Shark Tank judge and Shaadi.com founder Anupam Mittal recently shared a LinkedIn post where he said that the idea that ‘Bharat doesn’t pay’ is a “lazy and expensive excuse”. Instead, Indians are willing to pay for a product or a service if they see real value in it. In the post, Mittal cites his own experience of building companies like Shaadi.com, makaan.com & Mauj. Anupam Mittal says that while building these firms he learned that users in India do spend when the offering meets their needs.“’Bharat doesn’t pay’ is a lazy & expensive excuse!,” he said adding “The truth is simpler, Bharat pays for value. I learned this the hard way with Shaadi.com, makaan.com & Mauj, & am now seeing a 2nd gen of cos monetizing at scale.”In the post, Anupam Mittal specifically highlighted Primetrace – a consumer AI startup focused on building AI-native products for the “Bharat” market. He said that despite not being in the headlines, it has achieved scale with a reported EBITDA run-rate of around Rs 200 crore.According to Anupam Mittal, the startup ecosystem has changed over the years and Indian users “are now, more than willing to pay”. “The ‘Bharat struggle’ is often lack of insight & imagination,” he concluded.
Read Anupam Mittal’s full LinkedIn post
‘Bharat doesn’t pay’ is a lazy & expensive excuse!I’ve sat in countless meetings where founders use this to justify poor unit economics or a lack of PMF. The truth is simpler, Bharat pays for value 🤷🏻♂️I learned this the hard way with Shaadi.com, makaan.com & Mauj & am now seeing a 2nd gen of cos monetizing at scale.Case in point, Abhishek Kejriwal and the team at Primetrace.They started a community network called Kutumb with a bang💥Then, for a long while, the noise died down. In a hyper-connected world, if you aren’t constantly in the headlines, people assume you’ve gone sideways. I’ll admit, I wondered the same.Turns out, they weren’t struggling. They were printing 💰The parent company, Primetrace, has quietly emerged as a serious, high-yield machine with a ₹200 Cr EBITDA run-rate 🚀No vanity metrics, no hype-cycles, but solid scale.The post-2021 world has been a brutal but necessary filter. We’ve moved from growth OR profit to growth AND profit.Indian users are also evolving.They are now, more than willing to pay, but only for sharp solutions, priced fairly.Time for cos to stop blaming the market, The ‘Bharat struggle’ is often lack of insight & imagination 😅
