r/StartupFuture

I've been building Hoops GM — a free basketball franchise manager that runs entirely in your browser (desktop + mobile, no sign-up).



You run the front office: trades, the draft lottery, free agency, the salary cap — then coach live games on a real possession-by-possession engine, with an owner who tracks your record and can fire you.



Extras: pick a "franchise idol" to build around, blitz games at up to MAX speed, chase a Hall-of-Fame dynasty across seasons.



Play (free): https://hoops-gm-chi.vercel.app

Would love any feedback on the first 5 minutes.

Bribes.fyi is a unique crowdsourced platform that allows Indians to anonymously report incidents in which they were allegedly asked to pay a bribe at government offices.

Aryan Nishad’s app compiles the submissions of people and organises them by government department, city and state, offering users a snapshot of reported bribery patterns across India.

The platform divides bribery information into three main sections – reports, departments and cities. This allows visitors to look at reported incidents from different perspectives.

Young entrepreneur Aryan Nishad is a B.Tech student at Maharaja Agrasen Institute of Technology in Delhi.

“2.5+ Million requests in the last 10 hours. Tested bribes.fyi at a real scale today,” Nishad posted on LinkedIn recently.

Anupam Mittal has lauded the 20-year-old entrepreneur’s “sheer audacity and can-do attitude”.

“Hopefully, GenZ & Alpha will follow his example and bring meaningful change to India 🇮🇳 Truly inspiring,” Mittal said.

The departments currently listed in the app include the Police, RTO, Revenue/Land Records, Municipal Corporation, Passport Office, GST Office, Income Tax, Electricity Board, and Food and Drug Administration.

As of August 17, Bribes.fyi showed 646 reported bribes across 258 Indian cities.

According to the app, 37% of people who reported being asked for a bribe refused to pay but still managed to get their work done.

Among government departments listed, the Police Department had the highest number of reported cases, with 349 reports.

Among states listed on Bribes.fyi, Karnataka has the highest number of reported bribe cases, with 138 reports, followed by Maharashtra with 91 and Uttar Pradesh with 75.

According to the data available on the platform as of August 17, Assam had the highest refusal rate at 100%.

I’ve been noticing how Indore is slowly becoming more interesting for Global Capability Centers (GCCs).

What stands out to me is that companies are no longer looking only at the traditional metro cities. Indore offers a pretty practical mix — a growing talent pool, comparatively lower operating costs, improving infrastructure, good connectivity, and a lifestyle that can actually help with employee retention.

The bigger change is that GCCs themselves are evolving. They’re not just setting up support teams anymore. Technology, analytics, finance, engineering, AI and product functions are increasingly becoming part of these centers.

For me, that makes Indore’s growth feel less like a temporary trend and more like the beginning of a new phase for Tier-2 cities.

Maybe the next big talent hub doesn’t always have to be a metro. Sometimes, it can be a city that is simply getting the fundamentals right.

Digging through some old financials again and this one's a genuinely wild turnaround story.

Back in the early 2000s, Eicher Motors was mostly known as a struggling commercial vehicle / tractor company. Royal Enfield — the brand everyone associates with them today — was actually a near-dead legacy motorcycle line they'd acquired, selling a tiny number of bikes a year and barely breaking even. Nobody was betting on this company back then.

Fast forward to FY25, and the numbers tell a completely different story:

• Full-year FY25 revenue came in at ₹18,800 crore, up 14.1% over FY24, and that included consolidated revenues of ₹5,241 crore for Q4 FY25 alone — a 23.1% year-on-year jump Motoring TrendsMobility Outlook
• Net profit for FY25 rose 18.3% YoY to ₹4,734 crore.
• Royal Enfield crossed 1 million annual motorcycle sales for the first time in its history — 1,002,893 units, up 10% YoY.
• And it's still accelerating: Q2 FY26 revenue jumped 45% YoY to ₹6,172 crore, with Royal Enfield notching its highest-ever quarterly sales at 327,067 motorcycles

What makes this more than "another motorcycle company" story:

1. It's a genuine turnaround, not a straight line. Royal Enfield was basically an afterthought inside Eicher for years before it became the growth engine.
2. International expansion is now a real driver, not just a side note — the company opened its first fully-owned CKD assembly plant in Thailand and announced a second in Brazil to serve Latin America, alongside expansion in Bangladesh.
3. The company has delivered a 32.8% profit CAGR over the last 5 years and is almost debt-free, which is rare for a manufacturing business at this scale.
4. It's not a single-product bet either — the VECV commercial vehicle joint venture (with Volvo) is quietly putting up record numbers too, growing in a flat truck market.

The "boring legacy brand nobody wanted" angle is what gets me — this wasn't a hot IPO or a flashy tech story, just a slow multi-decade grind that most people ignored until the numbers got impossible to ignore.

