r/IndianEntrepreneur

Does anyone else feel like there's a desi mindset of treating service professionals like servants?

I usually go out of my way for clients. If I think something extra will improve the project, I'll just do it without charging. Extra site visits, small fixes, little add-ons... things that aren't in the contract.

One client lost all of that very early into the project. The more I made myself available, the more it became an expectation instead of something appreciated. Calls after work, Sundays, and a general attitude that I should always be available.

I have always experienced clients visit sites and ordering my staff for extras which are not even part of their contract. One dude wanted a whole room built on the roof because we had material and labour on the site. How unethical is it for them to speak directly to my site engineers and workforce ?

Now I don't take work calls after 5:30 PM or on Sundays. Funny how the clients who value you get more than they pay for, and the ones who don't end up getting exactly what's in the contract.

I want to start a company. Me and 2 others are building a SaaS product and want to register a company. How do you guys hide this from the employer, if I want to continue with my job. Also, should I go for LLP or Pvt Ltd company and still do not show it to our employers till we get certain MRR. What would be compliance requirements?

39F from Chennai. I'm a former Senior Product Manager and mom to a 9-year-old autistic child. I had to take multiple career breaks to care for my son. He's now in school but still needs my support, so returning to a full-time corporate job isn't easy.

I'm looking for business or franchise ideas with an investment of around ₹30 lakhs that can generate steady income. I'm currently considering an EV charging station but would love other suggestions.

Has anyone started a business in this budget? What would you recommend?

I’m looking for a person who enjoys solving random problems & tasks.

This isn’t a fixed role like graphic designer or developer. Every day is different.

Examples of tasks:
•Create multiple product color mockups using AI (30–40 variations from one design)
•improve and format long Word documents, reduce unnecessary pages, fix spacing and layout
•Organize Excel/Google Sheets
•Research products, suppliers, software, or competitors
•Use ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and other AI tools to speed up work
•Simple image editing and presentations
•Help automate repetitive business tasks
•Other miscellaneous business operations work.

You should:
•Be comfortable learning new tools quickly
•Have good business sense, with technical knowledge
•Must have access to Laptop or Desktop
•Be able to work independently with minimal supervision
•Have strong English communication skills
•Experience with AI tools.

Nice to have:
•Basic Photoshop/Canva/Figma
•Basic Coding Knowledge
•Website building
•Content Creation
•Basic automation (Apps Script, Zapier, Make, etc.)

This is a remote, part-time role with flexible hours. If you’re interested, DM me with:

Your location and time zone
Your experience
Tools you’re comfortable using
A few examples of similar work you’ve done
Your expected hourly or monthly rate
I’m looking for someone who enjoys figuring things out and can become a long-term part of the business.
Thanks

I’ve been thinking about this seriously.

A lot of people in India are confused after college or after their first job. Some go for MBA, some prepare for government exams, some enter IT, and some look at sales because it feels like one of the few careers where communication, hunger, and consistency can matter more than marks or degree.

But sales also has a bad image.

People say it is just targets, pressure, cold calling, rejection, unstable income, and managers shouting every month.

At the same time, I have seen that people who actually learn sales properly often understand business faster than many people in desk jobs. They learn how customers think, how money moves, how trust is built, and how markets work.

But all sales careers are not the same.

SaaS sales, real estate sales, insurance, banking, field sales, B2B sales, channel sales, and startup sales are completely different worlds.

So I wanted to ask people here honestly:

1. If someone is young and confused, is sales still a good career to explore?

2. Which type of sales is actually worth learning in India?

3. Which sales jobs should people avoid?

4. Can sales become a serious long-term career, or is it only a temporary hustle?

5. What should a beginner check before entering any sales role?

Would love honest answers from people who have done sales, left sales, hired salespeople, or are currently confused about entering it.

Been around year and half or two before I started the branded.
I got into product niche. Got to know that product I want can be only imported from China. But I didn’t realize until I was too deep that everything needs BIS.
I don’t know how to tackle this BIS problem.

I am scared and unable to see any long term growth, the dreams of scaling and investors and exits seem a crushed.

I even came up with another great product niche with deep research etc but ended up realizing again that even that product requires BIS. And again importing from China is an issue.

ATP after spending almost 2 years in this, I am loosing my mental strength, and hope of being a successful entrepreneur. Idk what to do know

This is a throwaway account. I don't want this associated with my startup.

Brief back story: Growth stage company doing about ₹3 Cr of revenue. In about 18 months, engaged 3 different marketing agencies. About ₹20-25L spend overall.

Each agency provided me with dashboards. Each agency provided me with "strategies". But revenue? Almost none.

My guess is that the issue is that I am paying for execution but have nobody that understands MY business and MY customer.

Before trying yet another agency or a full-time CMO (can't afford someone who makes ₹80L+ salary) I thought I would ask:

1. Anybody tried switching from agencies to a more senior marketing executive? How did it change things?

2. Ever tried a "fractional CMO"? Meaning an ex-CMO for part-time?

3. Did you ever solve why marketing doesn't work for you before trying the next one?

Not trying to sell anything. Just tired of paying the same lesson over and over again.

Most wearables we tested were too complex for seniors, so we built a screenless wellness band focused on health monitoring, caregiver alerts, and fall detection.

After months of development and user feedback, we're now running active pilots with 3 premium senior living communities in India.

For founders who have sold to senior living facilities or healthcare institutions:

How did you convert successful pilots into paid contracts?

Would love to learn from your experience.

Happy to answer

I am a 22-year-old student currently preparing for a competitive examination. Due to financial constraints, I am looking for opportunities to earn an income through freelancing to support myself during this preparation period.

I graduated last year with a Bachelor of Computer Applications (BCA) from a Tier-3 college. Unfortunately, I do not have a mentor or anyone in my personal network who is involved in freelancing or the technology industry. I also live in a remote area, which limits my access to guidance and professional opportunities.

