Sachit Sharma spent his college years chasing the highest campus package, only to realise years later that the real education was watching founders build. At Flipkart, he saw the risks people took to turn nothing into something- and it changed what he wanted for himself. Today, as co-founder of Deepsolv, he's building the decision-making brain marketing teams didn't know they were missing.

I don’t think I always knew I wanted to become an entrepreneur.

I was born in Himachal and grew up in Delhi. In my family, everyone had jobs. Also, there was never really any pressure on me to follow a particular path. Being the youngest probably helped, as I was given the freedom to figure things out on my own.

But even as a kid, I liked building things..

During school and college, I was always organising events - chess tournaments, coding events, getting people together for activities etc. I didn’t call it entrepreneurship back then. I just enjoyed taking an idea and making it happen.

The 9-to-5 that inspired me

When I joined Delhi College of Engineering, I was honestly no different from most students around me. There was this huge craze around placements and getting the highest package. So I made that my goal. I wanted to be one of the students with the highest package, and fortunately, I put in the work, sharpened my problem-solving, and eventually got there.

That took me to Flipkart, and when I joined, I already had a plan in mind. I thought I’d spend two or three years there, learn as much as I could, build a network and then start something of my own. But two years became three, and three became five because I genuinely loved what I was doing.I was one of the early engineers involved in building a machine learning platform for Flipkart, working in the Marketing, Merchandising and Monetisation team and leading the AI engineering efforts.

But the biggest thing that Flipkart gave me was seeing how people build their own dreams. I saw the passion founders had, the risks they took and the amount of uncertainty they were willing to live with. That really stayed with me. Slowly, I started feeling that I wanted to experience that myself. I wanted to know what it felt like to take something from zero and build it.

My first startup

In 2022, I started Sign3.ai. If I’m being honest, we had no idea what we were doing when we started. There were three of us from tier-1 colleges and good backgrounds, but we didn’t have a perfectly validated idea. We eventually had a three-page Google Doc explaining what we wanted to build.

The crazy part was that we managed to find investors who believed in us even before we had built anything. They invested based on that idea and their belief in us.

We started building, got customers, worked with neobanks and marketplaces and eventually scaled the company to around $500K ARR. I eventually exited Sign3, and around the same time, ChatGPT was starting to take off. I was really excited by the possibilities LLMs were opening up and knew I wanted my next company to be built around AI.

Starting DeepSolv

After Sign3, I knew I wanted to build again, and this time around Gen AI.

That’s how Purby, my co-founder, and I started Deepsolv. We had known each other since college and had already worked together at Flipkart and Sign3.

Initially, we wanted to build around social commerce. We felt the space was evolving quickly, and saw an opportunity to use generative AI to help brands grow through organic social media. But soon realised it was a vitamin, not a painkiller. The problem wasn’t tied closely enough to business outcomes, and the subjective nature of content and engagement made it hard to productise. What we gradually realised was that the bigger opportunity was in helping marketing teams make better decisions around the parts of marketing most directly tied to P&L.

We kept talking to customers and experimenting until enterprise customers approached us with a different problem: managing negative comments on their paid ads. Unlike our earlier use case, they were willing to pay for it upfront.

If a customer is willing to pay you to solve a problem, that’s a very different signal from someone simply saying they like your product. It made us realise that we were looking at the wrong part of the problem. By the end of 2025, we decided to move away from organic social media and focus on performance marketing.

We started with solving the problems like:

Why did one ad work while another didn’t?

What should I test next?

What are competitors doing?

What are customers saying in comments and reviews?

What trends are emerging that could turn into a creative opportunity?

As AI makes it easier for teams to create and test more content than ever before, we believe the harder problem will increasingly be deciding what to create, what to test, and what to scale.

That’s what we’re trying to answer with Deepsolv. We bring together ad performance data, competitor intelligence, social trends, comments, reviews and other customer signals to help brands understand not just what is happening, but why it is happening - and what to test, iterate, scale or kill next. The goal is to build an intelligence layer that gets better as it learns from every campaign and experiment.

The hardest ‘No’

The hardest thing was learning not to confuse activity with progress. As engineers, it is easy to keep building because a customer asks for something, especially when there is money attached to it. But we realised that if every customer requirement became part of the roadmap, we would slowly lose sight of the product we actually wanted to build.

So we became much more disciplined about what we said yes to. If something didn’t fit the problem we wanted to solve or the direction of the product, we would rather walk away from the revenue. At the same time, we stopped treating interest as validation. We moved away from free trials and started asking customers to pay for pilots.

Interest is easy to get. The real validation is when someone is willing to pay to solve the problem.

The reality of being a founder

I think people often see startups through milestones, funding, customers, growth, exits. But the day-to-day reality is very different. There’s a lot of uncertainty, self-doubt, and plenty of moments when you question whether you’re solving the right problem or moving fast enough.

What I’ve learned is that you still have to show up the next day and keep going.

There was a time when I didn’t really understand what people meant by “creating value.” I used to hear successful founders talk about it, but it felt abstract. I understand it much better now.

You really feel it when something you’ve built starts changing outcomes for someone else, when a customer makes more revenue because of your product, when a team becomes significantly more effective, or when they can do something they simply couldn’t do before. That’s when you realise that building a company is ultimately about creating value for other people.

That, for me, has become one of the most rewarding parts of entrepreneurship.

The people and wins behind Deepsolv

One of the biggest moments for us at Deepsolv was getting one of the world’s leading marketing agencies as a customer. It was a huge validation, not only that the problem was real, but that the same problem existed within sophisticated marketing teams managing large volumes of campaigns and creative decisions.

I’m also lucky to have a cofounder who complements me well, a great team, and angels who believe in us. Purby takes care of product and technology, while I focus on business and sales. We don’t always agree on everything, but we’ve learned to trust each other’s judgment and give each other space to own our areas. It makes things a lot easier when things get chaotic, because we know we can rely on each other to figure things out.

And honestly, building a company can get intense, so I think it’s important to have things outside the work to look forward to. We’ve promised the team that once we close our current round, we’re taking everyone on a vacation. When you’re building something for the long term, you need reasons to pause, celebrate, and enjoy the journey along the way.

Five years from now

If you had asked me in college what success meant, I probably would have said getting the highest package. At Flipkart, success was about learning as much as I could and becoming really good at what I was doing. With my first startup, it became about building and scaling a company.

Today, I think about it differently. I want to build something that people genuinely need. Something that creates real value and can become much bigger than me.

For Deepsolv, the five-year vision is to become the decision intelligence layer for marketing teams. Today, we are starting with creative performance, helping teams understand what is working, why it is working and what they should test next.

Over time, we want Deepsolv to help teams make better marketing decisions across the board and gradually become the intelligence layer behind how modern marketing teams operate.

Life beyond building

Outside of work, I’m naturally curious about how people think and live. I enjoy geopolitics, spirituality, different cultures and philosophies, and I often go down rabbit holes that expose me to perspectives very different from my own, especially stories from unusual or remote parts of the world.

I think that curiosity helps me question my assumptions and broaden how I look at things. I also love cricket, badminton and pickleball, and enjoy meeting people who make me think differently.

Looking back, a lot of my journey has been shaped by the people I met, the things I saw and the chances I decided to take. I’ve always enjoyed turning ideas into something real, now I get to do it with a team, a product and a problem that matters.

At Razorpay Rize, we’re drawn to founders who build patiently, stay close to the problem, and don’t get carried away by the hype. Sachit Sharma is a great example. He spent months talking to customers, let go of an idea that wasn’t working, and kept iterating until he found a problem people genuinely cared about and were willing to pay to solve.

That's a version of entrepreneurship most founders will actually recognise in themselves.

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Shipping a product from a factory in Tirupur or Moradabad to a customer’s doorstep in Texas is far more complex than simply handing the goods to a freight forwarder. It involves multiple stages- packaging, documentation, customs clearance, freight, warehousing, last-mile delivery, and more. Each stage comes with its own costs, risks, timelines, and potential points of failure.

In this guide, we’ll walk through the complete logistics journey from the moment your goods leave the factory to the moment they reach an American customer’s doorstep. We’ll also look at why Amazon FBA has emerged as one of the most powerful distribution options for Indian exporters looking to build and scale their presence in the US market.

Warehouse to Port: International Freight

This stage of the export journey covers everything from inland transportation and port handling in India to international ocean or air freight and arrival at a US port or fulfilment centre. Choosing between air and sea freight, selecting the right shipping route, consolidating cargo, and working with the right logistics partners can make a substantial difference to your overall economics.

Ocean Freight vs. Air Freight

FCL vs. LCL

How to Choose the Right Freight Forwarder?

Your freight forwarder is arguably the most important logistics partner you will have. They handle booking, documentation, customs at origin, and coordination with your customs broker at the US end.

What to look for:

• Experience specifically with India-to-US shipments (not just general international freight)

• In-house or strong partner relationships with a licensed US customs broker

• Familiarity with your product category (hazmat, food, textiles, and other categories have specific documentation requirements)

• Transparent fee structures (watch for destination handling charges that are not quoted upfront)

• References from other Indian exporters you can actually call

Do not default to the cheapest forwarder. One documentation error can get your shipment held at US customs for weeks. The cost of that delay dwarfs any savings on freight.

US Customs

Once your shipment reaches the US, it still has one important hurdle to clear: customs. US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reviews commercial shipments entering the country, and while most shipments move through smoothly, missing or incorrect paperwork can quickly turn into delays, extra charges, and frustrated customers.

Here’s what you’ll typically need:

• Commercial Invoice: Think of this as the primary document for your shipment. It should clearly state what you are shipping, the HS code, country of origin, and declared value.

• Packing List: This tells customs and your logistics partners what is actually inside the shipment, including the number of packages, weight, dimensions, and contents.

• Bill of Lading or Air Waybill: This is the transport document that accompanies your shipment, depending on whether you are shipping by sea or air.

• Certificate of Origin: Depending on your product and the applicable import requirements, you may need to provide proof of where the goods were manufactured.

• Product-Specific Certifications: Some products come with additional compliance requirements. Food products, for example, may have FDA requirements, while certain electronics may need FCC compliance and children’s products may fall under CPSC requirements.

For routine shipments, an experienced broker can often complete the clearance process within 24-48 hours of arrival, provided all documentation is in order.

While customs broker fees, typically around 150-400 per shipment for standard cargo, add to your logistics costs, they can be well worth it.

Fulfilment Centre to Customer Doorstep

The last mile is the final leg of your logistics journey, getting your product from a US warehouse or fulfilment centre to the end customer or retail location. Despite being the shortest part of the journey, it can often be one of the most expensive and operationally challenging.

For B2B shipments, last-mile delivery is relatively simple. If you are supplying a retailer or distributor, a trucking company can move pallets from the port or warehouse to the buyer’s facility, after which the buyer typically takes care of the remaining distribution.

DTC (direct-to-consumer) shipping is a different story. Instead of moving one large shipment to a single location, you may need to send hundreds or thousands of individual packages to different addresses across the US. Customers also expect these orders to arrive quickly, often within 2–5 days.

Some of the major last-mile delivery options in the US include:

• UPS and FedEx

• USPS

• Amazon Logistics

• Regional carriers: Companies such as OnTrac, LSO, and Spee-Dee can offer lower rates in the regions they serve and can be useful for larger-volume shippers looking to reduce delivery costs

For a typical 1 lb parcel, last-mile shipping can cost around 6–12, depending on the delivery zone, package dimensions, service level, and carrier. Costs increase as the package gets heavier or larger.

How Amazon FBA Simplifies US Logistics

If there is one logistics solution that has made it significantly easier for international sellers, including Indian exporters, to enter the US market, it is Amazon FBA (Fulfilment by Amazon)!

You send your inventory to Amazon’s fulfilment centres in the US, and Amazon takes care of what happens next. It stores your products, picks and packs orders as they come in, ships them to customers, and manages returns.

Products fulfilled through Amazon FBA are eligible for Prime, giving them access to Amazon’s fast delivery network and making them more attractive to the millions of Prime customers in the US.

In return, you pay Amazon storage fees for holding your inventory and fulfilment fees when orders are shipped.

FBA Cost Breakdown

FBA fees depend on product size and weight. For a standard-size item (let us say a 1 lb product in a box under 15 x 12 x 0.75 inches):

• Fulfilment fee: Approximately $3.50-5.00 per unit (picking, packing, shipping, customer service, returns)

• Storage fee: Approximately $0.75-2.40 per cubic foot per month (lower in Jan-Sept, higher in Oct-Dec peak season)

How to Ship to Amazon FBA?

You don’t send individual customer orders from India to Amazon. Instead, you ship your inventory in bulk, usually cartons or pallets, to Amazon’s fulfilment centres in the US.

The process typically looks like this:

1. Create your Amazon listings: Set up your products in Amazon Seller Central and enrol the eligible products in FBA.

2. Create an FBA shipment plan: Amazon will provide instructions on where your inventory needs to be sent and which fulfilment centre or centres to use.

3. Apply the required labels: Products need the appropriate Amazon FNSKU barcodes. You can label the products yourself or pay Amazon to apply the labels for you.

4. Ship your inventory from India: Your goods can be shipped directly to the designated Amazon fulfilment centre or routed through a US-based 3PL or prep centre that handles labelling, inspection, and Amazon-compliant packaging.

5. Amazon receives your inventory: Once Amazon receives and processes the shipment, your inventory becomes available for sale, and Amazon takes over fulfilment when customers place orders.

However, while FBA simplifies much of the fulfilment process, it comes with its own limitations like:

• Inventory placement fees

• Long-term storage fees

• Stranded inventory

• Return rates in some categories (apparel, electronics) can run 15-30%

FBA vs. 3PL: Which Is Right for You?

Third-party logistics providers, or 3PLs, are US-based fulfilment companies that store your inventory, process customer orders, ship products, and often manage returns. Unlike FBA, a 3PL isn’t tied to a single marketplace, giving you the flexibility to fulfil orders across Amazon, your own website, wholesale customers, and other sales channels from the same inventory pool.

A 3PL can be a better fit when:

• You sell across multiple channels

• Your products are large or heavy

• You need custom fulfilment

• You want greater control

Good 3PLs for Indian exporters entering the US market: ShipBob, Flexport Logistics (formerly Deliverr), Red Stag Fulfilment and regional 3PLs near your target customer base.

