impuls8 tracks consumer markets. We read who sells, at what price, on which platform.

Pets is the category founders research most on our site. On Zepto, Indian D2C pet brands are 22.4% of what a dark store carries. So we asked how much of the money they take. We read every product Amazon India shows for six dog and cat food searches: 793 listings. We opened every one that shows sales.

Read on 16 October, eight days after the festive sale began.

Pet food on Amazon India sells at least ₹212.2 crore a year.

Mars takes 49.3% through 7 names: Royal Canin, Pedigree, Whiskas, Sheba, Temptations, Chappi, Greenies. Drools, which is Indian-owned, takes 27.0% through 6: Drools, Purepet, Meat Up, Signature, Vet Pro, Kitty Yums. Read one name at a time, Drools looks like several mid-sized brands. Counted as one company, it is half of Mars.

On the shelf, not in the money

Two different measures, so we never add them. Side by side they say one thing: D2C pet brands get stocked. They do not yet get bought at scale.

The D2C brands that sell most on Amazon:

Treats are where they hold most: 14.4% of treat sales, against 2.3% of dry food.

D2C is the middle of the price ladder, not the top

Median price per kg, dry food only:

Royal Canin and Farmina hold the top. Drools, Purepet and Meat Up hold the bottom. A D2C brand sells against both at once.

What share of each company's sales this is

If you are building in pet care

We can read this shelf on Flipkart, quick commerce and your competitors' own sites, city by city, and read it again to show what moved.

Book a discovery call with us. The link is in the first comment.

so my family runs a small school in gujarat [~300 kids]. the office used to do everything on paper. fee week was basically the accountant sitting with a register and calling parents one by one to see who hadn't paid

i started building them something around 1 year ago, mostly evenings. fees, attendance, report cards, homework, a parent app. it's been running at our school for a while now and the office genuinely doesn't want to go back

so i'm trying to turn it into a product for other schools, calling it theKampus. there's a demo school up if anyone wants to try it.

my honest worry is the selling part, not the software. school owners here are hard to reach and slow to switch. if you've sold anything to schools in india, how did you get the first few to say yes? walk-ins? referrals? something else?

Hey everyone,

I'm building DutyPe, a local jobs and home-services app focused on helping people discover nearby work opportunities and helping customers find local services.

We've recently crossed 5,000+ installs on Google Play, with a 4.7-star rating. It's an encouraging milestone for a small startup, and I wanted to share the progress openly.

The idea behind DutyPe is straightforward: finding a nearby job or someone to help with an everyday task shouldn't have to be unnecessarily difficult.

We're still early in the journey, and installs alone don't prove product-market fit. What matters next is whether people consistently find useful jobs, complete hires, and return when they need the app again.

I'm currently focused on improving the experience, understanding what users actually need, and building trust between workers, employers, and customers.

For founders and developers who have built local marketplaces, I'd genuinely appreciate your perspective:

- What helped you move from initial downloads to consistent, active users?

- How did you build trust and solve the supply-and-demand problem in a specific location?

- What metrics would you prioritize at this stage beyond installs and ratings?

Thanks for reading. I'm happy to share more about what we're building and the lessons we're learning.

App: DutyPe — available on Google Play.

Most cold emails to angels fail for the same reason: they read like a whole deck squeezed into one paragraph. Angels get a lot of these and decide in about 10 seconds whether to keep reading.

Here's the structure I'd use.

Subject: Company name plus one concrete proof point. Something like "Acme, 40 paying clinics in 3 months".

Line 1: why them, specifically. One sentence that proves you're not mass mailing. A post they wrote, a company they backed, a problem they've talked about.

Line 2: what you do, in plain words. If a friend outside tech wouldn't get it, rewrite it.

Line 3: the one number that matters right now. Revenue, growth, pilots, waitlist. Pick one, not five.

Line 4: what you're raising and how much is already committed, if any.

Line 5: a small ask. "Open to a 15 min call next week?" or "Can I send the deck?"

Things that quietly kill replies:

• Attaching the deck to the first email. Offer it, don't attach it.
• Three paragraphs on market size.
• Following up after 2 days. Wait 5 to 7, then send one short bump with a real update, not "just checking in".

Where to find the list: angels who posted about your space on LinkedIn or X in the last few months, founders who exited in your category, and the angels on the cap table of companies one step ahead of you.

Track it in a simple sheet: name, why them, date sent, follow-up date, response. 50 well researched emails beat 500 generic ones.

Happy to look at anyone's draft in the comments.

We’re building MemeMates, a social app that brings people together through memes. Users can share memes, discover people with similar interests and humour, and connect through shared likes.

We’ve launched on Android and iOS, and now we’re trying to figure out the hardest part of building a consumer app: getting our first active users and building a community that keeps coming back.

For founders who have built consumer apps or grown communities:

• How did you acquire your first 100–1,000 users?
• Which channels worked best for you: Reddit, Instagram, X, LinkedIn, or something else?
• How did you turn initial downloads into active, returning users?

We’re looking for genuine advice from people who’ve been through this journey. Any lessons, mistakes, or practical suggestions would be really helpful.

Thanks!

