Harshal Fuse

90% of startups don’t die from competition. They die from 4 silent traps. Trap 1: No Product–Market Fit Pets.com raised $82M in the 90s and collapsed in under two years. They sold what local stores already offered. India’s quick commerce feels eerily similar. Burning crores to deliver things your kirana already sends for free. Trap 2: Vanity Spending OurBeginnings.com spent $4M on a Super Bowl ad. Their revenue that year? Less than $4M. Today, it’s like a startup with ₹20 crore revenue dropping ₹25 crore on IPL ads. Hype doesn’t pay the bills. Trap 3: Regulation Napster had 80M users before lawsuits shut it down. Closer home, ONDC is rewriting the rules for food delivery. If Swiggy or Zomato lean too hard on data-led cloud kitchens, they could face the same fate. Trap 4: Too Early Z.com tried to be YouTube in 1999, before broadband. It died. YouTube launched in 2005, when the market was ready, and thrived. Being early doesn’t make you a visionary. It makes you broke. Most founders think they’ll die fighting competitors. In reality, the killers are invisible until it’s too late. Which Indian startups do you think are closest to falling into one of these traps?

158

60 Comments

Every founder in B2B dreams of selling a huuuuuuge platform. But this can be a huuuuuuge mistake. The almost magnetic pull towards positioning as a platform makes sense: ✅ higher perceived value ✅ bigger ACV ✅ better customer stickiness ✅ greater investor appeal But not all multi-product companies have the makings of a true platform. Whether you position in the market as a platform or a suite of products starts way earlier in the startup journey — beginning with your product strategy. (Yes, ideally your marketing strategy & product strategy should have collaborated since day 1... but they rarely do). The normal flow goes something like this: 1) a founder creates a product that solves a problem related to a use case 2) customers come with adjacent use cases and say, "can you help us too?" 3) not wanting to turn away revenue, founders will say, "yes!" 4) each different customer segment has different needs 5) the founder starts building for all these different segments 6) suddenly, they're left with a collection of disconnected products At this moment, the founder has two choices... 1️⃣ market & sell these products individually 2️⃣ attempt to combine them into one large platform Because of the positive associations with platforms that I mentioned above, most founders will opt for the latter. And yet... a lot of time, no category really exists that makes sense of all these disparate use cases. No company is shopping for a solution that can help them incorporate their startup in Delaware, AND contribute to carbon removal projects, AND set up identity verification (among many other unrelated use cases, as with a product suite like Stripe). Most founders (who are not the Collison brothers) will embark on a multi-year "category creation" process, attempting to cover an undisciplined product strategy with marketing fluff. And yet, the founder would have been much better off keeping these products separate. If each product is doing sufficiently well (as they were/are with Stripe), the startup should (eventually) be able to fully staff each product line and achieve healthy individual P&Ls. On the flip side, some companies DO begin with the end in mind. Companies like Clari started with a simple use case (like forecasting) but then began to own the connected use cases in order to create a true one-stop shop for revenue teams. Their platform angle ACTUALLY makes sense because their ideal customers likely ARE doing forecasting, prospecting, mutual action plans, etc all at once. And so, they likely would consider Clari as a powerful consolidation tool that could replace a handful of tools to solve one big connected workflow. -------- One caveat: → there's another definition of "platform" that is widely used and refers to software that others can build their own software on top of (i.e., Shopify, Salesforce, etc.) I am referring to the other, more colloquial definition of "platform" used in product packaging.

344

57 Comments

It’s a startup era, every college today seems to have at least a couple of ventures. I’ve always loved following startup stories, connecting with young entrepreneurs, and understanding the fire and vision that drive them. But let’s be real: too many startups are built with short-term goals, chasing valuations, quick investments, and early exits. As Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal rightly said, much of the Indian startup ecosystem is revolving around quick commerce and similar areas, where true innovation often takes a backseat. That’s why Genrobotics stands out. Born out of a college project in Kerala, this team of young minds chose to solve real, ground-level Indian problems. Their Bandicoot robot, adopted across multiple states, has transformed sewage cleaning, eliminating manual scavenging and restoring dignity through safe, tech-driven solutions. And today, watching this video gave me a great feel of how technology and young minds are reshaping common people’s lives. Genrobotics’ latest Robotic Gait Training System (RAGT) is set to be made available at the Noolpuzha Family Health Center in Wayanad, helping paralyzed and semi-paralyzed patients perform cardio and rehab exercises with minimal human support. This isn’t just robotics; it’s empathy delivered through technology. Watching their journey has been truly inspiring. From a campus startup to one of India’s most respected robotics firms, Genrobotics has shown that deep-tech innovation can bring relief, dignity, and smiles to countless lives. Kudos to Vimal Govind MK and the entire Genrobotics team, this is only the beginning. I’m sure your journey will continue to accelerate, solving more Indian problems and setting global benchmarks for innovation. Vipin Govind M K | Agil Ajith #MakeInIndia #StartupIndia #Genrobotics