Building a Scalable Logistics Strategy

A scalable logistics setup might evolve like this:

Early Stage (Years 1–2):
Start with one reliable freight forwarder, a US customs broker, FBA for DTC fulfilment, and LCL ocean freight for smaller shipment volumes.

Growth Stage:
As volumes increase, move from LCL to FCL where it makes economic sense. Add a 3PL to handle orders from your own website and other non-Amazon channels. At this stage, you can also start negotiating better freight rates directly with carriers or through digital freight platforms.

Scale Stage:
With larger and more predictable volumes, you may move to dedicated container shipments, use a bonded warehouse near a major US port, and eventually bring in a US-based logistics manager or third-party logistics account manager.

Final Thoughts

A shipment stuck at customs, an unexpected freight charge, or a last-mile cost you didn’t account for can turn a profitable order into a loss. And the bigger you get, the more expensive those small mistakes become.

Before your first shipment, find a freight forwarder and customs broker you can rely on. Understand the numbers behind FBA before choosing it. And make sure you know exactly what it will cost to get your product from your factory to your customer’s doorstep.

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Hey Everyone! ✨

July was a little bit of everything- busy days, small wins, big moments, and plenty of memories in between. As we wrap up the month, let’s take a moment to look back at what happened at Rize, the moments that brought us together, and the things we’re proud of.

Here’s your July Rize Recap!

MILESTONE MOMENTS 👑

Every month, our favourite updates come from the founders themselves.

We've witnessed some jaw-dropping milestones within our community, and we can’t wait to share them with you.

A big congratulations to these founders! Each step forward is a victory on the path to success. So, keep pushing and growing!

ARTICLES OF THE MONTH 📜

Missed our articles last month? Check the top ones that fuelled our Founders!

✍️ The Half-Year Review: Questions Every Founder Should Ask By July

A practical guide for founders to reflect on progress, identify gaps, and reset priorities for the second half of the year.

✍️ Why “Made in India” Is Becoming a D2C Brand Advantage in the US?

How Indian D2C brands can turn their manufacturing heritage into a competitive advantage in the US market.

✍️ How to Kill Features Before They Kill Your Product Roadmap?

Why founders should regularly cut low-impact features to keep product roadmaps focused and effective.

Discover more such insightful reads in the Vault! The collection is growing every day.

Vault by Razorpay Rize

Thoughts from a thriving community of founders and entrepreneurs to fuel innovation, learn from each other's journeys, and Rize together.

STORIES FROM RIZE-PRENEURS 📎

This month we highlighted Yuvraj Dagur, co-founder of Clevrr AI and a first-generation, self-taught entrepreneur. Yuvraj is building at the intersection of AI, advertising, and D2C, helping brands get more out of every rupee they spend on customer acquisition.

Vault by Razorpay Rize

Building the AI Partner Every D2C Founder Needs: The Story of Yuvraj & Clevrr AI

Yuvraj Dagur is a first-generation, self-taught entrepreneur who started building companies in his second year of college- long before he had a name for what he was doing. He previously co-founded LocalEyes, a community-led app connecting locals to their city, and is now the co-founder of Clevrr AI, helping D2C brands make more money with the same Ad sp…

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a month ago · Razorpay Rize

KEY HIGHLIGHTS THIS MONTH💡

New initiatives, exciting launches, and everything you need to stay ahead.

✨Rize at Razorpay Conclave, Pune✨

Razorpay Conclave 2026 made its way to Pune this month, bringing together founders, operators, and business leaders for honest conversations, fresh ideas, and plenty of learnings from the trenches of building in India.

It was great meeting the people behind some of the country’s most exciting businesses and hearing what they’re working on next.

And we’re just getting started. Keep an eye out for the next Conclave- we might be heading to your city!

✨Rize D2C+ Festive Program✨

The Rize D2C+ Festive Program is officially live! As the festive season gets closer, we’re bringing you a bunch of practical sessions, resources, and playbooks to help D2C brands prepare, plan, and make the most of the biggest-selling season of the year.

Want to join the upcoming sessions?

RSVP Now

MEET OUR NEWEST FOUNDERS: ONBOARDING EDITION 👥

Say hello to the latest group of founders joining the Rize Communities! They're full of bold ideas and big dreams, ready to take the startup world by storm.

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Every founder ends up doing sales before they’ve hired anyone to do it. The problem isn’t finding a list of names- it’s the hours lost finding contact details, writing forty personalised-sounding emails, and losing track of who replied. This doesn’t need an SDR team on day one. It needs a few hours and the right stack.

The flow is straightforward:

Lead sourcing → Enrichment → Outreach copy → Sequencing & sending → Reply tracking → Analytics

The Stack

There’s no need to over-invest here. Most of this stack is free up to a modest monthly volume- enough for an early founder doing outbound alone. Pick based on how much manual list-building you’re willing to do versus how fast you need contacts in hand.

Lead Sourcing

• Apollo.io: Free tier includes a limited number of verified contact credits a month, plus filters by role, industry, and company size- the fastest way to a usable list without a data team.

• LinkedIn Sales Navigator: Not free, but the cheapest paid tier is often worth it for the search filters alone if your buyers are role-specific. Manual, but the data quality is hard to beat.

• Hunter.io: Free tier finds and verifies email addresses for a given domain- useful once you already know which companies you want, just not who to email.

• LeadsBridge: A marketing automation and integration platform that connects advertising platforms with CRMs, email marketing tools, and other business software.

Enrichment

• Apollo’s built-in enrichment: If you’re already sourcing from Apollo, its free tier fills in title, company size, and LinkedIn URL without a second tool.

• Clearbit Connect (free for Gmail): Pulls company and contact details straight into your inbox while you’re drafting- no separate dashboard to check.

Outreach Copy

• ChatGPT / Claude (Free): Drafts a personalised first line from a prospect’s LinkedIn bio or company description in seconds- the manual version of this is what actually burns founder hours.

• Lavender: Free tier gives real-time coaching on email length, tone, and readability as you write- catches the overly formal or overly long email before it’s sent.

Sequencing & Sending

• Mailmeteor / GMass (free tier via Gmail): Sends personalised mail merges directly from Gmail, which keeps deliverability closer to a normal inbox than a dedicated sending tool at low volume.

• Instantly.ai: Free trial covers a proper multi-step sequence with automatic follow-ups if a prospect doesn’t reply- worth it once single emails stop being enough.

Reply Tracking

• HubSpot Free CRM: Free tier tracks every email opened, clicked, and replied to against a contact record- no spreadsheet to keep updating by hand.

• A shared Google Sheet: Free, and genuinely fine at low volume- one row per prospect, one column for status, updated after every batch sent.

Analytics

• Built-in sequencing analytics: Instantly and Mailmeteor both show open and reply rates on their free tier- usually enough to judge if a message is landing.

• HubSpot’s free reporting: Rolls open, reply, and meeting-booked rates into one view if you’re already tracking there.

A useful principle: the best AI tool in this stack is the one drafting your first line, not the one sending the email. A well-personalised opener beats a perfectly sequenced but generic one every time.

A sensible starting default: Apollo’s free tier for sourcing + ChatGPT or Claude for first-line personalisation + Mailmeteor for sending + a shared Google Sheet for tracking.

The Build Checklist

☐ Define the exact person you’re emailing before opening a sourcing tool: A vague target (”startup founders”) returns a list that converts poorly. Be specific (”Series A fintech founders in India, hiring in the last 90 days”).

☐ Feed the AI real context: Paste in the prospect’s actual LinkedIn bio or company page before asking for a first line.

☐ Verify emails before sending: A bounced email doesn’t just fail to land- it quietly damages your domain’s sending reputation for every email after it.

☐ Cap the first send at a small batch: Fifteen to twenty emails on day one lets you catch a bad subject line or broken personalisation token before it goes out to two hundred people.

☐ Set a follow-up cadence before the first email goes out: Most replies come from the second or third touch, not the first. Decide the sequence in advance instead of manually remembering who to nudge.

☐ Log every reply, positive or negative: A “not interested” is still data. It tells you whether the message, the targeting, or the timing needs to change.

Measuring Whether It’s Working

Track four numbers from the first batch- together they tell you whether the problem is the list, the message, or the offer:

• Reply rate: Replies divided by emails delivered. This is the number that tells you if the message is actually landing with the audience you picked.

• Positive reply rate: Of the replies, how many are genuinely interested versus a polite no. A healthy overall reply rate with a low positive rate usually points to a targeting problem, not a copy problem.

• Meetings booked: The number that eventually matters most. Track it separately from replies- a lot of interested replies that never convert to a call signals friction in the follow-up.

• Bounce rate: Anything meaningfully above a low single-digit percentage means the list quality, not the message, needs fixing first.

At Razorpay Rize, we get it- building a startup is tough. That’s why we’re more than just a space for connecting with other founders. We’ve got programs, tools, and services designed to take some of the weight off the shoulders and make the journey just a little bit easier.

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Across 615 software products studied by Pendo, an average of just 12% of features generated 80% of daily usage. Other benchmarks land in the same uncomfortable zone: a separate analysis of product usage put the median feature adoption rate at around 6.4%, meaning for every hundred features a team builds, only six or so do most of the work.

For most founders, that means you’ve probably spent weeks or months building features you were genuinely excited about, only to watch them quietly disappear into the menu, untouched. They’re not causing obvious problems, so they stay.

That’s the real story of product debt. It’s the collection of features that no longer earn their place but continue to consume your team’s time and attention. It demands maintenance, multiplies QA cycles, clutters onboarding, and slowly bends your roadmap around its dead weight.

So in this article, we are going to talk about the side of product management almost nobody teaches: what to remove, what evidence to trust, and how to simplify your product without breaking customer confidence.

The Hidden Economics of a Feature You Keep

Founders tend to price a feature by what it costs to build- the sprints, the design hours, the launch. But that’s the cheap part because the expensive part is what it costs to carry, indefinitely, after launch.

Every feature you keep alive draws down four budgets at once:

• Engineering. Every dependency upgrade, security patch, and refactor now has to account for it. Lightly-used features are often the most fragile, because nobody remembers how they work.

• Quality assurance. It’s a row in every regression test, a path that has to keep working even when one user a month touches it.

• Support and docs. It generates tickets, needs articles, and trains your support team on edge cases that serve almost no one.

• User attention. This is what the founders miss. Every extra option raises the cognitive load for the person trying to do the three things they actually came for.

There’s a name for the real loss here: opportunity cost. Engineering hours spent nursing a feature 4% of users touch are hours not spent improving the workflows that matter most.

4 Warning Signs Your Feature Isn’t Working

Dead features don’t crash or throw errors. They just sit there, drawing down attention a little at a time. Here are four signs it’s time to take a closer look.

1. Adoption has drifted below your own success bar

A niche power-user feature might be doing great at 15%, while a core workflow at 15% is a serious problem.

The real question is: Did this feature meet the goal you set when you built it?

If you expected 40% of users to adopt it and it’s been stuck at 5% for months, that’s valuable feedback. The feature is already telling you it isn’t solving the problem you thought it would.

2. Nobody can name the user and the job

Try asking your team two simple questions:

• Who is this feature for?

• What job does it help them get done?

If the answers are vague, inconsistent, or start with “Well, it depends…”, that’s usually a warning sign. The strongest features solve a clear problem for a specific user. The weakest ones are often built to settle internal debates rather than real customer needs.

3. It’s why your codebase feels fragile

Some features become load-bearing walls in a house you’d otherwise renovate. When engineers start sentences with “we can’t, because of…,” you’ve found a feature taxing your future, not just your present.

4. It needs a tour to be understood

A feature that requires a tooltip, an onboarding step, and a support article just to be discovered is making your whole product harder to learn.

The simplest explanation: The feature doesn’t belong there in the first place!

A Framework for Deciding What to Cut/Remove

You don’t need a twelve-tab spreadsheet. You need a consistent way to ask of every feature: Is this earning its place? Two simple approaches do most of the work.

Approach 1: The value-vs-cost map

Plot every feature on two axes- value delivered against cost to maintain. Four quadrants emerge, and each has an obvious action.

The bottom-right quadrant is where roadmaps go to die. Start there.

Approach 2: Score it before you scrap it

Before removing anything, run it past four checks- a stripped-down version of the kind of scoring product teams use to prioritise what to build, applied in reverse to decide what to remove.

• Usage: Is anyone actually using it?

Real adoption among active users, and the trend over time. A feature falling from 20% to 4% is dying on its own; you’re just signing the certificate.

• Value: Is it creating meaningful impact?

Usage without context lies. A low-usage feature can still be essential- if the few who use it are your highest-value accounts, or it’s tied to retention or compliance. Always pair the number with what it drives.

• Cost: What does it take to keep it alive?

Honest carrying costs like maintenance, support, and the complexity it adds to everything around it. If the cost keeps growing while the value stays flat, it’s worth questioning whether it still belongs.

• Strategy: Does it still fit where the product is going?

A feature that made perfect sense two years ago may no longer align with your product vision today. As your company evolves, your product should evolve with it. If a feature no longer supports your direction and isn’t delivering value in another meaningful way, it may be time to let it go.

Example

Say your app has an in-built “team chat” you shipped early. The data: 4% of active users touched it in 90 days, down from 18% at launch.

Value: The people using it are mostly free users. Your paying customers are already communicating in tools they know and use every day, like Slack or WhatsApp.

Cost: Behind the scenes, the feature keeps demanding attention. It has its own infrastructure, creates problems whenever you make technical changes, and adds a steady stream of support questions.

Strategy: Your company is moving toward larger teams and businesses. But those customers already have communication workflows in place. The feature is no longer helping you move in that direction.

At this point, the question isn’t whether the feature works. It does! The question is whether it still deserves the time, money, and attention it takes away from everything else.

What Removing a Feature Looks Like (Example)

One of the best examples is Instagram’s Following Activity tab.

When it launched in 2011, the feature helped people discover content by showing what the accounts they followed were liking and interacting with. Over time, it found a loyal audience. Marketers used it to track competitors, and many users relied on it to keep an eye on what others were doing.

But in 2019, Instagram removed it.

Instagram’s head of product explained that the company wanted to simplify the app. Many users didn’t even know the feature existed, and the Explore page had evolved to do the discovery job the feature was originally designed for. The feature had passionate supporters, but that wasn’t enough to justify keeping it.

That’s what thoughtful feature removal looks like. You remove it when it no longer fits your product strategy, when there’s a better way to solve the same user need, and when the long-term benefits of simplicity outweigh the cost of keeping it.

