How to get startup ideas for India?
The other day, someone in a WhatsApp group claimed,
"There are hardly any startup ideas left that don't require big investment but are still large enough." (paraphrased)
India's startup ecosystem has a massive blind spot — we are obsessed with copy-paste models of what worked elsewhere, then wonder why we're stuck fighting in red oceans with razor-thin margins.
Let me tell you what doesn't work:
Reading McKinsey/BCG reports. They're trailing indicators, not leading ones. By the time something makes it into these publications, the real opportunity window has already begun closing.
Watching VC interviews. Most VCs are diplomatically constrained on camera. They share sanitized versions of what they actually believe. (Get them in a 1:1 conversation after building some trust, and you'll hear the real insights they'd never share publicly.)
Following what's "hot" in startup media for ideas. The moment something becomes a trend piece in YourStory Media or Inc42 Media, you're already late to the party.
So, what actually works?
Here's a playbook for finding the non-obvious opportunities:
Listen to people who are dealing with problems. They are always there—no matter how mundane one's life is, challenges and thus opportunities exist in schools (snapshot below), real estate (what is wrong with real estate insurance?), parking (Do you know the cost of setting up a parking system? Can't it be cheaper?), and multiple things around us.
Deploy AI as your research co-pilot. Not to generate ideas, but to help you dig far deeper into niches you've identified. AI helps you scale your curiosity and pattern-matching beyond what's humanly possible.
Become obsessed with balance sheets and unit economics. The real opportunities hide in plain sight when you understand the financial structures of industries. Most founders skip this step because it's unsexy detective work.
Hire experts to shoot holes in your idea. Not yes-men, but people with 10+–20+ years of experience who will tell you exactly why it could fail. Then decide if you can solve the issues they raise. They need not be domain experts; they need to be problem solvers. (Yes, I know there's a conflict of interest, but the fact is this is key.)
Case in point:
I am sure most of us know someone who is studying in an IB school, yet almost nobody thought to build a solution for that space until this one.
Akash's new business 👇
Stop looking where everyone else is looking. The best startup ideas aren't in TechCrunch—they're in the complaints, frustrations, and daily workarounds of people solving real problems.
What unsexy industry do you think is secretly ripe for disruption?
By - Saurabh
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