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India
Free
Intermediate
Why we picked it Most market-size decks quote inflated business counts and then wonder why sales stall. This is a founder writing from conversations with over 500 business owners, and it argues India has roughly 15 million real businesses (not 70 million plus), with 81 percent sole proprietors and a brutal power law where a small slice drives most revenue. It is a grounded starting point for why reaching small businesses outside the metros is a distribution problem, not just a counting problem.
SMB market in India
From Iron sharpen Iron (Substack) by Aarihant Aaryan
- The real count of businesses is much smaller than the numbers often quoted, so start from GST/Udyam reality rather than optimistic totals.
- Revenue follows a steep power law, so who you target inside the market matters more than the market's headline size.
- Smaller owners value money over time, which changes how (and whether) they will pay for what you sell.