How to Remove a Public Feature?

Removing a feature is a product decision and a relationship decision at once. Done carelessly, it teaches users your product is unreliable. Done well, most won’t notice. A handful of steps makes the difference.

• Segment before you cut: A feature with 4% overall usage might be a daily ritual for your top ten accounts. Slice the data by segment before deciding; aggregate numbers hide the people who’ll feel it most.

• Announce: A short, honest note- what’s changing, why, and what to use instead- goes further than silence ever will. The surprise is what breaks trust, not the change.

• Offer a path: Where you can, point to an alternative or a migration. People forgive change; they don’t forgive being stranded.

• Sunset, then remove: Hide it from new users first, watch what breaks, then pull it cleanly once you’re sure. A staged deprecation surfaces the hidden dependencies that a hard delete would detonate.

• Log the decision. Six months on, someone will ask why it’s gone. A one-line record of the reasoning saves you from rebuilding your own mistake.

Building a Culture That Isn’t Afraid to Subtract

That culture needs to be built deliberately. Celebrate feature retirements the same way you celebrate new launches. A roadmap shouldn’t only show what’s being built next- it should also show what’s being removed and why.

Make it a habit to review your product regularly. Every quarter, look at it with fresh eyes and ask one simple question:

Knowing what we know today, would we build this feature again?

If the answer is no, it’s worth discussing whether it still belongs.

This mindset is becoming more important than ever. AI has made it dramatically faster to build and ship new features, but users haven’t become any better at discovering, learning, or adopting them. So, removing features can actually help you out!

It will protect the user experience, keep the roadmap focused, and make sure every new addition has room to deliver real value.

Final Thoughts

Early on, building feels like the whole job. You add, and add, and for a while, more genuinely means better. But as the product matures, success is also about what you’re willing to remove.

Removing a feature rarely gets the same attention as launching one. There’s no announcement, no celebration, and no visible milestone. Yet it’s often one of the most valuable decisions a product team can make. It makes the product easier to use, the codebase easier to maintain, and the roadmap easier to execute.

So look at your product this week. Pull the adoption numbers you’ve been avoiding. Run your heaviest, least-loved feature through the four lenses. And if the answer is what you already suspect- let it go before it gets a vote on your roadmap.

At Razorpay Rize, we get it- building a startup is tough. That’s why we’re more than just a space for connecting with other founders. We’ve got programs, tools, and services designed to take some of the weight off the shoulders and make the journey just a little bit easier.

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Every founder ends up needing a page that isn’t the main website. A waitlist for a new feature. A one-off campaign for an event. A “coming soon” page thrown up before the product even exists. These don’t need a dev sprint- they need a few hours and the right stack.

The flow is straightforward:

Copy & design → Page builder → Hosting + domain → Forms → Analytics → Visitor

The Stack

There's no need to over-invest here. Most of this stack tops out at the cost of a domain name- often less than ₹1,000 a year. Pick based on how much design control you want versus how fast you need to ship.

Page Builder

• Carrd: Free plan covers 3 one-page sites (carrd.co subdomain, Carrd branding). Pro Lite removes the branding for $9/year, but connecting a custom domain needs Pro Standard at $19/year. Still the fastest way to a clean single-page site!

• Framer: Free plan is genuinely capable for design and prototyping, but a custom domain requires the Basic plan (~$10/month). Worth it once the page needs real animation or a multi-page feel.

• Notion: Turn any Notion page into a public site instantly, free, on a notion.site subdomain. Good for a quick microsite when design isn’t the point.

• Google Sites: Fully free, including a custom domain if you already own one. Basic, but it works, and it’s the zero-friction default.

Hosting + Domain

• GitHub Pages: Completely free static hosting if you’re comfortable with a bit of code or a static site generator.

• Cloudflare Pages: Free tier includes unlimited bandwidth, and 500 builds a month- one of the most generous free hosting options available for a code-based page.

• Netlify: Free tier includes forms and identity built in, which matters if you’re not using a separate forms tool. Bandwidth is capped, but rarely an issue at landing-page scale.

• Vercel: Free “Hobby” tier is generous and the smoothest option if you’re already building in Next.js. Worth knowing the fine print: the free tier is for non-commercial use, which is a grey area if the page is selling something.

• Cloudflare Registrar: For the domain itself, expect roughly $8-12/year at cost. Point it at whichever host you pick using free DNS.

Forms & Lead Capture

• Tally: Free, unlimited forms, no response caps. Embeds cleanly into any of the builders above.

• Google Forms: Free and familiar, though the embed looks more utilitarian than branded.

• Formspree: Free tier handles a modest number of monthly submissions if you just need a plain HTML form to post to.

Analytics

• Google Analytics (GA4): Free, and the default most people expect to see in a dashboard.

• Microsoft Clarity: Free heatmaps and session recordings- shows you where people drop off, not just that they did.

Uptime

• UptimeRobot: Free plan pings your page every few minutes and emails you the moment it goes down. Cheap insurance for something you’ll otherwise forget to check.

A useful principle: for a single-page campaign or waitlist, the builder-plus-domain combination matters more than the hosting choice underneath it. Don’t overthink the infrastructure for a page that’ll live for six weeks.

A sensible starting default: Carrd (or Framer, if you need more than one page) + a $9-12/year domain + Tally + Google Analytics + Microsoft Clarity

The Build Checklist

☐ Write the page around one action, not one product: Every landing page should ask the visitor to do exactly one thing- sign up, book a call, join a waitlist. Resist adding a second CTA.

☐ Buy the domain before you build: A custom domain takes ten minutes to point once you know where it’s landing.

☐ Wire the form to somewhere you’ll actually check: A Tally or Google Form response sitting unread is worse than not collecting the lead at all. Connect it to email or Slack.

☐ Add analytics before the first visitor, not after the first traffic spike: Retrofitting GA4 after a launch means losing the exact data you needed most- day one behaviour.

☐ Test the page on mobile, on a slow connection: Most first-touch traffic from ads or social lands on a phone. A page that looks great on your laptop can still load slowly or break on a 4G connection.

☐ Set up uptime monitoring if the page is tied to a launch or campaign: A dead page during a Product Hunt launch or a paid campaign is money and attention wasted for no reason.

Measuring Whether It’s Working

Track four metrics from the day the page goes live- together they tell you whether the problem is the page, the traffic, or the offer:

• Conversion rate: Visitors who complete the one action you asked for, divided by total visitors. This is the number that actually matters.

• Bounce rate: How many people leave without doing anything at all. High bounce with low time-on-page usually points to a mismatch between the traffic source and the page’s message.

• Load time: Anything over 2-3 seconds on mobile will quietly cost you conversions you’ll never see in the data.

• Traffic source breakdown: Knowing whether visitors arrived from a tweet, an ad, or a cold email tells you which channel is worth doubling down on- and which page needs a rewrite for that specific audience.

At Razorpay Rize, we get it- building a startup is tough. That’s why we’re more than just a space for connecting with other founders. We’ve got programs, tools, and services designed to take some of the weight off the shoulders and make the journey just a little bit easier.

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Yuvraj Dagur is a first-generation, self-taught entrepreneur who started building companies in his second year of college- long before he had a name for what he was doing. He previously co-founded LocalEyes, a community-led app connecting locals to their city, and is now the co-founder of Clevrr AI, helping D2C brands make more money with the same Ad spend. This is his story, in his own words.

I started my first startup in my second year of college, and I have never worked a job in my life. That sentence alone says a lot about my family- we come from a line of job-doers, and I was the first one who didn’t want to be.

It began earlier than that, really. My childhood friend and I used to build science projects together. By the time we got to college, we’d decided we were done building for competitions. We wanted to build something of our own instead. That something became LocalEyes- a community-led platform where people could ask questions, discover local events and connect with others in their city.

For the next two and a half years, we lived and breathed that product. We grew to over 2.5 lakh users across five states, became part of Google’s startup initiatives and eventually exited after the company was acquired by a competitor.

Finding the Right Problem

After the acquisition, I didn’t rush into another startup. Instead, I started freelancing for dropshippers and early-stage D2C brands, building custom technology solutions for their businesses.

Working closely with different founders exposed me to a pattern I couldn’t ignore. Every business generated massive amounts of data through Shopify, Google Ads and Meta, yet most of it eventually ended up sitting inside spreadsheets that nobody looked at again. It bothered me because that sheet had everything sitting inside it- inventory planning, marketing decisions, COGS, costing- completely unused.

Around the same time, Generative AI was beginning to reshape how software could be built. That’s when I realised the real opportunity was making data understandable for non-technical founders, and it led me to start Clevrr AI.

The Pivot: From a Suite of Tools to an AI Co-Founder

Clevrr AI began as a mission to build B2B SaaS, gen-AI-enabled products for non-technical founders. The first product was Clevrr Sheets- a tool that turned a spreadsheet into a dashboard in under 30 seconds, without needing to know Excel, SQL, or anything close to it.

Convinced that I had found the right opportunity, I packed my bags and moved to Bangalore with a one-way ticket.

The product worked, but the positioning didn’t.

I learned a lesson every founder eventually encounters: if you’re building for everyone, you’re building for no one. That’s when I stepped back and went back to my own data. Almost 90% of my retaining customers were D2C founders- non-technical, e-commerce operators. The gap was obvious once I actually looked for it.

As we narrowed our focus to D2C, we stopped relying on spreadsheets altogether. Instead, we connected directly to first-party data from Shopify, Meta and Google. That pivot transformed Clevrr AI from a suite of products into a standalone AI operating system for D2C brands- bringing sales, marketing, inventory, shipping and payments into one place, with intelligence and action built on top.

Building for the Future of D2C

Around this time, I was joined by my co-founder, Raghav, who was previously a VC at Dallas Venture Capital. Together, we started spending real time understanding just how serious the problem was before building more product.

Performance marketing is where we chose to go deepest. It drives about 70% of revenue for most D2C brands- cut it, and most of them simply don’t survive. Meta and Google are genuinely excellent at audience discovery, and there’s no better tool for finding your buyer than Instagram, YouTube, or Facebook.

Today we’re building a reasoning layer that walks through everything from metrics to creatives, explaining what’s working, what isn’t, what can be done about it, how, and for whom.

What the Journey Has Taught Me

Some of the hardest decisions had nothing to do with technology. Choosing the right co-founder, learning when to say no to customers, investors or opportunities, and staying focused have been far more difficult than building products.

We’ve now completed two years as a company, built a team that truly believes in the vision and earned the opportunity to learn from founders and investors I once only admired from afar. A year ago, some of the people I’m now in conversation with wouldn’t have accepted my LinkedIn request. That transition is its own kind of milestone.

The Good Days & The Bad Days

I’m still figuring this one out. I don’t celebrate the small wins as much as I probably should. The one moment that truly felt surreal was signing the lease for our first office. Beyond that, we usually celebrate milestones with the team over small get-togethers or dinners.

Personally, I tend to process both the highs and the lows on my own. And whenever I feel stuck, I head to the mountains.

However, I genuinely believe that if you love what you do, every day feels a little like a vacation. A big part of my identity is tied to what I’m building, and I’m perfectly happy with that. I’m naturally extroverted, so I enjoy meeting new people and having conversations, and entrepreneurship gives me plenty of opportunities to do both.

That said, building an early-stage startup comes with sacrifices. The biggest one, at least for me, has been my social life. It’s a trade-off that’s rarely talked about, but it’s very real.

What’s Next for Clevrr AI?

The next chapter looks a lot like the previous one- a one-way ticket, this time to the US, and another chance to build something from the ground up.

The challenges will be different, the market will be different, and the learning curve will probably be steeper. But the vision remains the same: To take Clevrr AI to a global stage and build something that helps D2C founders around the world make better decisions with the power of AI.

What we love about Yuvraj's story at Razorpay Rize is how human it feels. There's no perfect plan here, no straight line- just a guy who built science projects with his best friend, took a leap in college, freelanced his way into a real problem, and kept packing his bags whenever the next chapter demanded it.

That honesty is what makes his journey easy to root for, and exactly why we wanted to share it!

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Hey Everyone! ✨

If June felt like it disappeared in a blur of customer calls, product updates, investor decks, and way too many browser tabs, you’re not alone.

While you were busy building, the Rize community was busy too. Founders raised funding, celebrated milestones, learned from industry leaders, and unlocked new opportunities to grow.

Here’s everything you may have missed in June- all in one place.

MILESTONE MOMENTS 👑

Every month, our favourite updates come from the founders themselves.

We've witnessed some jaw-dropping milestones within our community, and we can’t wait to share them with you.

A big congratulations to these founders! Each step forward is a victory on the path to success. So, keep pushing and growing!

ARTICLES OF THE MONTH 📜

Missed our articles last month? Check the top ones that fuelled our Founders!

✍️ US Customs & Compliance Explained for Indian Exporters

Learn the key US import regulations, documentation, and compliance requirements every Indian exporter should know.

✍️ How to Use AI and n8n to Automate Content Creation?

Discover how AI and n8n can streamline content planning, writing, publishing, and workflow automation.

✍️ The Marketing Fundamentals Behind Every First $1M ARR

Explore the core marketing strategies that help startups consistently acquire customers and achieve their first $1M in ARR.

✍️ How Indian Exporters Should Price for the US Market?

Understand pricing strategies, cost factors, and market positioning to stay competitive in the US market.

Discover more such insightful reads in the Vault! The collection is growing every day.

Vault by Razorpay Rize

Thoughts from a thriving community of founders and entrepreneurs to fuel innovation, learn from each other's journeys, and Rize together.

KEY HIGHLIGHTS THIS MONTH💡

New initiatives, exciting launches, and everything you need to stay ahead.

✨Global Readiness Program- New Launch✨

This month, we launched our flagship Global Readiness Program, an invite-only, six-day intensive program created for founders who are ready to take the next step in their global journey.

We brought together 50 selected founders for a week of learning, strategy, and conversations with experts who've built and scaled businesses internationally.

Explore Now

✨ Founder Buddy Program- New Launch✨

Building a startup is easier when you have someone who’s walked the path before.

That’s why we launched the Razorpay Rize Founder-Buddy Program, a first-of-its-kind, three-month mentorship initiative that pairs 20 senior Razorpay leaders with founders from the Rize community.

It’s designed to offer honest conversations, practical guidance, and the kind of support that can make all the difference when you’re building something ambitious.

