money for marketing. 
  
 Our main growth channel is affiliates and SEO. Growth will be slow so we just have to keep at it. Also, beware of VC-funded competitors.

Generalist

Asking this on behalf of many founders like myself, wanted to collate across multiple inputs: what is it that VCs really want to hear/see from a startup? 

Would love to get inputs from VCs and other founders alike - basis your experience on what has worked what hasn't worked.

The usual suspects: obviously the founder credentials, TAM, insights, metrics. But, what else? 
Look forward to informed answers.

What do VCs really look for in startups? How do they evaluate?

Hey peeps, do you guys know of any consumer SaaS that went big without having a B2B angle in place? 

One example would be Splitwise (again not that big). Other apps like Netflix, Bumble, do have to bring supply of engaging content for consumption or partners for matchmaking respectively, so that's not pure consumer SaaS

I feel every SaaS company that will go big will have a B2B angle associated with it. Let me know what you think?

Consumer(B2C) SaaS not a big opportunity?

Product Owner

I’m looking to switch to B2C FinTech startups in India with good product and team! Do suggest if you know which one are those

A quick background: founding product and business lead at web3 stealth startup, before worked in web2 FinTech

Good FinTech Startups

Welcome to Business Roles's Private Community

Hey everyone. 

Thought I could do an AMA. A bit about me - have 4 years of work experience and graduated from a non engineering college. Was at a startup before (from Series B to Series D) before becoming a VC

Personally look at consumer and B2B investments here 

Happy to answer any questions around life as a junior VC, startup ecosystem, career growth etc.

AMA: I work at a large VC Fund focusing on early stage investments

This is the biggest problem with VC ecosystem 4 yoe kids taking calls on experienced, hardworking founders. Dude first learn the game then invest , judge people playing the game. VCs know nothing about how to run startups. Unless they have been entrepreneurs themselves. IMO It's a colossal waste of talent to become a VC for young PPL.

Investment Associate

I'm talking about new startups, as a founder who's trying to build an ecommerce platform currently.

I'm still very early, but it feels that the writing is on the wall. 
Flipkart, Myntra, Nykaa, Zomato, Swiggy etc. have all built great products and soon great businesses (I'm sure) 

But it does not make sense to me why we've barely seen anything new in the last 5 years. Even funding wise, if that is something one wants to look at. 

So many people have tried - none of the new ideas have worked. CAC is too high. Current platforms already solve problems. Retention is never there, people may try you out, but will move back to Amazon/Instamart. 

But this is not how things typically work. It's very clear that consumer spending is going to increase, online more so, at an even faster rate. I don't feel the current platforms solve everything, a better version can be built. 

SO, is it the founders of the current era that have failed to make a dent? Is it the fact that VCs have stopped paying attention to this space? Or is it that the current platforms indeed solve everything? 

Would love everybody's thoughts. And also if you have tried building/or have ideas on what potential next eCommerce platforms could loook like. 

Over and out.

Is Indian eCommerce dead? (from a new startup founders' pov)

Data Scientist

Hey startup founders, who've been there and done that. Is ConsumerTech dead with all the giant social networks already taking a users' screen time? A recent YC video (tarpit idea) suggested that B2B SaaS is good, B2C is shit. 

I feel if we have to build something big in India, for the people, the threshold is really high for a social network. On the other hand, B2C SaaS is not something that people would pay for easily, making it less scalable. So, what should one go about this?

SaaS v/s Social network

Hi Grapeviners, creating a thread where you can post the name of a toxic culture company along with which department. 

This thread is created as a one stop place to know about Toxic Culture Companies whether it, Early/Seed/Growth Stage/MNC . 


#community

List of Companies to avoid - short reasons welcome

Putting this again

Most YC funded startups 
Most *.ai 
All “Ed-techs” (aka “SalMa” sales and marketing) 
Uber-for-X 
10min-thingmajings 
Niche funded D2Cs 
BNPLs

Let's ignore what's wrong with startups, keep this an optimistic thread. Which startups make you excited about their future? 
The ones that have cracked product, GTM, model, or something else.

Name the best Indian startups :)

One for the believers: Which startups in India do you feel are going to make it really big? 🚀

Does B2B E-commerce have a future in India? No one has been able to crack the business model yet and many big names have scaled back. 
Does anyone know a profitable company in this segment?

How risky it is to join a startup in this space?

Future of B2B E-commerce

Finance Consultant

There are so many startups failing all around.
Many which I thought were doing something great also have been duds. Some epic surprise failures would be dunzo, pharmeasy, etc.
It looks like there will be many more such revelations in coming days 😐😐

Please share list of some stable and good startups (Series B and beyond) which I should be targetting.

Are early stage B2C products dead?

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