Curious if there are other "sleeper" industrial/auto names people here think are quietly compounding the same way right now.

According to Durov, Telegram is in the process of obtaining the .gram domain zone and has applied for it to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a global nonprofit organisation responsible for coordinating the maintenance and procedures of databases related to the namespaces and numerical spaces of the internet.

“Telegram has applied for the .gram domain zone. If the application is approved by ICANN, a billion Telegram users could get their own second-level domains, yourname.gram. Users would be able to set up their interactive websites hosted by Telegram, with one prompt,” the founder said on X.

If approved, the move could offer Telegram's user base a new way to establish an online presence without having to rely on traditional domain names, which are usually chargeable.

Using AI prompts, users will be able to create interactive websites on their .gram addresses, which means a Telegram username can become the address of a website.

For example, if a creator's Telegram username is u/xyz they could have a web address such as xyz.gram in the future, which they could use to showcase their content, information, or other things.

Your website can look perfect and still be invisible to ChatGPT.

We’ve been checking websites for AI visibility, and one thing keeps surprising us: even established, well-funded companies can fail basic checks that affect whether AI search engines can discover and understand their site.

Before spending money on “AI SEO,” check your foundation first.

Leapd offers the best AI visibility audit for free. In about 10 seconds, it checks the basics and shows you what’s working, what’s broken, and what you should fix.

Enter your URL. See what AI sees.

Run the free audit →

He pointed to expenses such as private education and healthcare, along with air and water purifiers, as examples of costs families incur despite already contributing significantly through taxes.

Poonawalla suggested raising tax slabs and reducing the burden on salaried taxpayers, while also calling for an end to excessive freebies and better control over government spending.

He also argued that plugging corruption and administrative leakages and ensuring government projects and services are delivered efficiently could provide greater value to taxpayers.

His broader argument is that the middle class should not only be asked to contribute more, but should also see tangible improvements in the public services and infrastructure their taxes are meant to fund.

After completing her BSc in Biology and Master's in Biotechnology, Misra worked as a researcher at various labs in Delhi-NCR like ILBS and NIMR.

In 2012, she enrolled in a PhD program at Gautam Buddha University, Noida, where she worked on cancer and stem cell research.

However, her PhD journey was cut short in 2015 after she faced challenges around academic processes.

After leaving the program, Misra decided to pursue research independently and explore how her biotechnology background could be applied to agriculture.

“My research made me realise that Indian agriculture was still lagging behind in several areas, and I decided to apply my biotechnology background to modern farming to help improve it,” Sona Misra tells Startup Pedia in an exclusive interview.

She began looking at modern farming practices and eventually started researching hydroponics around 2019-20.

She invested Rs 10 lakh to set up a 4,000-plant, temperature-controlled hydroponic farm on the rooftop of a commercial building in Noida.

She experimented with more than 20 crop varieties, including lettuce, herbs, bell peppers, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, and 7-8 varieties of microgreens.

The rooftop farm produced good-quality crops and attracted orders from high-end societies in Noida, but the limited 4,000 sq ft space made it difficult to scale commercially.

In 2021, she leased a 1-acre farm in Sector 137, Noida, where she invested Rs 12 lakh to restore a ruined structure and set up a commercial hydroponic farm.

She primarily cultivated bell peppers and cherry tomatoes there, generating Rs 6-7 lakh in revenue in 2021-22.

However, poor groundwater quality, highly saline and infertile land, high maintenance costs, and the difficulty of managing multiple locations made the Noida operations difficult to sustain.

In 2022, Misra shifted her operations to a 15-acre plot in Bathain Khurd, near Kosi Kalan in Mathura.

The land also had saline soil and poor groundwater, but since hydroponic farming does not depend on soil quality, she installed RO plants to purify the water and built a 3-acre soilless farm using cocopeat as the growing medium.

Today, NutriLeafz primarily grows cucumber, bell peppers, and cherry tomatoes.

Cucumbers are grown on a 3-4 month cycle and produce around 30-35 tonnes per cycle, while bell peppers have a 9-month cycle and produce around 15-16 tonnes.

Cherry tomatoes are also grown for 9 months, with around 12,000 plants producing approximately 12 tonnes per cycle.

The farm currently generates around Rs 40-45 lakh in annual revenue by following a B2B model.

In 2018, right after college, Vibhor wanted to stay closer to nature and build a healthier, more meaningful life.

“Around that time, his family happened to keep a couple of cows at home, despite having no agricultural or cow-farming background. That became his first exposure to cattle, and I soon developed a fascination for the Gir breed,” Vibhor tells Startup Pedia in an exclusive interview.

In 2017, Vibhor travelled to Gujarat’s Kathiawar region, including Rajkot, Bhavnagar and Porbandar, to learn about the Gir breed from local generational breeders.