MEET OUR NEWEST FOUNDERS: ONBOARDING EDITION 👥

Say hello to the latest group of founders joining the Rize Communities! They're full of bold ideas and big dreams, ready to take the startup world by storm.

Dive into Vault today & unlock a world of possibilities. 

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As a founder, a surprising amount of your time goes into activities that aren’t directly related to building your product- setting up internal tools, wiring up dashboards, chasing developers for small changes, and stitching together a dozen apps just to make a workflow function. Most of these needs never get solved, simply because building software is slow and expensive.

Through this “How-to Guide” series, we want to introduce you to platforms across categories that reduce this operational load- so you can spend less time managing processes and more time building your company.

Early-stage teams rarely have the engineering bandwidth to build every tool they need. Ideas get stuck in backlogs, spreadsheets pile up, and simple internal apps take weeks to ship- if they ship at all.

Replit fixes this by letting anyone build, launch, and run custom web and mobile apps, internal tools, and automations just by describing what they want in plain English. It’s an AI-powered platform that turns an idea into a live, working app in minutes- no coding, no developers, and no infrastructure to manage. Think of it as an on-demand software team that’s always available.

Use Cases

1. D2C Founders | E-commerce Store

Scenario: A D2C founder who wants an online store tailored to their brand, without waiting on agencies or plugins.

D2C founders build their own storefront on Replit- product catalogue, cart, and checkout- all built and deployed in one place. Because the app is custom-built, the store fits the exact workflow instead of forcing the brand into a template.

2. Sales-led Founders | Lead-Gen Automation into Slack

Scenario: A founder losing leads because enquiries are scattered across forms, emails, and websites.

Sales-led founders use Replit to build an automation that captures every new lead from a form, website, or CRM and instantly posts it into a Slack channel- with full details and a one-click way to claim and follow up. No lead slips through the cracks, and the sales team stays in sync automatically.

3. Operations Founders | Custom CRM & Internal Dashboard

Scenario: A founder running the business on a maze of Excel sheets that no longer scale.

Operations-heavy founders replace scattered spreadsheets with a custom CRM and dashboard to capture leads, track follow-ups, and view sales metrics- tailored exactly to their process. Replit’s built-in database, authentication, and hosting come out of the box, so the tool is secure and scalable from day one.

4. SaaS Founders | AI Agents & Automated Workflows

Scenario: A SaaS startup drowning in repetitive support queries and manual reporting.

SaaS founders use Replit to build AI agents and automations- Slack bots, FAQ bots, and scheduled digests- connected to tools like Slack, Gmail, Linear, and Notion. Routine questions get answered automatically, and daily updates land in Slack or email with zero manual reporting.

How to Set Up Replit: Step-by-Step Guide

Example Use Case: Building a Customer Enquiry & Order-Tracking App with Replit

New to Replit? Getting started is straightforward. Follow these steps to build and launch your first app- replacing scattered spreadsheets with a live tool:

• Sign Up: Visit replit.com and create a free account.

• Write Your Main Prompt: In the prompt box on the homepage, describe your app in plain English- e.g. “Build a customer enquiry app where customers submit their name, phone number, and product interest, and I get a dashboard to view all enquiries and mark them as contacted.” You can also import an existing app/website from other tools or import design files from Figma.

• Let Agent Build It: Replit Agent plans the app, generates an instant visual preview for your approval, then writes the code and builds it- testing and fixing its own work as it goes.

• Add a Database (built-in, automatic): Simply ask Agent- e.g. “Store all enquiries in a database”- and Replit sets up its built-in database and wires it into your app.

• Refine the Design: Generate design variations on the Canvas and pick your favourite, or click any element in the preview to adjust text, colours, and layout- or just tell Agent “Make the dashboard match my brand colours.”

• Add Integrations (optional): Ask Agent to connect Razorpay for payments, or Gmail, Slack, and 450+ tools.

• Publish & Share: Click Publish to deploy live and get a shareable link, accessible from any device.

• Grow with SEO: Optimise your site’s SEO readiness with Replit’s Growth features

Tip: Run a built-in security scan before publishing- Replit checks your app for vulnerabilities and can fix them with Agent, giving you peace of mind before you go live.

Key Features for Startups

• Replit Agent- build a complete, working app just by chatting in plain English

• Design Canvas & Visual Editor to generate, compare, and tweak app designs without code

• Built-in full-stack infrastructure- database, authentication, hosting, and monitoring with zero setup

• Security scanning & Auto-Protect that catches and fixes vulnerabilities before you publish

• One-click publishing with a shareable URL, accessible from any device

• 450+ integrations including Razorpay, Stripe, OpenAI, Google Workspace, and Slack

Key AI Features

If you’ve ever wished building software could just “handle itself”, that’s exactly what Replit’s AI features aim to do.

1. Build Apps Through Plain English

Turn a simple prompt into a complete, working app- Agent handles planning, coding, and setup. Example: “Build a customer enquiry app with a dashboard to track and mark leads as contacted.” Agent returns a live, previewable app in minutes.

2. Multi-Agent & Parallel Task Execution

Agent can split a big request into multiple tasks and run several agents in parallel, each in its own isolated copy of your project. You plan and queue features on a task board (Drafts → Active → Ready → Done), review each result, and apply the ones you want- with AI-assisted conflict resolution when merging work.

3. Self-Testing & Auto-Fixing

While building, Agent automatically tests your app in a real browser, generates a report, and fixes the issues it finds in a continuous loop- keeping your app healthy and reducing ongoing maintenance.

4. AI Security Review

A built-in Security Agent audits your codebase for vulnerabilities and privacy risks- like SQL injection, cross-site scripting, and leaked data- and fixes accepted issues for you before you publish.

Early-stage teams often wait weeks and spend heavily to ship even a simple internal tool- time and budget most founders can’t spare. That’s the gap Replit closes.

With Replit, you can build custom apps and internal tools in minutes, automate repetitive workflows, connect the tools you already use, and launch live with a single click- without hiring a developer or managing any infrastructure.

At Razorpay Rize, we get it- building a startup is tough. That’s why we’re more than just a space for connecting with other founders. We’ve got programs, tools, and services designed to take some of the weight off the shoulders and make the journey just a little bit easier.

Dive into Vault today & unlock a world of possibilities. 

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Here is something most Indian exporters still don’t fully realise. American consumers are a little obsessed with where things come from. They want to know which valley their coffee beans were grown in, who stitched their clothes, and what the founder was doing before they started the company. For a lot of American buyers, the origin story is the reason they buy at all.

And yet, when Indian exporters enter the US market, they often lead with price. Or worse, they quietly soften their Indian roots, assuming “Made in India” might read as a disadvantage.

In 2026, that instinct is exactly backwards. Being an Indian brand is not something to dilute. It is one of the strongest and most underused assets an exporter has. This is about how to turn that origin story into a real advantage, not in theory, but in the way you actually build and sell.

The Indian Story Advantage

Let’s be specific about what the Indian story gives you that your competitors simply don’t have.

1. Craft heritage that is genuinely rare

Block printing from Jaipur.

• Handloom weaving from Pochampally.

• Brass casting from Moradabad.

• Natural dye techniques that take years to learn.

American consumers are surrounded by mass-produced everything. When they encounter something genuinely handmade, using methods that are centuries old, it lands differently. It feels like the antidote to everything else in their cart.

2. Ingredient provenance that wellness buyers actively chase

The US wellness market is enormous, and a large part of it is built on ingredients that originate in India. If you’re selling a wellness product and not leaning into the source story, you’re leaving your best marketing untouched on the table.

3. A founder story Americans actually find compelling

Whether it’s a first-generation entrepreneur, a multi-generational family business, or a founder reviving a dying craft, these stories strike a chord in the US market. They travel further, attract media attention, and help brands build authentic communities around their mission.

So the question is not whether you have a story. Because you do! The question is whether you’ve figured out how to tell it in a way that lands with an American audience.

STEP 1: Build Your D2C Foundation

D2C without a foundation is just an expensive hobby. Before you spend a rupee on ads or influencers, get the basics right.

Your website

Shopify is the default for Indian exporters entering the US D2C, and for good reason. It handles payments, taxes, shipping integrations and international storefronts without you building infrastructure from scratch. The platform is mature, the ecosystem of apps and agencies is huge, and the learning curve is manageable.

What does your US store actually need?

• A homepage that leads with a story, not a product. American D2C has trained consumers to expect a brand world before a product catalogue. What do you stand for? Why do you exist? Who makes this, and where? Answer that before you show a price.

• Photography that does the work. In D2C, photography is your primary sales tool. The buyer can’t touch or smell the product, or ask a shopkeeper a question. The image has to do everything. If there’s a craft process, show it.

• Social proof built for a US audience. Indian reviews help less than you’d hope. Getting your first 20–30 US reviews, press mentions, or creator shout-outs is a critical early task.

• Shipping and returns that meet US expectations. Free shipping over a threshold (usually $35–50) is effectively table stakes. So is an easy returns process and delivery times you can actually meet.

Email and SMS

D2C brands live and die by owned media, and email is still the highest-ROI channel in e-commerce. Build your list from day one. A welcome flow, the automated series a new subscriber gets after signing up, is the single highest-converting sequence you’ll ever build. It should tell your story, introduce your products, and give a reason to buy.

Klaviyo is the standard email and SMS platform for Shopify brands. Set it up before you drive a single visitor.

STEP 2: Use Social Commerce to Drive Brand Discovery

Americans aren’t discovering new brands through Google searches anymore. They’re finding them on TikTok while scrolling through videos, spotting them in their Instagram feeds, or hearing about them from creators they trust.

Social commerce is the dominant discovery mechanism for consumer brands in 2026. And it is one where the Indian story has a specific, structural edge.

1. TikTok Shop

TikTok Shop has reshaped US e-commerce faster than almost anyone predicted. Products go viral, and ordinary people become brand ambassadors overnight. Whole categories that had no presence two years ago are now driven almost entirely by the platform.

TikTok Shop also lets you sell inside the app- a viewer taps the product tag and buys without ever leaving. The friction is low, the impulse rate is high. Getting started needs a US entity or a US-based partner, and the compliance rules are still evolving. But if your product has visual appeal and a story, it deserves serious attention.

2. Instagram

Instagram is older and more saturated than TikTok, but it remains the home of lifestyle, home goods, beauty, fashion and wellness in the US. Discovery here is a mix of organic content, paid ads and influencer partnerships.

Micro-influencers, roughly 10,000 to 100,000 followers, in the right niche often beat the big names on ROI for emerging brands. A home decor creator with 40,000 engaged followers who genuinely loves your handcrafted Rajasthani cushion covers will drive more real sales than a celebrity with two million followers who has clearly been paid to hold up your product.

When you approach US creators, lead with the story. Send a proper PR package. Write a personal note about where the product comes from and why it exists.

3. Pinterest

Pinterest is chronically underrated by Indian exporters. It works like a visual search engine, and its users are in active buying-consideration mode in a way TikTok and Instagram users often aren’t. Home decor, food, fashion, wedding and wellness all perform beautifully here. And pins have a long shelf life, months to years, so a well-optimised presence keeps building organic traffic with relatively little ongoing effort.

4. YouTube

Long-form video is where a brand story really has room to breathe. A five-minute film about the process, the community, and the founder can build the kind of emotional connection that drives genuine loyalty. YouTube is also a search engine. “How Dhokra brass casting works” or “Why natural indigo dye is different” are exactly the searches an interested buyer makes before they commit. Being there with a well-made video is a real advantage.

STEP 3: Build Credibility Through PR

American media, from the New York Times’ Wirecutter to niche category blogs, still influence purchase decisions, especially for premium products. A favourable write-up in a respected publication carries a credibility that paid ads simply cannot buy.

Indian brands with a strong craft or sustainability story are genuinely interesting to US editors. The pitch often is “here is a story your readers will find fascinating, and by the way, there’s a great product attached.”

Here’s something to help you out in the beginning: How to do US PR without a $10,000-a-month agency?

• Research the journalists and editors who cover your category. Read their recent pieces. Understand what angle they respond to.

• Write a pitch that leads with the story. “A family in Kutch that has woven the same pattern for four generations is now selling directly to American homes” is a story.

• Send samples, generously. Editors don’t write about products they haven’t experienced.

• Be patient. Editorial cycles are long. A pitch sent today might become coverage six months from now, and that coverage can drive sales for years.

STEP 4: Build a Community

The most durable US brands are built on communities- people who identify with what the brand stands for, who talk to each other, who bring in new members, and who stay because the relationship is worth more to them than the transaction.

It looks different for everyone. For some, it’s a private Facebook group. For others, a Discord server, or an email newsletter, people actually forward to friends.

When your ad costs go up, and they will, when a competitor undercuts you, when an algorithm change quietly drops your organic reach, the brands with real communities survive. The ones built purely on paid acquisition don’t. So start building community before you think you need it.

What to Actually Do in Year One?

This is the part most articles skip. Here is a tried & tested sequence.

1. Get your Shopify store live with proper photography, a real brand-story page, and a working email flow, before you drive a single visitor to it.

2. Set up Klaviyo. Build a welcome flow. Add an abandoned-cart sequence. These two automations alone will recover meaningful revenue.

3. Find 10–15 micro-influencers in your category. Send product. See who posts organically; those are your people.

4. List on Amazon in parallel. Amazon drives discovery for price-conscious and repeat buyers.

5. Post consistently on one platform. Go deep where your visual story lands best- TikTok for process and discovery, Instagram for lifestyle, Pinterest for home and food, YouTube for story.

6. Pitch three journalists a month. Keep a simple spreadsheet.

7. After six months, read your data. Where are your best customers coming from? What’s your repeat purchase rate? What does acquisition cost look like by channel? Then double down on what’s working.

Final Thoughts

Building a US brand from India is harder than it sounds, and more possible than it used to be. The tools have never been better, the appetite for authentic stories has never been stronger, and the infrastructure has genuinely removed barriers that once needed years to clear.

The Indian story, told well, is a competitive advantage in the US market. It is not a liability. It is not something to hide, soften, or package differently to appear more “global.”

Figure out what your story is. Understand the experiences, values, and beliefs that shaped your business. Then tell that story consistently- through your website, your founder narrative, your content, your customers, and your brand.

Related Articles

In February 2025, BluSmart stopped running cabs. For weeks, most people didn’t know. The app still worked for a while, the wallets still held money, and the company said nothing. It took until April for the shutdown to be public, and until late July for the National Company Law Tribunal to admit an insolvency petition. By then SEBI had already found that ₹262 crore meant for buying electric cars had gone missing, some of it into real estate and, per the filings, golf equipment.

