Indie Founder Scales SaaS Startup in India's Tier-2 City

Building in Bharat: How An Indie Founder Scaled a Startup Far From India’s Usual Tech Hubs

When most people picture India's startup boom, they imagine glass towers in Bengaluru, pitch days in Mumbai, or founders burning the midnight oil in Gurgaon. But in the heart of Bharat, in a tier-2 city not seen on glossy magazine covers, Aakash Jain believed the future of tech could be built anywhere. This is the story of how he turned that belief, and a small rented flat in Indore, into a thriving SaaS business empowering local retailers—and the very real struggles and small wins along the way.

Humble Beginnings: From College Project to First Prototype

Aakash never set out to be a founder. Initially, he just wanted to help his parents digitize their twenty-year-old hardware shop. Spreadsheets were a mess. Stock-outs happened often. His first solution—a basic inventory tool built in Python—was clunky but worked well enough to catch the interest of neighboring shop owners, who started asking for help.

Much of the early journey was about jugaad, the Indian art of piecing together solutions with whatever’s available. The city’s startup resources were limited. There were no weekly pitch events, few mentor networks, and just a handful of coworking spaces. The tech ecosystem was so small that every developer knew each other by name.

“I remember cold-emailing Bangalore VCs and getting zero replies. In Indore, it felt like you had to build credibility from scratch—nobody was throwing money at early-stage ideas here,” Aakash reflects.

The First Break: Customers, Revenue, and Some Unexpected Pivots

• First Customers: Convincing local retailers to sign up was harder than writing code. Many didn’t trust technology, quoting horror stories about bug-ridden systems. The breakthrough came after months of free pilots and fixing real-life issues at midnight. His early adopters were not tech-savvy—most still typed with one finger and needed the team to set up everything, in person.
• First Revenue: After a year of relentless demos, a local chain paid for the platform. The first payment arrived via cheque, and it still sits framed in Aakash’s workspace. The team celebrated with chai and samosas instead of champagne.
• Pivots: Feedback cycles were lightning-fast. Many initial features, like SMS order updates, were ignored, while a simple GST export feature became a top request. The product roadmap was guided by daily WhatsApp chats with users rather than slick analytics dashboards.

The team wasn’t scaling fast like metro startups. Talent retention posed a daily battle. College grads often moved to bigger cities for higher pay. Coordinating with remote venture partners meant constant time zone math. Yet, every small win felt magnified: landing a customer outside the city, running a zero-downtime migration on local internet speeds, recruiting the first full-stack engineer willing to stay for the long haul.

Lessons Learned: What Building in Bharat Teaches About Resilience and Opportunity

1. Pace Yourself, But Keep Shipping: Growth may be slower in tier-2 cities due to talent and network gaps, but local founders have the invaluable advantage of time—they aren’t pressured to “blitzscale,” and can build deeper community connections. Focusing on steady progress, listening to users, and releasing updates frequently kept momentum alive, even without VC pressure.
2. Lean Into Frugality: Resource constraints can be a superpower. The team became experts at cost-effective experimentation—using open-source tools, engaging university interns, and swapping equity for skilled mentorship rather than expensive consultants. Every rupee spent was tracked; this forced discipline proved vital when scaling.
3. User Empathy is Your Differentiator: Building for Bharat means building for people new to digital workflows. Product design priorities shifted from “cool features” to clarity and simplicity. Support was always one call away, and many launches began with hands-on training—sometimes at the user’s shop counter.

“Cynics say you need a big city network, but our customers became our best marketers. Word-of-mouth grew faster here than any ad campaign. Empathy and patience build trust—both with users and your own team,” shares Aakash.

Behind the Scenes: The Unseen Realities and Small Victories

Financing was always uncertain. Much of the seed round came from family and personal loans. Each milestone took double the grit—there were weeks where power cuts threatened release cycles and internet downtime meant running bug fixes from a friend’s café. Yet, these hardships forged a culture of adaptability and community that remains key to the company’s DNA.

Looking back, Aakash credits the journey to finding meaning in setbacks and building for real users, not metrics. As the startup crossed its first 100 customers and expanded to nearby towns, he realized the true opportunity of Bharat: untapped markets, fierce loyalty, and the power of building where others overlook.

Now, with a presence in three states and a growing team, the company partners with local colleges to nurture tech talent, launches new features based on user WhatsApp groups, and maintains a culture of celebrating the smallest wins.

Discussion Hook

What are the biggest advantages or obstacles to building a startup outside India’s main metros? Does local knowledge outweigh network gaps? Share your own learnings or related experiences in the comments below!

What is your biggest takeaway from this journey? Share your thoughts in the comments below!