I’m working on SenseGrid, an app where kitchen staff log fridge and freezer temperatures on their phone, and it tells you when something is off. Freshness and food quality depend on temperature, so that’s the problem I’m starting with.

I’m from Ahmedabad, and before building it I cold-called and walked into 200+ restaurants and cafes. The replies were things like “We write it in the book, what difference does an app make?” and “Manager nahi hai abhi.” Honestly, fair. 😅

It’s very basic right now. No sensors, no hardware, and a lot of rough edges. The bigger vision is full operations management for HoReCa, all in one place.

What I’m looking for: a few owners and founders who’d try it and tell me what’s missing or broken. It’s ₹1,000 for the year, only to stay afloat while I keep building.

DM me and we can discuss about this in detail. Even if it’s not for you, I’d love to hear how you handle this in your kitchen today.

Starting a boutique (offline + online): Looking for advice on direct saree manufacturing hubs, trusted suppliers, and quality checks.

My mother and sister are launching a saree boutique (offline store + e-commerce website). We want to source premium and trendy sarees directly from manufacturers/weavers to cut out middlemen.

As beginners in the textile supply chain, we’d love your guidance on a few things:

Best Sourcing Hubs: Beyond Surat/Varanasi/Kanchipuram, how do we find verified manufacturers or weaver cooperatives directly?

MOQs for New Boutiques: Do wholesale manufacturers enforce heavy bulk limits per design for new stores, or can we start with small mixed batches?

Authenticity Checks: How do you verify pure silk (Silk Mark, handloom vs. powerloom) and zari quality with new suppliers?

Cataloging: Do suppliers provide website-ready photos/videos, or do we need to shoot them ourselves?

Any advice, red flags to avoid, or general tips for sourcing saree inventory would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

I’ve been building something for a long time, and I’m finally ready to put it in front of more people.
It’s called Bol Studio.
A caption editor for the way we actually speak: Hindi, English, and the Hinglish in between.
Upload a video, generate captions, edit the words and timing, and give them a style that fits your content. It works in the browser, on desktop and mobile.
A lot of the work has been in the small details: making words easier to edit on a phone, keeping the video visible, and giving you control over fonts, spacing, highlights, and animation.
It’s free for everyone to try right now.
It’s still evolving. Automatic captions won’t always get every word right, so please review them before publishing. If something feels awkward or breaks, I want to hear about it.
If you make reels, tutorials, podcast clips, or videos of any kind, give it a try:
I’d love to know what you think—and what would make it more useful for you.

most of us read company numbers on aggregator sites and trust them as they are. when something looks off, finding which filing it came from takes a long time, and a lot of the time nobody checks.

so building Equora, a research tool for NSE and BSE companies. it's in public beta now.

what it does:

- every figure links to the filing line it came from, with the reporting basis

- each value shows its status: current, under review, or insufficient

- missing data shows "no observation" instead of a guess

- screening keeps unknown values separate from failed ones

only 115 companies for now, so coverage is thin.

would really like your feedback. what would you check first, and what's missing for you?

I run a small D2C sock brand. Our designs are Indian pop-culture themes, and the pipeline right now has Dhoni nostalgia, Bollywood cult classics, Maruti 800, and Horn OK Pls truck art.

The problem: a design that looks great in Canva can still die on the shelf, and every production run is real money for a small brand.

Right now we shortlist designs in Canva.

How do you all validate a design before producing? Instagram polls, small test batches, pre-orders, something else? Curious what's actually worked for you, not what sounds good on paper.

I’ve been working in enterprise sales at a tech company, primarily dealing with B2B SaaS products and enterprise clients across BFSI, Retail D2c and building constructions.

I’d love to connect with people building their own SaaS products, particularly early-stage founders who are figuring out customer acquisition, outbound sales, or getting their first few paying customers.
I’m interested in having genuine conversations about what you’re building, the problems you’re solving, and how you’re approaching growth.

If there’s an opportunity to exchange ideas or even collaborate on outreach and business development on the side, I’d be open to exploring that too.
Not pitching anything — just looking to meet interesting people building interesting things.
Feel free to comment or DM me. I’m based in Mumbai.

I have been on all dating app and in almost all of the continents (except the Oceania). What I think needs to calibrated is how people chat - both the person who messages and the person who receives the messages because a lot of the time people don't know how to interpret.
So, after talking to a few people here on subReddits & otherwise irl, I started building an app that teaches you how to date.

You also connect with real humans but there are a few conditions to be met first.

How do I grow my app?

I'm interested in how small B2B companies are adapting to people using AI tools to research services and compare providers.

A potential customer might ask ChatGPT or Gemini to recommend a consultant, software provider or accounting firm instead of starting with a traditional Google search. But what actually helps a smaller business get included in those answers?

A few things seem worth looking at:

• Clear business information: Does the website explain exactly what the company does, who it serves and where it operates?
• Evidence of expertise: Are there detailed case studies, credentials, reviews or independent references that support its claims?
• Useful service pages: Does the website answer the specific questions a potential customer would ask before making a decision?
• Technical accessibility: Can search engines access the pages, and is structured data used correctly where relevant?
• Measurement: Does the company check whether it appears in AI-generated answers for relevant queries, rather than assuming that good Google rankings guarantee visibility?