131

3 Comments

OpenAI declared war on Google yesterday and 82% of Indian shoppers are already on their side without knowing it. ChatGPT now has "Instant Checkout." You can search for products, compare options, and complete purchases without leaving the chat window. 700 million weekly users can now shop directly through conversations. Within hours of this announcement: 📌 Etsy's stock jumped 16%.  📌 Shopify gained 6%. The market immediately understood what this means for traditional e-commerce. When people use ChatGPT for shopping, they convert at 4× higher rates than regular websites, and that is because users spend 14 minutes per session on Ai tools like ChatGPT as compared to Google's 5 minutes. India's position in this makes it even more interesting: → 87% of Indian shoppers believe AI tools help them shop faster, with AI-powered interactions showing higher engagement rates (Walmart Retail Rewired Report India, 2025) → 62% of Indians make purchases influenced by AI recommendations vs 30% globally (EY India, Aug 2024) Traditional shopping makes you open multiple tabs, visit different websites, and compare prices manually. ChatGPT collapses this entire journey into one conversation. For small businesses, this could level the playing field. A seller in Jaipur gets the same access to global users as Amazon does. For established platforms, the threat is real. Why would customers visit your website when they can complete everything through a conversation? The companies optimizing for AI discovery today will own tomorrow's market. Is your business ready for AI-powered shopping or still relying only on traditional search?

240

51 Comments

founders, if every pitch you don’t convert spirals you down - this is for you. when we started thinkly labs, every call that didn’t close would throw us off completely. we would not only obsess over the entire call but also sometimes cut our ask by 40% just to get a yes. because in our heads, a lost deal meant not hitting our target. but here’s what we learned the hard way: we had to improve the top of our funnel. when you don’t have enough at the top of the funnel, every lead feels precious. every call feels like the only shot, making us sell from desperation instead of confidence. once we fixed that, the pressure disappeared and lead to a couple of things: 1. we repeated our pitch so many times, it became better iteratively 2. with the pressure off, we could pitch with confidence and we were closing more clients. so if you’re obsessing over your pitch right now, stop focus on top of your funnel. ps. ps. if you want to book demos through your content, reach out to us.

51

4 Comments

I started my first venture at 21 and sold it in a multi-million-dollar transaction when I was 26. Today, I’m building my second venture, GreyLabs AI, where we’ve raised millions in capital and are scaling fast. Across this journey, here are 10 learnings that have stayed with me: 1. Startups fail on Day 1, not when they run out of money - if the founding team isn’t right. You need shared vision + complementary skills. 2. Sell first, build later. Don’t waste years building what no one wants. Get customer buy-in before writing code. 3. Focus on a small market. At GreyLabs AI, we’re laser-focused on the India BFSI. Shiny distractions exist everywhere, but focus wins. 4. High-impact individual contributors matter. In the AI era, such people can drive more value than larger teams. 5. Hire a strong law firm. Bad contracts (customers, vendors, shareholders, even cofounders) can destroy your business. 6. Customers > Investors. Be frugal, get paying clients, and build proof. Investors follow traction - otherwise, you’ll only get "advice". 7. Control your spending. Many founders start spending mindlessly after raising money. Waste money today, and money will waste you tomorrow. 8. Culture beats perks. My first startup was bootstrapped, with limited benefits. But no toxic managers, genuine care, and empathy earned us a 4.6 rating on Glassdoor (75+ reviews, all organic). 9. Undercommit, overdeliver. Never oversell. Promise only what you can deliver - and then exceed expectations. 10. Stay grateful. To your team, customers, investors, and family. None of this happens alone. Startups are tough, but with the right principles, they’re also the most rewarding journeys one can take. #startups #business #entrepreneurship

578

19 Comments

Non-tech founders are losing crores/lakhs by not using AI in their daily business. Many professionals are complaining that they are not able to scale because their competitors are offering at such a low price, and they need to match the amount. Let me share some examples of how you can save a good amount of money with real-life examples. ⚖ Lawyer: AI instantly locates acts and precedents, saving weeks of research. 🧑‍💼 Architect: AI produces precise blueprints and house plans in hours. 🧑‍⚕ Doctor: AI identifies research connections that could take weeks to manually uncover. For non-tech founders, adoption starts with clarity on your USP (Unique Selling Proposition), 📍 No existing solution?  Then innovate from scratch. 📍 Solution exists?  Identify your niche first, then build a portfolio around it. Pick useful and relevant AI tools for yourself, and make your work 10x easier and faster. 💡 Here’s the question for non-tech founders,  Which area in your business could AI help you innovate first? Listen to our conversation with Drijesh regarding GenAI at Build Mode On with TST Technology! The link is in the comments!

37

5 Comments