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India
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Intermediate
Why we picked it Before you build for a home market outside the big startup hubs, you need the real economics, and this is the essay that maps them most honestly. Sajith Pai separates the roughly 100 million affluent, English-first consumers from the much larger vernacular India coming online, and shows why the second group needs different distribution, different pricing, and often a full-stack model. It is a starting point for pricing a Bharat idea without kidding yourself about willingness to pay.
The Indus Valley Playbook
From Sajith Pai (Blume Ventures) by Sajith Pai ~20 min read
- The affluent English-first India and the larger emerging vernacular India rarely share one product or business model, so build for one deliberately.
- Lower incomes push monetization away from ads and subscriptions toward transaction-based and full-stack models where you control the value chain.
- Search-based ecommerce underserves the emerging segment, social and content commerce reduce the real friction of reaching it.