He found that these breeders maintained valuable pedigreed cattle, with a male calf sometimes valued at Rs 3 lakh to Rs 15–20 lakh, but were selling milk for just Rs 40–50 per litre and ghee for around Rs 1,000–1,200 per kg.

Vibhor saw an opportunity to build his own model by venturing into cattle rearing and selling authentic cow-based products to urban consumers.

In 2017, he rented land 15 km from Jaipur, invested around Rs 20–25 lakh, and bought 20 purebred Gir cows at an average of Rs 1.25 lakh each, along with one breeding bull.

Between 2017 and 2020, he focused on understanding cattle diets, pregnancies, deliveries and day-to-day livestock management.

After the 3-year trial, Vibhor purchased 12-acre land around 35 km from Jaipur. He later married Ishita in 2022, and she joined him at the farm full-time.

The couple then developed an agroforestry model, sourcing plants from Pusa Institute, CISH Lucknow and Indo-Israel Centres in Kota and Bassi.

They invested around Rs 2 crore in development and maintenance of farm

The farm currently has more than 2,000 trees. This includes 500 to 600 mango trees across 40 different varieties, which are currently in their second or third year.

The farm also has more than 300 white sandalwood trees, planted alongside host plants such as Neem, and more than 25 varieties of other fruiting trees, including papayas, strawberries and bananas.

Today, the farm has 100 purebred Gir cows, producing 250–300 litres of milk daily.
Around 30–35% is sold as liquid milk, while the rest is converted into ghee, producing around 9 litres of ghee per day.

It also produces around 1,000 litres of wood-pressed oil per month, along with 5–10 kg of colostrum powder monthly and up to 100 kg of milk powder per month

The farm produces 500 kg to 1 tonne of organic vegetables monthly, depending on the season.

Today, Kinaya generates around Rs 18–20 lakh in monthly product revenue, excluding livestock sales, translating to an annual run rate of approximately Rs 2.16–2.4 crore.

Most conventional drones depend on GPS signals and internet connectivity for navigation, positioning, and mission execution. In environments affected by GPS jamming, spoofing, or signal loss, these drones can lose control and fail to complete critical operations.

To solve this challenge, Enord developed indigenous GPS-denied navigation and AI-on-edge technology, enabling drones to process data onboard, detect obstacles, plan flight paths, and make real-time decisions without relying on external systems.

“I knew drones would become a critical part of future infrastructure and defence. If India does not build this technology, we risk losing an important strategic advantage,” Muhammad Anas tells Startup Pedia in an exclusive interview.

The idea took shape in 2018–19 when Anas was exploring how drones could operate inside confined spaces where GPS signals were unavailable.

He realised that autonomous navigation without external signals was the key challenge and decided to build a technology layer around it.

After securing incubation support from IIIT Delhi and grants from IIT Mandi Catalyst and MeitY, Anas incorporated Enord with his childhood friend Zain Saeed in 2021.

Over the years, the startup built a portfolio of indigenous drone platforms:
Inspector X: An AI-powered quadcopter designed for electronic warfare-resilient missions. It features onboard AI computing, autonomous target detection, GPS-denied navigation, obstacle avoidance, and supports payloads up to 2 kg.

Inspector Lite: A foldable AI-driven inspection drone equipped with obstacle prevention, 4K camera support, LiDAR mapping, and AI models for crowd detection, tree mapping, bird counting, and wildlife identification.

Altitude VTOL Series: Long-range Vertical Take-Off and Landing drones combining surveillance and precision-strike capabilities. The Altitude 100 offers over 100 km range, up to 6 hours endurance, thermal imaging, encrypted communication, and BVLOS operations.

HAVOC Tactical FPV Series: High-speed military drones built for reconnaissance, counter-terrorism operations, and precision strikes, featuring thermal imaging and speeds of up to 100 km/h.

EDiy Drone Kit: A customisable educational drone platform for builders and drone enthusiasts.

The startup operates a 4,000 sq ft manufacturing facility in Okhla, New Delhi, with a capacity to produce around 200 drones per month. Till date, Enord has sold around 1,000 drones to the Indian Army and also supplies the Indian Air Force, Indian Navy, and private enterprises.

In FY25, Enord generated an annual revenue of Rs 1 crore. In FY26, it reached Rs 3.3 crore.

He pointed to Tata’s aggressive expansion of the fashion brand, which has taken its store count to nearly 1,000. While that growth looks like a major success story, Shah believes it has also created two key problems for the brand.

“Zudio ka sabse bada dushman aur koi nahi hai, khud Zudio ki hi growth hai. Tata ne aggressive expansion karke lagbhag 1,000 Zudio stores open toh kar diye. Aur yeh sunne mein ek success story bhi lagti hai, par exactly yahi se shuru hoti hai inki do sabse badi problems,” he said.