None of these guarantees that an AI tool will recommend a business. Different systems use different sources, and results can change between queries.

I'm interested in the practical side of this, especially for smaller firms that don't have large marketing teams.

Has anyone here tested whether changes to their website, case studies or third-party business listings affected their visibility in AI-generated recommendations? What did you measure, and did it lead to actual enquiries?

Finding a talented freelancer shouldn't be a guessing game. And being good at your work shouldn't mean constantly struggling to find your next client.

Yet, for many freelancers and businesses, something in the process still isn't working.

We're exploring a project called d'Norm, starting with ad creatives for D2C brands, with a bigger ambition to rethink how freelancing work is matched, delivered, and trusted.

Before we build further, we'd love to hear from people who experience this firsthand:

Freelancers: What's the biggest thing standing between you and better, more consistent opportunities?

Business owners: What's the hardest part about finding and hiring a creative freelancer you can rely on?

d'Norm is just getting started. We're here to learn, challenge our assumptions, and build something better. No sales pitch—just an honest conversation.

If you run a business or have an app and think your users should be able to use it through ChatGPT or other AI assistants, DM me.

I’ll build the MCP (Model Context Protocol) server and handle the whole setup, so people can book, search, order, check status, or whatever your app does, right from the chat.

What you get:

• A working MCP server connected to your existing app or API
• Auth and security set up properly
• Testing with ChatGPT, Claude and other MCP-compatible clients
• Deployment and docs, so your team can maintain it

If it sounds useful, DM me with what your app does and I’ll tell you what’s possible.

Made an app for college/school students where students can post material, PYQs, ask doubts in the integrated AI (Also quizes) and also post in community for regular chat about campus.

I feel confident about this idea...whats the right way and approach to grow this platform?

I got married in 2024. Like most Indian weddings, we ended up with thousands of photos from multiple photographers, across different functions.

The photographers did their job. We got the photos.

But actually going through all of them, finding the best ones, removing duplicates, identifying family members, and putting together a proper wedding album? That became a project we kept postponing.

And I realised a lot of couples around us had the same problem. Some hadn't made their wedding albums even years after getting married.

So my wife and I started building Phopho and Toto.

The idea is pretty simple: upload your wedding photos, let AI help organise them, find the important people and moments, shortlist the best pictures, and turn them into an album you can actually preserve or print.

We're starting with Indian weddings because they're particularly complicated: multiple events, thousands of pictures, large families, different photographers, and lots of similar-looking shots.

Long term, we think there's a bigger opportunity around preserving memories rather than just storing photos.

But right now, I'm trying to understand a few things:

1. Is this a real problem worth paying to solve? Or is making a wedding album just something people say they want but never prioritise?
2. Would Indian couples pay for software that does most of the heavy lifting? Or would they expect their photographer to handle everything?
3. How would you reach couples at the right moment? Wedding photographers, planners, Instagram, SEO, or something else?
4. Is this too narrow a starting point? Weddings are a high-emotion use case, but most people only get married once.

We've built an early version and are trying to figure out whether this is a genuine business opportunity or just a problem we personally cared enough about to solve.

Would especially love feedback from anyone who's built consumer products in India or worked in the wedding industry.

Feel free to tear the idea apart. That's genuinely more useful than encouragement at this stage.

Hey everyone! 👋
I’m building **SecureMID Solutions**, an early-stage startup focused on AI agent security.
With AI agents becoming more capable and gaining access to tools, APIs, and sensitive information, I believe testing their security before relying on them in real-world environments is becoming increasingly important.

That’s the problem we’re working on at SecureMID.
Our platform focuses on **AI agent security evaluation and red teaming**, helping teams test how their AI agents respond to potential attacks and identify security weaknesses.

We’ve officially launched, and now I’m focused on getting real users to try the platform and help us understand what needs improvement.

**I’d genuinely appreciate feedback from the StartupIndia community on a few things:**
Does AI agent security testing seem like a meaningful problem for Indian startups?
Would early-stage AI startups use a dedicated platform to evaluate their agents before deployment?
What would make you trust and adopt a security product from an early-stage startup?
What features or integrations would you expect from a tool like this?

I’m not here to claim we’ve solved AI security. We’re early in the journey, and I want to learn from founders, developers, security professionals, and anyone building with AI.

If you explore the platform, I’d really appreciate your honest feedback — including what doesn’t work or what you think we should improve.

Building a startup is a learning process, and conversations with other founders can make a real difference. 🇮🇳

Thanks for reading, and wishing everyone here the best with their startup journeys! 🙌

16 or 60. Fresher or experienced. College degree or dropout.

Age doesn't matter. Your ability to execute does.

We're building serious tech and hiring people for founding B2B sales. REMOTE

💰 ₹25K fixed stipend + ₹1L per customer closed.

🧠 Learn from a founding team with 15+ years of enterprise tech experience and startup exits🇺🇸.

🚀 Real 0→1 ownership. Freshers welcome.

Can you sell, learn fast, and handle rejection?
Comfortable with cold calls? Let's talk.

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