What is Making Indian Entrepreneurs Tick Today

Discover key Indian entrepreneurship trends shaping the startup landscape—reverse brain drain, local innovation, digital infrastructure like UPI and ONDC, and the shift toward sustainable growth.

Indian entrepreneurship is at a defining moment. The last decade saw a startup boom characterized by blitzscaling, hypergrowth, and large rounds of funding. But today, a quieter and more deliberate wave is taking shape—one that signals maturity in both ambition and execution. From startups in small towns raising millions, to experienced founders returning from Silicon Valley to solve Indian problems, the landscape is expanding both in depth and breadth.

What’s fuelling this shift? What are the forces quietly reshaping the way Indian startups are being built, scaled, and sustained?

In this piece, we explore some of the foundational trends underpinning this transformation.

Choosing slow growth over hyperfast

Gone are the days when startups chased vanity metrics and blitzscaling at all costs. Today’s entrepreneurs are adopting a more measured approach—focusing on unit economics, sustainable growth, and early revenue traction. As we wrote in one of our earlier pieces— there has been a clear shift among investors moving away from betting on models that are chasing growth at all costs to those who are prioritising sustainability of their business in the long term.

Startups are moving away from chasing vanity metrics and blitzscaling at any cost. Today’s founders are embracing a more measured approach, prioritizing:

• Strong unit economics
• Sustainable growth
• Early revenue traction

Investors are also shifting focus—from backing aggressive growth models to supporting businesses built for long-term sustainability.

The assumption behind this shift: companies built on sound fundamentals are more resilient to market volatility and more likely to deliver steady returns over time.

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The impact of Reverse Brain Drain

India is no longer just a talent factory for Silicon Valley—it's becoming a powerful magnet for entrepreneurs returning home to build the next wave of innovation. Cities like Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Pune now rival global tech hubs with their cutting-edge infrastructure and connectivity. At the same time, government initiatives such as Startup India and a range of tax incentives are making it easier than ever to launch and grow a business locally, for instance through platforms like Invest India. But perhaps most exciting is the mindset shift: founders with global experience are coming back not just to build companies, but to solve uniquely Indian challenges—from fintech to agritech and beyond. As a result, there has been greater diversity in the types of startups being built from India that have very deep local roots but still have a global vision.

Leveraging local data to build world-class solutions

While the reverse brain drain effect gives some founders the edge to build more global products, the reverse is also true. Many founders are leveraging local technologies to build solutions that make sense for the Indian population. Riding on UPI, ONDC, and Aadhaar, some startups have built long-lasting businesses. Take the case of KiranaKart, a startup that leverages the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) and UPI to bring small kirana stores online. By tapping into India-specific digital infrastructure like Aadhaar for customer verification and UPI for instant payments, KiranaKart has built a hyperlocal grocery delivery network that works seamlessly in tier-2 and tier-3 cities.

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Building for India’s Diverse Market Needs

The real power of leveraging local data and infrastructure is the ability to cater to India's diverse population. With varying levels of digital literacy, income, and access to resources, solutions that work in urban India often don’t translate well to rural or semi-urban areas. By tapping into platforms like ONDC, which enable seamless integration between sellers and buyers across the country, startups are able to build scalable models that address these unique challenges. The result is an ecosystem where businesses are deeply connected to local needs, yet have the potential to scale nationally—and even globally. Startups that harness this local infrastructure are uniquely positioned to create lasting impact in India’s rapidly evolving market.

The WeWork Labs take

While reverse brain drain brings global perspective and polish to Indian startups, there's an equally powerful shift happening on the ground: founders deeply rooted in India are building for India, not just in India.

They're not chasing Silicon Valley playbooks. Instead, they’re leveraging India’s unique digital public infrastructure—UPI, ONDC, Aadhaar—to create businesses that couldn’t have existed anywhere else. These aren’t just short-term hacks; they’re long-term moats.

From hyperlocal commerce to financial inclusion, we're watching startups turn local rails into scalable platforms.