The first issue, according to Shah, is “brand fatigue”. With Zudio stores now spread across several Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities, he believes the brand may be losing some of the sense of novelty and exclusivity that initially attracted shoppers.

Shah cited Zudio’s popular budget-friendly T-shirts as an example. As more people buy the same styles, he said, shoppers may increasingly see others wearing similar outfits. This could be particularly relevant among younger consumers, who often look for fashion that helps them stand out.

The second concern Shah raised is product quality. He claimed that some customers may be turning away from Zudio after finding that certain garments do not maintain their quality after repeated washes.

“Audience ko ab samajh aa chuka hai ki teen ya char wash ke baad inka fabric pochha ban jata hai,” he said, suggesting that some fabrics can become worn out after just three or four washes.

Shah also pointed to growing competition in the affordable fashion segment. He said other brands are offering products at similar price points while bringing different designs to the market, giving customers more choices.

In his view, these factors could eventually put pressure on metrics such as sales from existing stores and revenue generated per square foot of retail space.

Shah noted that Zudio has already established a strong presence in major cities and is now expanding into Tier 3 and Tier 4 markets. He believes the Tata brand name could give Zudio an advantage in these smaller cities, where the group has built a strong reputation over the years.

Zudio was launched by Trent, the Tata Group’s retail arm, in 2016. Its first standalone store opened on Bengaluru’s Commercial Street after the company initially tested the concept through select Star Bazaar outlets.

The brand’s rapid expansion and strong financial performance also contributed to a sharp rise in Trent’s share price. The stock reached around Rs 5,500 in 2024 but has since declined and is now trading at around Rs 3,000, according to the figures cited in Shah’s post.

Kiran Shah is an IIM Lucknow graduate who founded Go Zero Ice Creams in 2021. He had worked in Procter & Gamble Singapore before working at Apsara Icecreams and becoming its CEO.

The Chennai-based deeptech startup, founded by Divanshu Kumar and Moinak Banerjee in 2018, has developed robots such as Endobot for pipeline inspection and HomoSEP for mechanised sewer and septic-tank cleaning, reducing the need for humans to enter hazardous underground spaces.

Its SWASTH AI platform further turns inspection data into infrastructure maps and predictive insights. The company's solutions have already been deployed across 30+ cities in 15 Indian states, with its technology also being used by Dubai Municipality.

Now, with plans to expand manufacturing, develop new robotics solutions and enter markets across the Middle East and Southeast Asia, Solinas is looking to take its infrastructure robotics beyond India.

When a close family member of Siddharth Ramasubramanian and his wife Malavika S V fell ill, their household had to undergo several dietary changes. One of them was to cut gluten and dairy from their meals. This introduced them to the concept of fermented foods.

“Then a visit to the Netherlands made us discover tempeh in the form of a curry sold by a food business. We learnt about its high protein content and immediately felt like it could solve the protein gap in so many Indian vegetarian diets. But before any of that happened, we began consuming tempeh ourselves to understand how the food works, tastes, and absorbs flavours,” Malavika, co-founder of Hello Tempayy, tells Startup Pedia in an exclusive interview.

Upon deeper research, they discovered that tempeh has more protein than paneer and tofu.

In mid-2021, the couple officially founded Hello Tempayy with a bootstrapped amount of Rs 3.5 crore. It became the first brand in India to enter the tempeh category.

Today, the brand focuses heavily on premium non-GMO soybean sourcing, water quality, precision fermentation, and farmer partnerships.

“Manufacturing consistency is something we work on every day. The fermentation process has to be refined with every increase in quantity,” Siddharth explains.

Hello Tempayy has a total of 14 core products. In the ready-to-cook category, the brand offers cubes and crumbles in natural and marinated variants.

In the frozen ready-to-eat category, Hello Tempayy offers momos, kebabs, and parathas.

The protein brand now produces roughly 50,000 kilograms of tempeh every month.

Customers have caught on too. Recipe videos and cooking demonstrations have helped people identify exactly how tempeh can be made and how versatile it is in terms of absorbing flavours and being a part of a lot of dishes.

“People especially appreciate how affordable our tempeh products are. Many have been able to experiment with weight loss diets, vegan lifestyles, and gluten-free diets. Many, me included, have noticed improvement in gut health. Acid reflux has stopped,” Malavika shares.

When Hello Tempayy began, the startup founders had just 1,500 packs to their name.

Today, the clean veg protein brand sells 300,000 packs every single month across quick commerce, e-commerce, and offline mediums.

In 2022, Hello Tempayy’s annual revenue was Rs 3 crore.

Fast-forward to 2026, and the brand has crossed Rs 50 crore in ARR.

“In the next 12-18 months, we envision Hello Tempayy reaching Rs 100 crore ARR,” Siddharth affirms.