Your First Startup: A Founder’s Guide to Starting Up in India

Explore how to launch your startup in India—from building a founder mindset to spotting whitespace, securing funding, and embracing failure as part of growth.

Introduction

Starting a company today is significantly easier than it was a decade ago. In the past, aspiring founders often faced limited access to resources and had to navigate complex layers of compliance. Now, entrepreneurship is more accessible than ever—even students can begin their journey while still in school. From micro-entrepreneurs to leaders of unicorn startups, founders across the spectrum are united by a common goal: building solutions that address everyday challenges faced by Indians. Becoming a founder today is significantly easier than it was a decade ago. Aspiring entrepreneurs can now begin their journey early—often while still students. From micro-entrepreneurs to leaders of unicorn startups, founders across the spectrum share a common vision: creating solutions that address everyday challenges faced by Indians.

This entrepreneurial momentum is supported by a more robust ecosystem, strengthened by initiatives like Startup India, besides access to more domestic funds like Fireside Ventures, Antler. As a result, starting a business is no longer a distant dream—it’s an achievable reality for anyone with the drive to build.

This guide is designed to help you navigate the early stages of your entrepreneurship journey—from developing a mindset of innovation to identifying opportunities, building your business model, securing funding, and scaling your venture. Whether you're aiming to create a side hustle or build the next unicorn, you'll find insights and action steps to turn your idea into a thriving enterprise.

Also Read: role of work culture in startups

Building on your founder mindset

India presents a fascinating array of complex challenges. Every entrepreneur—whether running a micro-enterprise or a larger venture—must navigate similar hurdles when designing solutions for this diverse population. One key consideration is the nation's pronounced price sensitivity, driven by a wide disparity in income levels across its people.

Challenges like this call for a special kind of resolve from founders. Micro entrepreneurs and leaders alike, need to rise up and seize the opportunity as they see it. For instance, Cipla’s Global CEO and MD sees price sensitivity as a moment of opportunity: “India is this huge price sensitive market. Every time prices come down, volumes shoot up. The 1.5 billion people we have is something that is at the bottom of the pyramid. What lies at the bottom is tremendous opportunity,” he told The Economic Times.

Tips on building the founder mindset: Master obsession- As Arvind Radhakrishnan, the Head of WeWork Labs puts it, obsession is key to making your founder mindset work for you. “It’s more likely that you’ll start obsessing over something if it’s a problem that intensely bothers you! I think that is the easiest way to ensure that you will work towards finding the best solution, and build the hustle mindset to solve the problem holistically. You will find the team that resonates with that problem, and you will see the product come to life in a way that resonates meaningfully with you.”

Spend time with new people- The key to unlocking new solutions and working your way through a problem is to constantly meet new people. Play the role of an active listener to make sure that you absorb as much information as possible. Like for instance, when building your product listen closely to what customers are saying and iterate your product based on feedback actively.

Build strong resolve- Every founder will face setbacks, rejections, and moments of self-doubt. What separates the great from the average is the ability to stay grounded and keep pushing forward, even when things aren’t going your way. Developing resilience means training yourself to see challenges as feedback, not failure. Surround yourself with mentors and peers who can keep you accountable and help you recalibrate when the going gets tough. Remember, grit often outperforms raw talent in the long game.

Think in experiments – A founder mindset thrives on iteration. Instead of chasing perfection from day one, adopt a mindset of rapid testing. Launch MVPs (Minimum Viable Products), gather feedback fast, and tweak your approach continuously. The faster you can learn what works—and what doesn’t—the closer you’ll get to building something truly impactful. Think like a scientist: everything is a hypothesis until proven otherwise.

Identifying the whitespace opportunities

Founders who thrive in today’s dynamic landscape are often those who excel at spotting whitespaces—unmet needs, underserved communities, or inefficiencies hidden in plain sight. In a country as vast and diverse as India, these whitespaces can emerge in the most unexpected corners: from rural logistics and vernacular content to affordable healthcare and digitized agriculture. Identifying these whitespaces also requires a good level of nuance–it is often a combination of understanding market dynamics and shifts, and a willingness to question the status quo.

Also Read: Indian entrepreneurship license raj to modern era

Take De Haat for example. The agritech startup identified a massive whitespace in rural India where millions of farmers lacked access to quality agri-inputs, advisory services, and reliable market linkages. By building a full-stack platform that delivers everything from soil advice to selling produce, DeHaat tapped into a segment that was traditionally fragmented and inefficient. Their success came from deeply understanding the grassroots realities, digitizing the supply chain, and offering farmers both convenience and empowerment—without uprooting local practices.

Navigating the ‘unbecoming’

While the becoming of a founder in India today is celebrated, the unbecoming is rarely spoken of. The truth is, not every entrepreneurial journey ends in success—and that’s okay. The cultural narrative around failure is slowly shifting, but it still carries a heavy weight, especially in smaller towns and traditional setups where stability often trumps risk.

Unbecoming doesn’t just mean shutting down a startup. It can mean pivoting your business model, moving to a different industry, or even choosing to walk away and re-enter the workforce.

Kunal Shah, the founder of CRED, is a textbook case of navigating the unbecoming phase with vision. Before CRED, Kunal founded FreeCharge, a mobile recharge and payments platform that saw massive early success. It was acquired by Snapdeal in 2015 for around $400 million—a big exit at the time.

But what followed wasn’t a straight path to the next venture. After the acquisition, FreeCharge struggled under its new parent company. Kunal stepped away, spent time studying consumer behavior, researching wealth psychology, and even took a break from the pressure of “what’s next.” For someone who had already "made it," unbecoming meant stepping out of the spotlight and resisting the urge to jump into another startup too soon.

The path ahead

As you chart your entrepreneurial course in India today, remember that both the becoming and the unbecoming are part of the journey. Success is no longer defined by unicorn status alone—it can be found in local impact, in sustainable scale, or even in a single customer’s life made easier.

Whether you’re building your first prototype from a college dorm or navigating the complexities of a scaled operation, know this: you’re part of a generation of builders reshaping India’s future. And that future is as much about grit as it is about glory.

(Side note: We're hosting a curated event for early-stage founders in Bengaluru this May, where we'll dive into these ideas and much more. Click here to learn more.)

The WeWork Labs take

Whether it’s tackling hyperlocal problems or designing tech for the next 500 million internet users, our community of early-stage entrepreneurs is driven by purpose, creativity, and a deep understanding of ground realities. It is possible that the next big leap won’t come from following trends, but from spotting the gaps others overlook—and having the grit to build what truly matters.