BluSmart is an extreme case, and a fraud case at that. Is it relevant to this article? Probably not! But there is a lesson- a company keeps reporting that things are fine long after they have stopped being fine, because the story it tells about itself has hardened and nobody wants to be the one to break it.

That is what a real half-year review is for. It’s to check the assumptions underneath the numbers: the big bets you made in January and stopped questioning once you were busy executing them.

And the timing matters this year. Indian startups raised about $4.8 billion in the first half of 2025, roughly a quarter less than the year before, and almost all of the drop was in the big late-stage cheques. Investors stopped asking founders how fast they could grow and started asking to see profits. A plan built in the old language, reviewed in the old language, will look green while the ground it’s standing on has moved.

Here are seven questions to ask yourself. On the surface, they’re simple! But if you answer them honestly- not the way you’d like them to be, but the way they actually are- they can change how you think, build, and move forward.

1. What did you actually learn this half, not what did you ship?

Founders report output because output is easy to count. Features shipped, deals closed, hires made. It fills a standup, and it fills a board deck, and it feels like progress.

But you can ship for six months and know nothing more about your customer in July than you did in January. Meesho spent years reporting growth before the number that mattered turned out to be a different one. Somewhere along the way, it stopped chasing order growth at any cost and started watching free cash flow and cost per order. Cost per order fell from ₹50 to ₹43. In FY25, the company threw off about ₹1,000 crore in cash and filed to go public. That shift didn’t come from shipping more. It came from learning which number was load-bearing.

So ask: what do you know now that you didn’t in January, and did it cost you a quarter to find out? If the only thing you learned is that the roadmap takes longer than planned, you learned about your estimates, not your market.

A way to force it: Write down the 3 riskiest things your plan assumes.

• Who the customer is?

• How they’ll pay?

• How you’ll reach them?

Next to each, write what the last six months made you more sure of, or less. The rows where you learned nothing are your real agenda for the second half.

2. If you were starting today, would you still build this?

Founders hate this question, which is usually a sign it’s working.

You keep building a thing partly because you’ve already built half of it. The months, the money you raised, the people you talked into joining- all of it makes stopping feel like a betrayal, even when the market has been telling you to stop for a while.

So take the sunk cost out of it. Say you woke up this morning with your skills, your network, and what you now know about this market, but no code written and nobody hired. Would you pick this problem again?

If yes, good! You’ve re-earned your conviction, and that’s worth more than any dashboard. If it comes out as “well, sort of, since we’ve already put in the work,” that hesitation is the answer. It means the thing keeping you here is history, and history is a bad reason to spend the next six months.

Of the roughly 28 startups that shut down in India in 2025, and the thousands of quieter closures behind them, a large share failed for the same plain reason: They built something people didn’t want, and the founder was more attached to the idea than to the customer’s problem. Six months in is when that’s still cheap to fix.

3. Where is the money actually coming from?

Every founder has a mental model of their business. This segment will drive growth. That product matters most. This channel will scale. Then the data tells a different story.

The customers you deprioritised generate the most revenue. The side project has the healthiest margins. The “experiment” outperforms your core acquisition channel. Before planning the next six months, question your assumptions. Break down revenue by segment, margins by product, and acquisition costs by channel.

One test: Rank your segments by what’s left after the cost of serving them, not by revenue. Then look at where your team actually spends its week. If your best-margin customers get the least attention, that’s a misallocation, and you can usually fix it in a quarter.

4. What are you tolerating that you’d flag in a new hire’s first week?

Over time, businesses develop blind spots.

The teammate everyone quietly works around. The difficult conversation you’ve been postponing. The customer who consumes far more than they contribute. The broken process everyone complains about but no one fixes. None of these happened overnight. They became normal because you’ve lived with them for too long.

A half-year review is your chance to see them with fresh eyes. Ask yourself: if someone joined the company today, what would they question first? You probably already know the answer. Acting on it is the hard part!

5. Does the team agree on the one thing that matters this half?

Ask five of your closest team members one simple question: What’s the company’s biggest priority for the next six months? Ask them separately, then compare the answers.

If you get five different responses, you have an alignment problem which, if left unchecked, becomes a strategy problem.

As a founder, the priorities feel obvious because you live with them every day. Your team doesn’t. They live inside projects, deadlines, and tasks. If everyone can’t clearly articulate the same goal, it’s time to communicate it again.

6. What’s your runway in months?

Cash is where founder optimism can become a liability. The same confidence that pushes you to make bold hires and ambitious bets can also make you overestimate your runway and underestimate how difficult fundraising can be.

BluSmart’s collapse may have involved fraud, but its cash flow lesson applies to every startup. When the company was reportedly in the middle of raising around $50 million, it was relying on capital that never arrived. Once investors stepped back, the runway that had looked comfortable on paper disappeared within weeks.

So do the unglamorous math!

What’s your actual monthly burn, including the “temporary” expenses that have quietly become permanent? At your current burn, how many months do you have until zero- not until the next round, but until the bank account is empty?

Then build three scenarios. One where everything goes to plan. One where fundraising takes six months longer than expected. And one where no new capital comes at all. For each scenario, write down the first decisions you’d make- what you’d cut, what you’d delay, and what you’d protect.

7. The one that’s not in the deck: Are you okay?

Six months is a long time in startup life.

Long enough for the initial excitement to fade. Long enough for your identity to become inseparable from your company. Before you know it, “How’s the startup?” and “How are you?” have become the same question.

There’s no dashboard for founder wellbeing, but it belongs in every review. Because when you’re running on empty, every decision suffers.

A bad quarter is just a quarter; it passes. A founder quietly burning out doesn’t pass- it compounds. So before you plan the next six months, ask yourself the one question your metrics never will: How are you really doing? And answer it as honestly as you answer your financials.

The point of asking

None of these questions has perfect answers. If they did, building a company would be much easier.

The first half of the year is already written. You can’t change it. But you can learn from it. Treat the past six months as your primary data source. Every win, every mistake, every surprise is data for the next six months. Read the numbers for what they are, not what you hoped they’d become.

At Razorpay Rize, we get it- building a startup is tough. That’s why we’re more than just a space for connecting with other founders. We’ve got programs, tools, and services designed to take some of the weight off the shoulders and make the journey just a little bit easier.

Dive into Vault today & unlock a world of possibilities. 

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Every early-stage company fields the same handful of questions repeatedly. That volume grows with your user base, but your team’s available hours do not. An assistant grounded in your own documentation resolves the routine 80 per cent, freeing your team to focus on the 20 per cent that genuinely affects retention.

The flow is straightforward:

Help docs → Knowledge base → LLM → Chat widget → Customer

(With a person on standby for anything the assistant cannot confidently handle)

The Stack

There’s no need to over-invest. Each layer below lists a few options at different price and complexity points- pick based on what you already run and how much you want to manage yourself.

A useful principle: the architecture matters more than the specific brands. Any combination that connects these five layers will work.

A sensible starting default: Notion + a hosted AI API + Langflow + Supabase + Crisp

The Build Checklist

☐ Write documentation from the customer’s perspective: Cover the questions people actually ask, in their own words.

☐ Connect the documentation to your workflow: This becomes your knowledge base- the only source the assistant is permitted to draw from.

☐ Constrain the prompt with three rules: Answer only from the knowledge base; cite the source document; escalate when uncertain.

☐ Embed the widget and test thoroughly: Run your most difficult real tickets through it before customers do.

☐ Establish a clear escalation path: Define exactly when and how a conversation reaches a person, from day one.

☐ Log every escalation and feed it back into the docs weekly: Your escalation rate metric is useless if nobody closes the loop by writing the missing doc.

Measuring Whether It’s Working

Track four metrics from launch- together they tell you whether to adjust the documentation, the prompt, or the handoff:

• First response time: How quickly people receive any answer.

• Resolution rate: How often the assistant closes the loop on its own.

• Escalation rate: Consistently high suggests weak documentation; near zero suggests it’s guessing.

• CSAT: The metric that best reflects how support feels to the customer.

At Razorpay Rize, we get it- building a startup is tough. That’s why we’re more than just a space for connecting with other founders. We’ve got programs, tools, and services designed to take some of the weight off the shoulders and make the journey just a little bit easier.

Dive into Vault today & unlock a world of possibilities. 

Subscribe now

For many Indian exporters, the first few wins can be misleading. The product performs well, buyers show interest, and orders begin to come in. Yet profitability remains elusive. The reason is often hidden in the numbers.

Shipping, duties, packaging, marketplace fees, marketing costs, and customer expectations in the US market can significantly affect a product’s economics. What appears profitable on paper in India can quickly become unsustainable abroad. The challenge is not simply setting a price, but building one that reflects your true costs while remaining competitive in the market you are entering.

In this article, we’ll break down the true cost of exporting to the US, uncover the hidden expenses that erode margins, and show you how to build a pricing model that works for both sides of the market.

Start With Landed Cost

The single most common pricing mistake is building your US price off your factory or ex-works cost, adding a margin, and calling it done. That number is fiction. It ignores everything that happens between your warehouse and the buyer’s door.

Landed cost is the true baseline. It is every rupee and every dollar spent getting your product into the hands of a US buyer:

• Ex-works or FOB price (your production cost plus your margin)

• Freight, whether ocean or air

• Marine insurance, typically 0.5–1% of cargo value

• US customs duties and tariffs

• Port handling and customs clearance fees

• Drayage, moving containers from the port to the warehouse

• US warehousing and fulfilment, if you use it

• Last-mile delivery to the buyer

How Tariffs Impact Your Pricing?

Tariffs are a tax the US government charges on imported goods. They are calculated as a percentage of the customs value of your shipment, which is usually the FOB price.

Every product carries an HTS (Harmonised Tariff Schedule) code, and that code decides your rate. The rates vary wildly- 0% for some industrial components, around 12% for apparel, 25% or more for certain steel and aluminium products.

A few things worth knowing about the environment Indian exporters are actually pricing into right now:

• The US-India tariff situation in 2026 is in flux: The broad tariffs introduced in early 2025 created real uncertainty. As of mid-2026, Indian goods face a baseline tariff in most categories, but the picture is actively shifting as trade negotiations continue. Before pricing any shipment, verify your specific HTS code rate through the USITC database or with a licensed US customs broker. Do not rely on what a competitor or a trade body told you six months ago.

• Section 301 tariffs on China have changed the competitive picture: Many categories once dominated by Chinese manufacturers are now significantly more expensive for US buyers to source from China. This is a genuine opening for Indian exporters, but only if your landed cost makes the switch worth it for the buyer.

• GSP has a complicated history: India was removed from the Generalised System of Preferences in 2019. Reinstatement has been discussed, but as things stand, Indian goods do not get GSP duty-free treatment. Build full tariff rates into your landed cost.

To find your rate, identify your 10-digit HTS code (your customs broker can help), check the current rate at hts.usitc.gov, and account for any additional duties- anti-dumping or countervailing- that may apply to your category.

Building the Landed Cost Calculation

Here is a simple framework to run before you quote any US buyer. Take a product with an ex-works cost of $10 per unit, shipping 1,000 units.

Your landed cost is $14.02. This is the floor below which you cannot sell without losing money. Everything above this number is your margin for the US market.

Breaking Down the US Price Tag

Calculating your landed cost is only the starting point. To price effectively, you also need to understand how the US pricing ecosystem works. Your product doesn’t move straight from your warehouse to the customer. It passes through multiple hands, and every participant in the chain expects to earn a margin.

A typical stack looks like this:

• Your price to a distributor or importer: Landed cost plus your margin, usually 20–40% above landed cost for branded goods, tighter for commodities.

• Distributor to retailer: Distributors typically mark up 20–40% on top of what they pay you.

• Retailer to consumer: Retailers typically mark up 50–100%.

If your product lands at $14 and you sell to a distributor at $18, the distributor sells to a retailer at $24–25, and the retailer puts it on the shelf at $48–50. Now, if comparable products in that category retail for $35, you have a problem.

This is exactly why understanding US consumer price expectations for your category is non-negotiable before you finalise your export pricing.

Benchmarking Against the US Market

Before you quote anyone, spend real time understanding what your category actually sells for in the US.

For retail products:

• Search for your exact product type, sort by bestseller, and look at the price range of products with high review counts on Amazon. That is your consumer price window.

• Check Target, Walmart, and Whole Foods (for food) online. These are the reference points your buyer is already using.

• Look at speciality retailers for comparable items. Selling handcrafted home goods? See what West Elm or Anthropologie retails similar products for.

For B2B and wholesale:

• Faire and other wholesale marketplaces show wholesale prices directly. The wholesale-to-retail ratio is usually around 50% - a product retailing at $40 wholesales at $20.

• Talk to your buyer honestly. Ask what price point they need to make the product work. Good buyers will tell you.

The question to answer is simple: given your landed cost and the margins the chain needs, can your product reach the consumer at a price that is actually competitive in the category? If the answer is no, you have three honest options: Reduce your production cost, reduce your margin, or find a channel where fewer hands touch the product before it reaches the consumer.

Pricing Strategies That Work in the US Market

1. Minimum Order Quantities: Larger orders reduce your per-unit shipping, handling, and operational costs. Creating pricing tiers for quantities such as 500, 1,000, and 5,000 units allows you to reward bigger commitments while maintaining healthy margins on smaller orders.

2. FOB vs. DDP pricing: Many US buyers prefer DDP (Delivered Duty Paid) because it offers a single, all-inclusive price with logistics, duties, and delivery handled by the seller. While this simplifies purchasing for the buyer, it increases your operational complexity and financial risk.

   If you offer DDP, your landed cost calculations need to be highly accurate because you are responsible for every cost along the way.

3. Currency risk: If you quote in USD while your costs sit in INR, build in a buffer for exchange-rate movement. A 3–5% buffer on quotes with long lead times is reasonable.

4. Payment terms: US buyers commonly negotiate payment terms such as Net 30, Net 60, or even Net 90. Extended payment cycles create a real financing cost for your business, as capital remains tied up long after the order has been fulfilled.

   Factor this cost into your pricing strategy or explore invoice financing solutions to maintain healthy cash flow.

What US Buyers Actually Negotiate On?

