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What do you think about Indian startup business models? Do they really have one or just the pocket filling game is going on?

Product Engineer

What do you think about Indian startup business models? Do they really have one or just the pocket filling game is going on?- Grapevine

Welcome to Indian Startups's Private Community

What are the view points on Indian startups? Do they have any business models?

There are essentially four parties in the startup economy:

1. The Consumer
2. The Enabler(read, Startup)
3. The Service Provider
4. The Investor

Now let's look at Game Theory motivations:

1. The Indian Consumer wants to minimise money spent per unit value extracted, the Western Consumer wants to maximise value extracted per unit money spent. (There's a massive difference.)

2. The Startup depending on the stage wants to maximise User Growth and Free Cash Flows.

3. The Service provider wants to maximise financial incentives.

4. The Investor is wants to maximise the XIRR of their fund. For this they need to reach a multibagger liquidity event.

Now let's look at what happens when:

1. The Consumer gets f'ed over: 

The startup attains pricing power through deep competitive moats allowing for monopolisation. They can jack up the prices to ensure nice FCF, greater rewards for Service Providers and great returns to their investors. (Think, Uber can charge anything to you now)

2. The Startup gets f'ed over: 

The users get bang for their buck, the service providers get good incentives, the investors push for higher growth but unfortunately the startup does not have enough capital to service their Cost of Operations through their unit economics, so they will either run out of cash or investor patience. Either ways, they are doomed. (Think every legit startup that failed)

3. The Service Provider get f'ed over: 

This is the likeliest scenario as they have the least power in this dynamic. Rewards will be reduced over time or made harder to achieve. They have no option because they got no option for sustenance. (Think any on-demand service providing app)

4. The investor gets f'ed over: 

Now imagine there is a startup that can balance the act very well. They have a service that users are willing to pay a margin on. They pay their service providers fairly and have decent unit economics. Now, the investor will do halla about destruction of shareholder value from little growth. (Is this the case with BluSmart?)

Maybe that's why building in India is tough.

[Rant] Here's why someone usually ends up f'ed over, for a startup to get successful in India

Product Manager

I am a 6 yrs experienced Software developer and part of a mid-stage startup. This is my third job; I have been working here for 3 years. I was involved here as one of the core engineers at the start in developing the overall platform, After that, my growth as an engineer stagnated for 2 years . 

Constant importance and priority are given to business requirements and hacky work getting pushed to production in the name of fast iterations and business impact every week. 

My engineering manager lacks proper engineering skills and doesn't respect engineers even after their impact on the company and constantly keeps saying the engineering team doesn't contribute to the revenue of the company despite us pushing work that improves business positively. 

Last year around November, around 80% of the engineering team was subtly suggested to start looking out for work (basically a soft layoff) because management was too scared of a social media backlash

Due to all this,2 years' worth of technical debt has accumulated on the overall codebase and apart from giving justification for every code improvement that we try to make there, we still have to work on business/product requirements. 

My growth as an engineer has stopped and I am worried about missing out on the latest developments in the tech industry, especially with AI in the picture, and want to make my skillset somewhat AI-proof. I have come back to hands-on coding this year , so that's a positive start. I am considering taking a 3-4 month break after resigning from my company to study, develop side projects, develop a portfolio etc

Has anyone else been in this boat ? How did you come out strong?

Side Effects of working at startups

Software Engineer

Heard from most people that there’s a lot of crunch. Wondering if anyone at their companies feels like their startup is growing despite the slowdown. 

Razorpay, CRED, and are seeing tighter regulations and downrounds. The food delivery companies have all gone through their down rounds and readjustment of expectations. Even SaaS most founders have a poor revenue/employee ratio and the india story is still yet to play out for the newer bets. 

Just yesterday Oslash announced it’s shutting down its app.

Any green shoots ☘️? And if there are maybe it’s a good thread for folks to try and hire.

Any Indian startups doing well currently ?

I might sound stupid here but please hear me out. 
The market is crowded with so many startups in every domain. Older startups are much more stable, on track to become profitable or are already profitable with a huge market share. Not to forget the legacy companies with deep pockets and years of R&D and experience. Along with the competition, funding is another major pain point now because of various reasons we all know of. 
Also, somewhere I feel we don't face a lot of burning problems we faced a few years back which gave birth to a lot of startups who were actually solving some problem. Most of the new age startups out there are not really solving any problem but just offering premium products or services targeting just the high earning individuals. Most of the new ideas are repetitive with no major differentiation or value add. 
Because of all these reasons, I feel we might see very few new startups in future let alone successful ones. 

