India: A Problem Solver's Paradise

India has long been popular as an investment destination.  Its large young, English-speaking population, coupled with a stable government and breakneck economic growth, has made it a prime target for global businesses. But while these factors are undoubtedly compelling, there’s an even more fundamental reason India is great for Startups: its sheer volume of unsolved problems.

Unlike mature markets brimming with options, where consumers have the paradox of choice, Indian Consumers have historically faced limited choices, with brands succeeding on distribution prowess and brand building rather than product innovation.

When I worked with India's largest TV broadcast company, we often spoke about how lack of choice affects viewership behavior in India. For many years, a certain storytelling style had continued to succeed because, for the Indian home-maker, there was nothing else to watch in the pre-streaming era.  And one can extend the same argument across industries.

Let us take a regular problem of transportation in cities, Uber and its clone Ola quickly ramped up and ran a duopoly in the taxi market, and soon a new set of problems occurred such as Drivers canceling rides, dirty cabs, and rider safety.  BluSmart, an EV cab company offered an alternative, no cancellations, scheduled rides, clean cabs, and polite drivers.  Consumers want quality and BluSmart delivered.  It has recently raised $24 million in Series B funding and closed FY24 at $145 million in approximate topline.

There is another cab company called Shoffr based in Bangalore.  Bangalore airport is relatively far from the main city, Uber takes time and if one has many suitcases, you would need to wait a long time for a suitable cab. Shoffr is an all-electric premium airport transfer service that has ByD e6 MPVs as cabs, these are clean cabs with a lot of luggage room and with well-dressed polite chauffeurs, it provides an excellent experience. Shoffr recently raised $1.1 million in funding from its customers making it a user-only community investment!

The Beauty & Personal Care segment is a fascinating landscape of untapped opportunities that new brands have entered and succeeded. In a category dominated by large global brands with boring products and lopsided purpose, brands like Mama Earth, Dot &Key, and Minimalist have been the Davids battling the Goliaths.

 Honasa Consumer Ltd, now a listed company has brands like Mamaearth, Rs 1000 crore brand, Derma Co – Rs 500 crore and Dr.Sheth and Aqualogica which are closer to Rs 150 crore.  I recollect when they launched an Onion-based shampoo and Turmeric sunscreen. These true Indian ingredients-based brands just broke through by promoting with strong content on Instagram and using key Influencers.  When big brands spent months agonizing over their TVC, young D2C brands were churning out fast content with influencers and catching the young audience. Today, Gen Z has a 4-step skincare routine that they follow!

Minimalist has the chemistry lab dropper-style bottles and black and white packaging with their simple logo. The dropper-style bottle is a fantastic packaging innovation, if it comes out of a dropper, we instinctively are hard-wired to believe it's good.

The Indian urban consumer is addicted to convenience and we are not made for DIY. When Zepto entered the market with a 10-minute delivery proposition, no one believed it would work or even scale. Today the Quick commerce category is the fastest-growing e-commerce channel and a market size of $2.8 billion with Blinkit and Zepto leading the pack. Zepto’s pvt label brand of chicken known as Relish has already hit Rs 500 crore in less than a year.

Almost every category is waiting to be disrupted in India and there are opportunities to build long-term sustainable businesses. This can be done with product innovation, technology, and marketing.

While we have the demographic dividend of the young population, university students need to increase their employability with the right skills and Career mentoring. Career Mentoring is a new category in India and companies like Intercell are working with leading universities to mentor their students.

I've mentioned a few, but countless others are building for India and solving real problems. Share your favorites in the comments!