One of the biggest pricing mistakes exporters make is focusing only on the product price. In reality, US buyers negotiate the total cost of the relationship. The things they will push on:

• Unit price

• Freight terms

• Payment terms

• Return policy

• Compliance costs

A buyer who gets Net 60 terms, free shipping to their warehouse, and a generous return allowance is getting a far better deal than the unit price alone suggests.

Final Thoughts

Every exporter eventually learns the same lesson: margins are not lost in the factory. They are lost in the details.

The freight costs you ignored, the payment terms you agreed to, the currency movement you did not anticipate, and the duty changes you failed to account for can quietly erode even the best products.

So build pricing models you can update quickly. Know your true landed cost at all times. Understand the full distribution chain before you quote a single number. And when in doubt, talk to a US customs broker and a freight forwarder before you commit to a price.

In the long run, buyers rarely remember who offered the lowest price. They remember who delivered consistently, solved problems quickly, and became a partner they could trust.

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As a founder, growth is only half the battle. The harder challenge is keeping the users you’ve worked so hard to acquire and getting them to come back, engage deeper, and eventually become your most loyal customers.

Through this “How-to Guide” series, we want to introduce you to platforms across categories that reduce this operational load, so you can spend less time managing processes and more time building your company.

One of the first places where this gap shows up is customer engagement. You have the data – signups, app opens, purchases, drop-offs, but no easy way to act on it in real time.

CleverTap fixes this by bringing everything into one place. From real-time behavioural tracking to AI-powered segmentation, omnichannel journeys, and live user targeting, it’s an all-in-one engagement platform built to help you retain your most valuable customers, forever.

Use-Cases

1. E-commerce / D2C Founders | AI-Powered Retention & Revenue Growth

Scenario: A fast-growing D2C brand struggling with cart abandonment, low repeat purchases, and fragmented customer engagement across channels.

E-commerce brands use CleverTap to unify customer data and engage users contextually across push notifications, WhatsApp, email, and in-app messaging. With AI-driven segmentation and real-time personalisation, brands can improve conversions, increase repeat purchases, and maximise customer lifetime value through retention-led growth strategies.

2. Fintech Founders | Lifecycle Engagement & Intelligent User Activation

Scenario: A fintech startup aiming to improve KYC completion, product adoption, and long-term retention across a rapidly growing user base.

Fintech companies use CleverTap to orchestrate personalised onboarding journeys and automate behavioural nudges with real-time analytics and AI-powered automation. This helps improve activation rates, reduce user drop-offs, and drive higher retention through contextual and timely engagement.

3. OTT / Media & Entertainment Founders | Personalised Content Engagement & Viewer Retention

Scenario: An OTT platform managing millions of users across both paid and freemium models, with diverse content preferences and viewing behaviours.

OTT and media platforms use CleverTap to deliver hyper-personalised content recommendations, automate binge-watch nudges and new-release alerts, and re-engage dormant viewers through push notifications, in-app messaging, email, and WhatsApp. By leveraging real-time behavioural insights and AI-powered segmentation, platforms can increase watch time, improve subscription retention, and drive deeper long-term engagement.

4. EdTech / SaaS Founders | Subscription Retention & Product Adoption

Scenario: An EdTech or SaaS startup managing lead nurturing, course purchases, and feature adoption across a growing subscriber base.

EdTech and SaaS companies use CleverTap to automate lead-nurturing journeys – from webinar attendance and onboarding communication to educational content tailored to different lifecycle stages. Through personalised engagement across push notifications, email, WhatsApp, and in-app messaging, businesses can reduce drop-offs, improve product adoption, increase user activation, and drive stronger long-term retention.

How to Set Up CleverTap: Step-by-Step Guide

New to CleverTap? Getting started is simpler than you think.

Example Use Case: Sending a Welcome Campaign to New Users Using CleverTap Essentials. Here are the steps to launch your first personalised campaign:

1. Log in to CleverTap: Open your CleverTap dashboard and connect your app or website.

2. Check Your Data: Make sure user events like signups, app opens, and purchases are showing up.

3. Create a User Segment: Go to Segments and create a group like New Users.

4. Create a Campaign: Go to Campaigns and choose a channel like Push, Email, SMS, or WhatsApp.

5. Write Your Message: Add a simple welcome message for new users.

6. Choose the Audience: Select the New Users segment you created.

7. Set When to Send: Send it immediately after signup or after a short delay.

8. Launch and Track: Start the campaign and check results like opens, clicks, and conversions.

Tip: Start with one simple campaign, learn how it performs, and then build more journeys over time.

Key Features for Startups

1. Live Behaviour Campaigns

Instead of sending scheduled messages to everyone, startups can trigger campaigns based on specific user actions. For example, if a user adds a product to their cart but doesn’t complete the purchase, an automated reminder can be sent instantly to encourage conversion.

2. Real-Time User Behaviour Tracking

Track user actions as they happen, including app opens, button clicks, purchases, and feature usage. This gives teams immediate visibility into customer behaviour and creates opportunities for timely engagement.

3. Omnichannel Journeys

Reach users across multiple touchpoints, including:

• Push Notifications

• In-App Messages

• SMS

• Email

• WhatsApp

This creates a consistent customer experience across every touchpoint where users engage with your brand.

4. Targeting Live Users

Identify users who are actively using your app or website and engage them in real time. Contextual messaging delivered at the right moment can significantly improve engagement, retention, and conversion rates.

Know more about the Essentials features here.

AI Feature for Startups

CleverTap Scribe for Emotionally Intelligent Content

CleverTap Scribe is an AI-powered content creator that generates emotionally relevant messages that resonate with a brand’s users. Based on the marketer’s prompt, Scribe generates up to three content options for the marketer to choose from.

It also analyses the emotional tone of the content, which can be further optimised to align with the brand’s tone of voice and the specific use case. The AI feature can be used across push, web push, email, and WhatsApp.

On average, companies lose up to 75% of new users within the first week of install. That’s revenue walking out the door, not because your product isn’t good enough, but because the right message didn’t reach the right person at the right time.

With CleverTap, you can track user behaviour in real time, automate personalised journeys across every channel, re-engage users before they churn, and grow retention without adding headcount or complexity.

At Razorpay Rize, we get it- building a startup is tough. That’s why we’re more than just a space for connecting with other founders. We’ve got programs, tools, and services designed to take some of the weight off the shoulders and make the journey just a little bit easier.

Dive into Vault today & unlock a world of possibilities. 

Subscribe now

Most founders think the road to their first million in revenue is about finding a clever growth hack. It rarely is!

In a recent session for the Razorpay Rize community, Sairam Krishnan, Head of Marketing at Atomicwork, and someone who has been through three separate zero-to-one journeys at Freshworks, Wingify, and now Atomicwork, made a quietly radical argument: there is no universal playbook for your first million. But some fundamentals consistently separate companies that grow from those that stall, and most founders overlook them.

Here are 10 practical lessons from Sairam’s zero-to-one journey that every early-stage founder can apply on the road to their first $1M ARR.

1. Start with a Marketing MVP instead of a plan

Founders love the idea of a marketing plan. Sairam pushed back on that instinct. Before channels, before content calendars, before a single rupee on ads, you need what he calls a Marketing MVP- the smallest possible foundation that makes the rest of your marketing make sense.

The rule he gave is simple: People need to understand what category you belong to before they can understand why you’re different. If your audience can’t immediately place what your product is, no amount of clever messaging about why it’s better will land.

Your category and your one true differentiator quietly dictate everything downstream, be it your blog, your newsletter, your landing page, or the words you use on a sales call.

2. Pick a niche so narrow it feels uncomfortable

The most common early mistake is trying to sell to everyone. Sairam’s advice was the opposite: identify one specific, narrow Ideal Customer Profile and build everything around it.

He pointed founders to April Dunford’s book Obviously Awesome, and to a useful definition of product-market fit along the way- it’s the moment customers start pulling the product out of your hands, rather than you pushing it toward them. For Atomicwork, the chosen audience is Chief Information Officers, so every marketing asset is tailored to what a CIO actually cares about.

But how do you find that niche if you don’t know it yet? You start with a hypothesis, and then you watch. Use design partners and see who gets the most genuine utility from what you’ve built. The people who stick around are telling you who you’re for. And the ones who quietly leave? They’re telling you something just as useful, that they were never your audience to begin with.

A five-person company can pivot its positioning in a week. The market isn’t watching you the way it watches Nike. That freedom is one of the few real advantages of being early, so use it!

3. Choose inbound over paid

With the cost of ads and influencers climbing, early-stage companies should lead with inbound and brand-building. A paid experiment, say, around $10,000 on Google, can be a fine way to test a hypothesis. But relying on paid as your engine is usually too expensive to be sustainable when you’re young.

The same logic came up about LinkedIn ads for reaching CHROs. Sairam’s answer was nuanced: if you have real data showing your buyers genuinely live on LinkedIn, run the experiment. But LinkedIn is expensive, and that expense is exactly why an inbound-first foundation matters underneath any paid bet you make.

So what does inbound actually look like in practice?

• Go where your audience already is. If they hang out on Reddit, your content lives near Reddit-shaped conversations.

• Mine your own users for stories. Find the people using your product in creative or clever ways, interview them, and share what they did. Real usage is more persuasive than any claim you could write yourself.

• Let AI accelerate, not author. AI can speed up the work, but the core strategy has to come from the founders. The taste and the judgment are still yours.

• Hold content to a real standard. Your blog isn’t competing with other startup blogs. It’s competing with the best media your industry already reads.

4. Build a pipeline by being genuinely useful

The second move is to build a pipeline, and the way you build it is by nurturing people with value. Communities, newsletters, curated boards: these are places to show up consistently and helpfully.

Capturing emails matters here, but so does what you do with them. The founders who win become trusted vendors, the ones who send a thoughtful report on how peers are adopting a new technology, rather than another “just checking in” email. Trust, built slowly, is what turns a lead into a customer who stays.

5. Sell it yourself before you scale

This was perhaps the firmest thing Sairam said: Do not delegate sales until the process is rubber-smooth and repeatable.

That means documenting everything as you go- the objections you hear, the demo flow that works, the follow-up that converts. Only once that whole motion is systematised should you hire your first salesperson. And when you do, that documented playbook becomes the template every future hire learns from.

Alongside it, watch for patterns. Among the deals that close, who are these people, and what do they have in common? Focus on the pattern. Then feed that pattern back into your marketing so you attract more of the right kind of customer and fewer of the wrong ones.

6. Find what compounds

Once something is working, the next question is brutally simple: What’s actually generating revenue from the right customers? Double down there, even if the traffic looks small and cut the activities that aren’t compounding.

Every marketing and hiring decision, Sairam argued, should be driven by what compounds. As you hit milestones, say, $50,000 in monthly recurring revenue, that data earns you the right to make bigger bets. The cycle repeats, and each turn surfaces a new problem to solve. That’s the job!

7. Fix the shop front before you worry about the crowd

The website often spends too much time talking about features and too little time talking about the customer’s problem. It’s a common mistake. Founders know their product inside out, so they naturally lead with what it does. Customers, however, care first about what it solves.

The takeaway: Before investing heavily in marketing channels, growth experiments, or acquisition campaigns, make sure the fundamentals are clear. Can a visitor immediately understand who the product is for, what problem it solves, and why it’s worth paying for?

Define your value proposition, your price, and your audience clearly before you spend energy on channels. If the shop front is weak, no clever channel strategy will save it. People arrive, don’t understand, and leave.

8. Avoid the metric trap

What tools should we use to monitor growth? Sairam’s answer was a gentle warning about the metric trap: obsessing over 400 or 500 daily visitors before you have enough data to draw any real conclusion. You often need something like 30 samples before a number means anything.

For a three-person team, the better use of energy isn’t optimising a thin trickle of traffic. It’s widening the top of the funnel- more inbound content, more reach. Aim for 5,000 or 6,000 visitors before you start agonising over conversion rates. Build the engine first!

9. Different business models, same foundation

When the conversation turned to scaling, Sairam offered a simple framework: are you trying to earn one rupee from 40,000 customers, or 1,000 rupees from 40 customers?

The answer shapes everything- from your sales motion and marketing strategy to how you build relationships with customers. A high-volume business requires a very different approach from one built around a smaller number of high-value accounts.

But regardless of the model, the underlying principle remains the same: growth begins with clear positioning. Before you worry about channels, tactics, or scale, you need to know exactly who you’re serving and why they should choose you.

And for founders in traditional, non-tech industries- where your buyer isn’t scrolling LinkedIn at all- the answer is older and simpler. Get on the ground! Sairam shared the story of a friend who sold hotel software by travelling to Goa in the off-season to run in-person demos. That hands-on, unglamorous hustle is what launched a multi-million dollar business.

10. The Real Job of Branding

Many founders think branding is primarily about visuals- logos, animations, design systems, or clever campaigns. While those elements matter, they are not what ultimately create a brand.

For companies operating between B2B and consumer tech, Sairam’s advice was to focus on becoming the tool that influential users adopt first. The goal is to earn trust within a small group of respected practitioners and let their adoption create a ripple effect across the market. Brands aren’t built when people recognise your logo; they’re built when people notice that the individuals they admire are already using your product.

Final thoughts

If there’s a single thread running through everything Sairam said, it’s this: at the zero-to-one stage, clarity and repeatability matter more than scale. The instinct to chase growth, optimise metrics, and hire ahead of the work is understandable, but it usually puts the roof up before the foundation is poured.

The founders who reach their first million in revenue rarely do so because they discovered a hidden growth hack. They get there by building strong fundamentals: clear positioning, consistent messaging, a repeatable sales motion, and a deep understanding of their customers.

Growth becomes far easier when you’ve first figured out who you’re serving, what problem you’re solving, and why customers should choose you.

Every great conversation leaves you with a few ideas you can't stop thinking about. This article grew out of one such conversation with Sairam Krishnan, Head of Marketing at Atomicwork. His willingness to openly share what he's learned- through wins, challenges, and everything in between- helped shape many of the perspectives captured here.

At Razorpay Rize, we get it- building a startup is tough. That’s why we’re more than just a space for connecting with other founders. We’ve got programs, tools, and services designed to take some of the weight off the shoulders and make the journey just a little bit easier.

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Hey Everyone! ✨

Bengaluru’s skies were unpredictable this month. The Rize community wasn’t.

Founders kept shipping, launching, hiring, fundraising, learning, and supporting one another. The result? Another month full of momentum and milestones.

Here’s your recap of everything that happened across Rize.