Share your thoughts please!

What's the future of start-ups and start-up ideas?

Analyst

Get me a Product Management Intern !!!!

Is Getting Jobs from LinkedIn Opportunities just a myth ??

Common "Indian Startups" do your thing🧠👨‍🦯

What do you think is the next big thing for Indian Startups?

Welcome to Office Gossip's Private Community

- Most VCs are fraud, they never make any money and keep shifting from one fund to another to hide that they never made anyone any money. 
They also have usually no real input to add. 
They are no subject matter except negotiations which too mostly they just prey upon any founders. 

It's a thankless asset class. Most founders will always hate it as they will never get a dollar and most investors hate it as they will never net a dollar. 

Never chase VC, they are supposed to find opportunity .. Chasing them is useless, they judge you for it. 
So treat them from first day like your ex. Gf/bf. 

- Most tech startup founders are fraud,  they never make any money and keep shifting from one idea to another to hide they never made anyone any money. 
it usually takes 20 years to make a real $100 million dollar revenue company, but 20 months to be a unicorn. 
Any unicorn today is priced according to what they would make after 5-10 years... Yeah right. 

- Making real money is hard. Making fake money is easy. 
99% of startup Esops are fraud
If the company is homerun, then they won't get you stock easy. 
If the company is maybe homerun, they won't give you cash easily. 
If you get free cash and esops, just imagine it's an 18 month project. 

- Most of the humblebrags are fraud as half of them don't even understand the fine print of what they think is real money but not. 

- Most of the people who usually ask for change have no intention for it. They want to be seen as leaders, change is hard, negotiated and cried for. 

- you only live once. Go hard.. No one like people who have too much to talk but nothing to show.

Some observations after 10+ years of being in the system

Have been an entrepreneur since college days. Went full time on same idea and worked on it for a good 4 years full time before starting something new, raising some money, later pivoting (fucked up here) and eventually shutting shop last year. 

Life has been tough since then since there is no clarity on what to spend next 2-5 years on - acquisition offer falling apart, tried looking for jobs but didn't finalise and later did a bit of consulting (good pay but didn't really work out).

I now have a few good conversations going on right now - leading product & EIR/Founders Office. What do you suggest would be an ideal thing to do? 

Profile - Solid Generalist. Non tech. Money ain't really an issue right now but can't stay dependent on savings for so long - its stupid.

PS - If you or someone you know is hiring, please reach out. Happy exploring ideas as well.

2 time ex-founder / 6+ years of entrepreneurial experience

Founder

What's an Indian startup that you think is solving a crucial problem?

I'm talking about real profits, startups that generate good revenue and do not depend on VC money.

Are there any profitable Indian 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

Why India lags behind in AI

We’ll be able to move mountains once we stop obsessing with IITians. They work their asses off to get into IITs to get high paying jobs, it’s as simple as that. Train tier-2,3 college students who have nothing to lose. You’ll achieve 100x more optimal results with 100x less investment.

Product Designer

Product Owner

seems a well executed ponzi or pump and dump scheme given how things have panned out over last 3 years

Is Indian startup ecosystem a Ponzi scheme?

https://the-ken.com/story/the-invisible-hand-behind-startups-crazy-valuation-run/?utm_source=web&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=twitter_twentyfour

Golmaal of Valuation in Indian startups. Big bubble about to burst.

Welcome to Personal Finance's Private Community

As we can see only 3-5% Indian startups become profitable and rest of are still in the loss. But Cred , Zomato, Paytm and many more loss making companies are still in the market with tag of "Unicorn". Ye kaise possible ho paa rha hai.. investors ab bhi Paisa lagaye chale Jaa rhe hai .. 
Why ????????

Loss making startup

Go ahead, ask if we pushed founders to commit fraud.

AMA: Worked at tier 2 VC - got in post a few years of workex and a tier 2 Indian uni

What stops you from *stealing* an idea that you found mind-blowing from a pitch of a startup trying to get a seed funding?

What do you think about Indian startup business models? Do they really have one or just the pocket filling game is going on?

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