Kumud Das Mumbai

Indianstartup founders are good at building for a hard home market. Very few design for global buyers from the first day, so architecture, compliance, and pricing get rebuilt later at high cost.

Part of the problem sits above startups. India’s large corporates and the government have put too little money into R&D, so the foundations that global products stand on, from deep tech to core platforms, rarely get built here. Startups end up building on borrowed ones.

Talking to Bizz Buzz, Kamal Kishore Kumawat, Co-Founder & CTO, Edgistify says, “Capital needs patience too. A product meant for the world needs five to seven years of funding, and our ecosystem still rewards eighteen months of GMV growth. Cross-border execution is the last gap.” Running fulfilment for growing brands, we see good products stall on export paperwork, international returns, and payment reconciliation. A small brand should ship to Dubai as easily as to Pune. Until then, many Indian products will stay Indian by default.

Nemesisa Ujjain, VP – Innovation & Head, The Circle: Founders Club says, “India has proven it can innovate, with startups solving real problems at scale across fintech, healthtech, agritech, and SaaS, and many other industries. The harder challenge is turning that innovation into globally competitive products. For that, three things must change.” First, we need to move from building for the Indian market alone to designing for global standards from day one, with a stronger focus on product quality, compliance, and user experience. Second, patient capital matters. Founders need longer funding runways and investors willing to back deep-tech and product-led companies, not just quick growth. Third, the ecosystem must invest in talent, research collaboration, and closer industry-academia ties, so that startups can build original IP rather than adapt existing solutions.

India’s startup story is no longer about potential. With the right policy support, mentorship, and global market access, our founders can build products that the world adopts, not just products that India uses.