MILESTONE MOMENTS 👑

Every month, our favourite updates come from the founders themselves.

We've witnessed some jaw-dropping milestones within our community, and we can’t wait to share them with you.

A big congratulations to these founders! Each step forward is a victory on the path to success. So, keep pushing and growing!

ARTICLES OF THE MONTH 📜

Missed our articles last month? Check the top ones that fuelled our Founders!

✍️ US Market for Indian Exporters: What to Know

Everything Indian founders need to understand before entering the world's largest consumer market.

✍️ AI for Meta Ads: How D2C Brands Are Scaling Faster in 2026?

How leading D2C brands are using AI to improve targeting, creatives, and ROAS at scale.

✍️ US Product Readiness: Standards, Certifications and Consumer Expectations

The certifications, compliance requirements, and customer expectations that can make or break your US launch.

✍️ How to Get US Buyers for Your Export Business in 2026?

Practical strategies to find, reach, and convert buyers in the US market.

✍️ AI Security for Startups: Risks, Challenges, and What to Do Next (Part 1)

A founder's guide to understanding AI risks and building securely from day one.

Discover more such insightful reads in the Vault! The collection is growing every day.

Vault by Razorpay Rize

Thoughts from a thriving community of founders and entrepreneurs to fuel innovation, learn from each other's journeys, and Rize together.

STORIES FROM RIZE-PRENEURS 📎

What does it take to build in one of the fastest-evolving industries today?

This month, we sat down with Uttaran Nayak, Co-founder & CEO of Alchemyst AI, to learn about his journey building AI systems for enterprise automation, workflows, and intelligent infrastructure.

KEY HIGHLIGHTS THIS MONTH💡

New initiatives, exciting launches, and everything you need to stay ahead.

✨Break to Build: Launch✨

May also saw the launch of Razorpay’s Break to Build.

Behind every startup is a story that rarely makes it to the headlines- months of uncertainty, product pivots, customer rejections, cash flow worries, sleepless nights, and the constant pressure to keep going when things don’t go as planned.

Through Break to Build, founders opened up about what they’re building, the problems they’re solving, and the challenges they’ve overcome along the way.

Missed it? Check out our social channels for all the stories and highlights.

✨ Rize at Razorpay Conclave, Goa✨

The Rize team was in Goa for the Razorpay Conclave last month.

The event brought together founders, operators, investors, and ecosystem leaders for thought-provoking conversations on growth, innovation, AI, and what's next for the Indian startup ecosystem.

It was an opportunity to learn from some of the brightest minds in the industry and strengthen connections across the community.

✨Rize City Circle: Mumbai Edition✨

This month, Rize City Circle landed in Mumbai, bringing together ambitious founders from across the ecosystem.

The Mumbai edition of Rize City Circle brought these stories together in one room. What followed were honest conversations, shared lessons, and the comforting realisation that while every founder's journey is different, none of them has to walk it alone.

✨ New Launch: Razorpay Business Directory✨

Ever spent hours trying to find reliable information about a company online?

That’s exactly the problem the Razorpay Business Directory solves. With access to over 22 lakh Indian companies, founders can quickly search, verify, and learn about businesses without jumping between multiple websites.

A simple tool that saves time, something every founder could use more of.

Explore Now

MEET OUR NEWEST FOUNDERS: ONBOARDING EDITION 👥

Say hello to the latest group of founders joining the Rize Communities! They're full of bold ideas and big dreams, ready to take the startup world by storm.

Dive into Vault today & unlock a world of possibilities. 

Subscribe now

This article is published in collaboration with Jitesh Dugar, AI Automation Specialist and verified n8n creator, who shares practical insights on building content workflows that actually save time.

For years, consistent content creation was one of the biggest advantages large brands had over smaller businesses. They had dedicated teams for research, copywriting, design, publishing, and analytics. Most founders, on the other hand, were forced to squeeze content creation between customer calls, product discussions, operations, and fundraising.

But something has changed.

The rise of generative AI has dramatically reduced the effort required to create content. At the same time, automation platforms have made it possible to connect different tools and workflows without writing complex code. Together, these technologies are changing how businesses approach marketing.

During a recent workshop, AI automation specialist and verified n8n creator Jitesh Dugar demonstrated exactly how this works in practice. Rather than discussing AI in theory, he showed founders how to build a complete content engine, from idea generation to social media publishing, using AI and automation tools that are available today.

Why Content Automation?

Content automation helps by taking care of repetitive workflows, allowing teams to maintain consistency while focusing their time on strategy, creativity, and growth.

• Maintains consistency even when teams are busy with other priorities

• Reduces time spent on repetitive tasks like research, scheduling, and publishing

• Helps small teams achieve more without hiring additional resources

• Speeds up content production from ideation to distribution

• Reduces manual errors and missed publishing schedules

• Creates scalable systems that grow with the business

• Allows founders to focus on high-impact work such as customers, product, and growth

The Three Building Blocks Every Founder Needs to Understand

Jitesh explained that every single automation, no matter how complex, is built from just three things.

A Trigger

It’s the event that signals to the system that something has happened and that it’s time to respond. A customer places an order, fills out a form, sends a message, or signs up for a newsletter. Without a trigger, nothing moves.

Logic

This is where the system evaluates conditions, checks rules, and determines what should happen next.

Should the customer receive a welcome email? Should the request be routed to sales or support? Is the payment successful? Logic is what makes an automation feel intelligent rather than mechanical.

An action

It’s the thing the system does after processing the trigger through its logic. An email gets sent. A task gets created. A team member gets notified. A rider gets assigned.

For example: A food delivery app

What makes modern automation powerful isn’t that it’s built differently. It’s that thousands of these simple Trigger, Logic & Action sequences can be connected together to create workflows that feel incredibly complex. It’s very much like the digital equivalent of cause, decision, and response.

No matter which automation tool you use, these three components remain at the heart of every workflow.

Choosing Your Automation Tool

Once you understand the framework, the next question is obvious: How do you actually build these automations?

Fortunately, a new generation of no-code and low-code platforms allows anyone- from solo founders to enterprise teams- to automate repetitive work, connect apps, and build workflows in hours instead of weeks.

• Zapier is the veteran of the category. It connects thousands of apps, has a polished user experience, and is often the easiest place to start. The trade-off is cost. As your workflows become more complex or your automation volume increases, pricing can rise quickly.

• Make.com strikes a balance between power and accessibility. Its visual workflow builder makes it easy to understand how data moves through a process, and it generally offers more flexibility per dollar than Zapier.

• n8n has become a favourite among technical founders and startups. It’s open-source, highly customizable, and can be self-hosted, giving teams greater control over costs and data.

• Pipedream is ideal for developers who want to combine code with automation. Instead of relying entirely on drag-and-drop interfaces, it allows you to insert custom logic wherever needed.

• Relay.app focuses on human-in-the-loop workflows. Not every process should be fully automated, and Relay is designed for scenarios where people occasionally need to approve, review, or make decisions before the workflow continues.

However, n8n is what Jitesh chose for this session and for good reason. It’s AI-first in its design, low-code in its interface, and predictable in its pricing.

And there’s a 14-day free trial. Which means you can build something real this weekend before spending a rupee.

The First Workflow: Ideation Engine

To demonstrate what automation can actually do, Jitesh built a workflow live using a brand from the room. The example was Active Tribe, an intimate hygiene brand for active men.

The workflow was designed to solve a problem nearly every founder faces: coming up with fresh content ideas consistently.

Here’s how it works.

• The Trigger: Every morning at 7:00 a.m., a Schedule node automatically kicks off the workflow. No manual intervention required.

• The Research Layer: An RSS Reader node scans Google News for the latest stories and trends related to the brand’s niche, whether that’s men’s wellness, hygiene, fitness, or adjacent categories. Within seconds, it gathers a stream of relevant content.

• The Intelligence Layer: Since not every trend is worth talking about, a Limit node filters the results down to the most relevant items. These are then passed to an OpenAI node, where a carefully crafted prompt instructs the AI to generate a complete content package: a post idea, an attention-grabbing hook, a caption, and even an image prompt.

• The Action: The output is cleaned up using an Edit Fields node and automatically added to a Google Sheet. By the time the team starts work, fresh content ideas are already waiting for them.

The Second Workflow: Publishing Engine

If the first workflow generates ideas, the second makes sure those ideas actually get published. Together, they create a complete content pipeline.

Step 1: The Trigger
At 10:00 a.m., a scheduled workflow automatically starts running.

Step 2: Pick the Next Post
The workflow checks the Google Sheet and selects the first row marked “ready.” It processes one post at a time to keep things organised and avoid overlaps.

Step 3: Generate the Visual
Using the image prompt stored in the sheet, Google Gemini creates a custom image for the post.

Step 4: Publish the Content

The generated image is combined with the caption and automatically published to LinkedIn.

Step 5: Update the Status

Once the post is live, the workflow changes the status from “ready” to “posted,” ensuring the same content is never published twice.

The Question Every Founder Asks: Will My Account Get Banned?

It was one of the most practical questions of the session and one that almost every founder in the room was wondering about. What happens when you automate social media posting at scale? Is there a risk of getting your Instagram account suspended?

Jitesh’s response was straightforward.

The key is how you automate! If you’re using official APIs, such as Meta’s own API for Instagram, you are operating through channels that the platform explicitly supports. In those cases, the risk of suspension is extremely low. Problems typically arise when businesses rely on unofficial tools that scrape data, mimic user behaviour, or attempt to bypass platform restrictions.

There was a second caveat, though: Posting frequency matters!

Even if you’re using approved tools, posting every few minutes can look unnatural and trigger platform safeguards. If you’re posting every five or ten minutes, whether by hand or by bot, Instagram will flag it. The solution is to post at a human pace.

Automation, when done well, is almost invisible. It doesn’t make your brand look automated- it makes your operations look effortless.

Teaching AI Your Brand Voice

If the AI is creating the content, how do you stop it from sounding generic? How do you make sure it reflects your brand’s personality instead of producing the same captions everyone else is posting?

Jitesh shared two practical solutions:

Approach 1: Let AI Learn From Your Brand

Many AI models can access web content as part of their workflow. By directing the model to your website before it generates content, you give it context about your brand- your products, messaging, positioning, and communication style. Instead of creating content from a blank slate, it starts with an understanding of who you are.

Approach 2: Feed It Your Brand Guidelines

The simpler approach is often the most effective. Include your brand guidelines directly in the prompt. Define your tone of voice, key messages, preferred vocabulary, phrases you avoid, and the emotions you want your audience to feel.

AI is remarkably good at following instructions. The challenge is that most brands never give enough instructions to follow. The better your context, the better your output.

Final Thoughts

For years, building a consistent content presence felt like a luxury. It often required a dedicated marketing team, an agency partner, or a founder willing to spend late nights creating content after everything else was done.

A founder with the right systems can now create, refine, and publish content at a scale that would have seemed unrealistic just a few years ago.

The tools are here. The workflows work. And for founders willing to experiment, the gap between what they can imagine and what they can execute has never been smaller.

The only question now is: What will you build this week?

Dive into Vault today & unlock a world of possibilities. 

Subscribe now

Nobody gets excited about compliance. It is the part of the US market entry conversation that causes eyes to glaze over, the section of every export guide that founders skim and then regret skimming six months later when a shipment is sitting at the port of Los Angeles with a hold notice attached to it.

So here is the deal. This article will be as painless as possible. But you need to read it. Because customs and compliance is the single area where ignorance is most expensive. A rejected shipment, a product recall, or an FDA import alert does not just cost you that shipment. It can cost you your US market access entirely.

The good news: the rules are knowable. The agencies are navigable. And the Indian exporters who do their compliance homework before their first shipment find that it becomes a competitive advantage, because their less-prepared competitors are the ones getting held at the border.

The Compliance Agencies You Need to Know

When it comes to imports, the US works through multiple federal agencies, each responsible for specific product categories. So before you worry about paperwork or shipping, you need to know which regulator your product falls under.

1. CBP: US Customs and Border Protection

Every commercial shipment entering the US passes through CBP first. They are the agency responsible for verifying import documents, collecting duties, checking for restricted items, and deciding whether goods can enter the country or need further inspection.

The important thing to understand is that CBP works entirely on documentation and compliance standards.

What does CBP look at on every shipment?

• Commercial invoice: Must include the seller and buyer’s full names and addresses, a detailed description of goods (what they are, what they are made of, what they are used for), quantity, unit value, total value, country of origin, and the correct HTS (Harmonised Tariff Schedule) code.

• Packing list: Itemises exactly what is in each box or pallet. Must match the commercial invoice.

• Bill of lading or airway bill: The contract between you and the carrier. Issued by the freight forwarder or carrier.

• Country of origin marking: Almost every product entering the US must be marked with its country of origin in a legible, permanent manner visible to the ultimate purchaser. “Made in India” must appear on the product itself or its packaging. The requirements for how and where this marking appears vary by product category.

ACE (Automated Commercial Environment) is the system through which your customs broker files your entry with CBP electronically.

CBP does not just enforce its own rules. It also enforces the import requirements of a dozen other federal agencies, called Partner Government Agencies (PGAs). When you import a product that falls under the jurisdiction of the FDA, CPSC, EPA, USDA, or others, CBP checks compliance with those agencies’ requirements too before clearing your shipment.

2. FDA: Food and Drug Administration

The FDA regulates food, beverages, dietary supplements, cosmetics, medical devices, and drugs. If your export falls into any of these categories, the FDA is the most important agency in your compliance picture.

Food and Beverages

If you are exporting food to the US, you must be registered with the FDA as a food facility. This is not optional. FDA food facility registration is free and done online through the FDA’s FURLS system. Registration must be renewed every two years (in even-numbered years).

For every food shipment entering the US, you must submit Prior Notice to the FDA before the shipment arrives. This is submitted electronically through the FDA’s Prior Notice System Interface (PNSI) or through your customs broker.

The timing requirements:

• For ocean shipments- At least 8 hours before arrival

• For air shipments- At least 4 hours before arrival

If you are selling food to a US importer (rather than directly to consumers), your US importer is legally required to have a Foreign Supplier Verification Programme (FSVP) in place for you as their foreign supplier. This means they need to verify that your food meets US food safety standards.