Given my background and circumstances, I would sincerely appreciate your advice. Based on your experience and understanding of the current market, could you suggest skills that are worth learning alongside my exam preparation, a practical roadmap to enter freelancing, or any career paths that would be suitable for someone in my position? Any guidance or recommendations would be immensely valuable and greatly appreciated.

Before starting something of my own, I used to read a lot of startup stories. They all talked about startup culture and how founders help each other. I knew a lot of it was probably PR or written to get views, but I still had hopes.

I'm building an attribution tracking platform that helps brands track what Google Ads and Meta Ads miss. It tracks influencer marketing, SEO performance, affiliate marketing, and even WhatsApp campaigns, helping brands optimise costs and make better marketing decisions.

Over the last five days, I emailed 36 founders and sent LinkedIn messages to another 14. In my emails, I pitched my product. On LinkedIn, I didn't pitch anything I was just asking a few questions. Most of them saw the message and left it on read. I didn't track my email performance because it's a new domain, and I didn't want to risk ending up in the spam folder by adding a tracking pixel.

The end result?

Zero acknowledgement.

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Idea 1:

Influencers may have their own products to sell

And some may have a catalog of products.

Using our platform influencers can sell their products. We handle tech.

And also host their catalog with Amazon/ flipkart links.

It will also provide insights as to how many people clicked on the link, how many went into purchase. It helps to pitch their impact while collaborating .

Idea2:

Local businesses list their businesses and corresponding marketing budget. Influencers can come and text them up or show up their interests.

Owners can pick one among them.

It helps to offload time to find influencers, and can find many micro influencers.

I want your views towards this ideas.

Is there any pre existing tools are there, if so how can i create difference and attract influencers?

Need your suggestions.

Thankyou

Hello, I'm Akhill Singh and we're building Awanti, India's First AI-led Premium Omnichannel Spritual Wellness Platform for Global access of Sanatan Culture.

We saw that people in metro cities in India, NRI's & foreigners who want to get access to our culture get different or wrong information from every new platform they try online or offline due to which it feels a bit irritating whom or what to follow and what not too. People struggle to find reliable pandit in metro cities as the one they found either won't is enough knowledgeable or is not punctual, most people organizing a Puja don't even know what all Samagri required for it.

Here comes Awanti with it's 4 core Pillars :-

Online Pandit booking service, Premium Puja Kits and Puja essentials, 9+ Ai models for spritual guidance & Outlets in spritual towns near our Holy Mandir.

We've started pandit booking service in Delhi NCR region and our kits are available PAN India through our website. We provide pandit booking service including puja kits. We're currently developing our AI models and will start expanding in few months.

My dad is abusive and refused to pay for anything at all. He reminds me constantly that is should be grateful he's putting food on the table(which I have no qualms with, I am and should be grateful about that). But he refuses to pay for anything else even something as crucial basic as my college admission form or something as basic as a tshirt.

I have a Dell laptop and a phone and a couple months at hand where I'm completely free. What skill can I learn that will help me earn even just a little bit? Please help. I seriously need to earn something otherwise I literally won't be able to live. Ever 4k-5k a month is enough. Just something.

Also I'm a complete beginner so please give a bit of context if possible. So I can understand what I will need to do over the next few months.

(Also resources to learn suggested skills would be greatly appreciated)

My co-founder and I have spent the last few months building a 24/7 medicine delivery and refill service in the Tricity (Chandigarh, Mohali, Panchkula). Bootstrapped, about 80k a month, not live yet. Sharing what surprised us and looking for a gut check, because the hardest part was nothing like we expected.

The gap we found isn't access to medicine. If you're on daily meds (BP, sugar, thyroid) and run out at night, the local chemist is shut and the big apps are next-day. But the deeper problem is that nobody knows which nearby shop actually has your specific medicine in stock right now. That inventory is invisible, even to the shop next door. So instead of stocking medicine ourselves, we partner with existing pharmacies and route each order to whoever has it nearest.

The lesson that cost us the most time: pharmacies flat out refuse to run a second software or change how they work. Every model that asks them to dies on contact. The only thing that gets a yes is fitting into what they already do, and giving the ones with no system a dead-simple tool they can run for free. The tech was the easy part. The "please don't make me change anything" was the hard part.

Where we've actually reached, honestly:

- Verbal MOUs with two pharmacies, including the biggest 24x7 one in Mohali. Verbal, not signed.

- Informal demand test in another city; late-night demand is clearly real.

- Customer app and rider app both built, waiting on a DUNS number to list them.

What I'm unsure about and would like input on:

1. India is famously not a membership market (Zomato, Swiggy, Lenskart all struggled). We think health might be different. Has anyone made subscriptions actually work here?

2. Reliability is everything in medicine. One missed refill and trust is gone. How would you de-risk that in the first three months?

3. Onboarding the first 50 pharmacies is slow, manual ground work. Anyone who's done local-supply or kirana-style onboarding, what worked?

Happy to get into the model, the numbers, or the pharmacy side. Tell me where this breaks.

I'm a solo developer in my early 20s building a SaaS for small businesses.

After months of development, I finally launched and started trying to get users. I've tried cold emails, cold calls, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, and even visiting local businesses in person.

I managed to get a few signups, but almost none of them actually came back and used the product after registering.

That made me wonder if I'm solving the wrong problem, targeting the wrong audience, or just approaching customer acquisition the wrong way.

For founders who got from 0 to 100 active users:

• What was the moment things started working?
• How did you validate that people genuinely wanted your product?
• Looking back, what was the biggest mistake you made in the early days?

I'm not looking for shortcuts or growth hacks, I'm trying to understand what separates products that get real users from those that only get signups.