US food labelling requirements are specific and non-negotiable. Mandatory elements include:

• Product name

• Net quantity of contents (in both metric and US customary units)

• Ingredient list (in descending order of weight)

• Nutrition Facts panel (in the specific FDA format)

• Name and address of the manufacturer, packer, or distributor

• Allergen declarations (the US has 9 major allergens: milk, eggs, fish, shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, soybeans, and sesame)

Dietary Supplements

The US supplement market is enormous and attractive for Indian exporters of Ayurvedic products, herbal extracts, and nutraceuticals. Supplements in the US are regulated under DSHEA (Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act).

Key requirements:

• Must be manufactured in a facility compliant with FDA’s Dietary Supplement GMPs (Good Manufacturing Practices, 21 CFR Part 111)

• Labels must include a Supplement Facts panel (different format from the Nutrition Facts panel on food)

• Structure/function claims (”supports immune health”, “promotes joint flexibility”) are permitted but must be substantiated and accompanied by a specific disclaimer

• If your supplement contains an ingredient not marketed in the US before 1994, you may need to submit a New Dietary Ingredients (NDI) notification to the FDA before selling

Cosmetics

The Modernisation of Cosmetics Regulation Act (MoCRA), which came into full effect in 2024, significantly upgraded US cosmetic regulations for the first time in decades. Indian cosmetic exporters need to know:

• Cosmetic manufacturing and processing facilities must be registered with the FDA

• Each cosmetic product must be listed with the FDA, including its ingredient list

• There must be evidence that your product is safe for its intended use

• If your product causes a serious adverse event, you are required to report it to the FDA within 15 business days

3. CPSC: Consumer Product Safety Commission

If your products are meant for consumers, the CPSC is likely one of the agencies you will deal with. They oversee safety standards for categories like toys, children’s products, household goods, electronics, furniture, and more.

Children’s Products

Products intended for children under 12 face the most rigorous CPSC requirements. The Children’s Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) requires:

• Third-party testing by a CPSC-accepted laboratory: Children’s products must be tested by an accredited lab for compliance with applicable safety standards.

• Children’s Product Certificate (CPC): Based on the test results, you must issue a CPC that identifies the product, the applicable safety rules it complies with, the testing lab, and the date and location of manufacture.

• Tracking labels: Children’s products must have a permanent label that identifies the manufacturer, production location, date of manufacture, and batch number. This allows for targeted recalls if a safety issue is identified.

• Lead and phthalate limits: Children’s products have strict limits on lead content (both surface coating and substrate) and phthalate content in plastic components.

General Products

For general consumer products not in the children’s category, the requirements are less prescriptive but still real. For many product categories, there are specific voluntary or mandatory standards:

• Furniture: ASTM F2057 for clothing storage units (tip-over prevention).

• Bedding and mattresses: Flammability standards under 16 CFR Part 1633 (mattresses) and 16 CFR Part 1632 (mattress pads).

• Apparel: Children’s sleepwear has specific flammability requirements (16 CFR Parts 1615 and 1616). General apparel has less stringent requirements, but is not exempt.

• Electronics and electrical products: While the CPSC covers safety, electronics also need to address FCC requirements (see below).

For non-children’s consumer products, the CPSC requires a General Certificate of Conformity stating that the product meets all applicable CPSC rules.

4. FCC: Federal Communications Commission

If your product emits radio frequency energy (intentionally or unintentionally), the FCC has requirements. This covers:

• Electronics with wireless connectivity (Bluetooth, WiFi, cellular)

• Devices with switching power supplies (most electronics)

• LED lighting

• Anything with a microprocessor that might emit RF interference

FCC authorisation comes in three forms: Certification (required for most intentional radiators like WiFi devices), Supplier’s Declaration of Conformity (SDoC, for most unintentional radiators), and Verification.

5. USDA: Department of Agriculture

The USDA controls the import of agricultural products, plants, and animal products. For Indian exporters in the food and agricultural space:

• APHIS (Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service): Governs plant and plant product imports. Many agricultural commodities require phytosanitary certificates from India’s NPPO (National Plant Protection Organisation) before export.

• Organic certification: If you want to label your product as organic in the US, you need USDA organic certification. Indian organic products certified under NPOP (National Programme for Organic Production) have equivalency recognition with the USDA organic standard, which simplifies the certification process.

• Meat and poultry: India is not currently on the USDA FSIS list of countries eligible to export meat or poultry to the US.

6. EPA: Environmental Protection Agency

The EPA’s jurisdiction matters for Indian exporters primarily in two areas:

• Pesticide residues: The EPA sets Maximum Residue Limits (MRLs) for pesticides on food products. Food that exceeds these limits can be refused entry. This is particularly relevant for Indian spice, tea, and agricultural exporters.

• Certain chemical products: Cleaning products, disinfectants, and products containing regulated chemicals may require EPA registration.

How to Build Your Compliance Infrastructure?

The good news is that you do not need a massive legal team to handle compliance well. What you do need is structure. Most successful exporters build a simple but disciplined system that ensures documentation, testing, labelling, and shipment processes are handled consistently from day one.

1. Start with your HTS code and identify your regulatory universe

Your 10-digit HTS code tells you your tariff rate. It also signals which PGAs have jurisdiction over your product.

2. Get a US customs broker before your first shipment

A licensed US customs broker (licensed by CBP) is the most important compliance hire you will make. They file your entries, flag documentation issues before they become port holds, and know when something requires additional PGA clearance.

3. Use accredited third-party labs for testing

For products requiring third-party testing (children’s products, certain electronics, supplements), use a CPSC-accepted or FDA-registered laboratory. SGS, Bureau Veritas, Intertek, and UL are the names you will encounter most often. They have offices in India and can test your products before export.

4. Document everything

Test reports, facility registrations, certificates of conformity, certificates of origin, and safety data sheets need to be organised, current, and retrievable quickly. A customs hold can require you to produce documentation within 24-48 hours. If you are searching for a test report from two years ago during a port hold, you are going to have a bad week.

5. Build a compliance calendar

FDA food facility registration renews every two years. FCC certifications need to be renewed if product changes are made. USDA organic certificates have annual renewal requirements. Build a simple calendar that tracks expiry dates for every certification and registration you hold.

The Importer of Record: Who Is Legally Responsible?

One of the most important compliance decisions you will make is identifying the Importer of Record (IOR). This is the party legally responsible for ensuring that goods entering the US comply with all customs and regulatory requirements.

• If you are shipping DDP (Delivered Duty Paid) to a US buyer, you may be the IOR.

• If you are shipping DAP or FOB, your US buyer is typically the IOR.

Many Indian exporters prefer to sell on terms where the US buyer is the IOR, transferring that legal and compliance risk. US buyers, particularly large importers and distributors, often accept this because they have the infrastructure to manage it. This is a negotiation point worth understanding before you get to the contract stage.

Final Thoughts

The encouraging part in this entire compliance process is that the system is not designed to work against you. US agencies are primarily focused on product safety, transparency, and proper documentation. Meet those standards consistently, and the process becomes far more predictable.

So take compliance seriously from the beginning. Hire experienced partners where needed. Get your certifications and testing done early. Build clean documentation systems. Then get back to building, selling, and growing!

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Every founder dreams about landing that first enterprise customer. The demos go smoothly, the product works, and momentum finally feels real. But then comes the moment most early teams aren’t prepared for: the security review. A single vulnerability, exposed API, or overlooked compliance gap can stall deals instantly, not because the product is bad, but because trust breaks before adoption begins.

Nitesh Sinha, co-founder of Trampolyne AI and formerly product lead at Zepto, has sat across the table from that moment- not just once, but repeatedly, with the startups he now works with. His message to founders building with AI is simple, and a little uncomfortable: The speed at which you’re building is outpacing the speed at which you’re protecting.

And the stakes, he says, are higher than most founders realise.

Why Does AI Change the Security Equation?

Security has always lagged behind threats. That’s not new! What is new and genuinely different is how dramatically AI has tilted the playing field.

Nitesh puts it plainly: AI follows instructions directionally, not exactly. It works with abstract inputs, it doesn’t give up when it fails, and it operates at machine scale. Those are also the exact traits that make it dangerous in the wrong hands or in a poorly designed system.

“Practically anyone can use AI to get subject matter expert-calibre work done, at machine scale and speed,” he says. “That’s also true for someone with malicious intent.”

Is this just in theory? No! He shared the story of a student in India whose API keys got leaked, and they woke up to a $50,000 bill. There are startups whose entire production databases got deleted because an MCP tool was given too much authority and received the wrong instructions. They’re happening with increasing regularity to people who were trying to build fast and forgot to build safe.

AI Security Threats Every Founder Should Know

Nitesh’s co-founder, Manish Kumar, walked through the types of AI-specific threats that are now showing up in the wild.

• Direct Prompt Injection is essentially SQL injection for the AI era, except you don’t need to know any code. A person with ordinary language skills can craft a message that tricks your AI into revealing information it shouldn’t.

• Indirect Prompt Injection is subtler and harder to solve. Here, hidden instructions are embedded in content your AI reads- an email, a document, a web page. Your system processes it, trusts it, and quietly sends your user’s sensitive data to an attacker’s server.

Microsoft’s 365 Copilot had a publicly documented vulnerability of exactly this kind.

• Supply Chain Attacks happen when a third-party library or dependency your product uses is compromised. You didn’t build the vulnerability, but it’s living inside your system.

One well-known case: LiteLLM, used across 36% of cloud environments, was compromised. Four terabytes of data were stolen. This is particularly relevant now because AI is generating code at massive speed, and those AI-generated libraries often aren’t audited before they go into production.

• Shadow AI is closer to home for most teams: your own employees uploading client documents to ChatGPT or a public LLM to make sense of them faster. Once that data leaves your system, you’ve lost control of it. India’s DPDP Act is already partially in force and will be fully enforced by April 2027. If your users’ data ends up exposed this way, you’re liable- not the tool your team used.

The Race Between AI Innovation and Regulation

This is where the conversation shifted for many founders in the room. Security felt abstract until the numbers came up.

India’s DPDPA imposes fines of up to Rs. 250 crores for inadequate data protection, and that’s per type of violation. The EU AI Act, which came into enforcement in August 2025, carries penalties of 35 million euros or 7% of global turnover, whichever is higher. Nitesh didn’t mince words: for a small or medium company, this is a company-shutting-down event.

The enforcement will come. Not immediately, but a few high-profile examples will be made, and the larger industry will course-correct overnight. You don’t want to be the example.

More importantly, enterprise customers are already raising these questions. Nitesh shared the example of an AI-native SaaS startup that had completed traditional security audits and standard VAPT checks, yet continued to struggle during enterprise security reviews.

The reason was simple: conventional security testing wasn’t built to detect AI-specific vulnerabilities. Critical gaps had existed within the system for nearly 18 months because nobody was assessing the product through an AI-security lens.

Practical Steps to Improve AI Security Right Now

• Find your flaws first

You’re building fast using LLMs and vibe-coded tools. That’s fine. But run your system through at least a basic security lens. Identify your P0s and P1s- the critical vulnerabilities and fix those. You can use LLMs to help fix vulnerabilities, but review the code yourself. They make mistakes!

• Consider small language models for sensitive workflows

You don’t need a large language model for everything. Small language models can be self-hosted, tuned for your specific use case, and kept entirely within your infrastructure. If you’re handling health data or financial records, this is worth exploring before you scale.

• Map Your AI Stack

Most startups underestimate how many AI systems are already embedded into their workflows, products, and operations. Before improving security, founders need complete visibility into their AI infrastructure.

Start by creating a clear inventory of every AI model, API, tool, and integration being used across the company. Identify what kind of data flows through these systems, which employees have access to them, which external vendors store or process information, and what third-party plugins or automations are connected to your stack.

• Create AI Usage Policies

As AI adoption grows across teams, startups can no longer rely on informal usage or individual judgment alone.

The policy should clearly outline what employees are allowed to upload into AI systems and what information must never be shared. Customer data, financial records, confidential business information, source code, legal documents, and internal strategy discussions should all have clearly defined handling rules.

• Limit Sensitive Data Exposure

One of the biggest mistakes startups make with AI is feeding systems far more information than necessary.

To reduce exposure, startups should follow strict data minimisation practices. Customer identifiers such as names, phone numbers, email addresses, or account details should be masked or anonymised wherever possible before being processed by AI systems.

Confidential metadata, internal notes, legal information, and business-sensitive context should also be removed unless absolutely required for the task. The safest approach is to treat AI systems as high-risk environments by default.

• Conduct AI-Specific Security Testing

This means actively testing systems for prompt injection vulnerabilities, jailbreak attempts, unsafe or harmful outputs, data leakage risks, model abuse scenarios, and manipulation of AI-powered workflows.

Attackers are increasingly experimenting with ways to override system instructions, extract hidden information, manipulate outputs, or force AI agents into unintended actions.

AI-specific testing also helps startups understand how models behave under edge cases, adversarial prompts, and real-world misuse attempts. In many cases, vulnerabilities are not found through traditional code scanning because the weakness exists in the model’s behaviour rather than the infrastructure itself.

• Get your security documentation ready

Enterprise clients have a standard set of questions about AI governance, data flows, and tenant isolation. If you wait until the first one asks, you’ll start from zero every time. If you build a library of answers and architecture diagrams once, you can respond in hours instead of weeks.

Final Thoughts

Traditionally, founders treat security like a tax, something you pay reluctantly, usually when someone forces you to. But Nitesh offered a different way to see it: if you know your security boundaries clearly, you can run hard to that boundary and maximise your ROI fast. If you don’t know where the boundary is, you’ll either be too cautious and move slowly or too bold and get burnt.

Building is no longer the differentiator. Anyone can build. What separates founders now is how responsibly and confidently they can deploy AI in critical workflows and whether the enterprises that could transform their business are willing to trust them enough to let them in.

That trust is earned. And a big part of earning it is being able to say, clearly and honestly: here’s what we’ve built, here’s how we’re protecting it, and here’s what happens if something goes wrong.

This article is published in collaboration with Nitesh Sinha from Trampolyne AI, exploring the growing importance of AI security for modern startups and what founders need to know as AI becomes core to product and business infrastructure.

The next part will dive deeper into AI governance, compliance, and security frameworks for startups.

At Razorpay Rize, we get it- building a startup is tough. That’s why we’re more than just a space for connecting with other founders. We’ve got programs, tools, and services designed to take some of the weight off the shoulders and make the journey just a little bit easier.

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Uttaran Nayak is the co-founder and CEO of Alchemyst AI, a generative AI-native startup building intelligent AI infrastructure for enterprise teams. A graduate of the National Institute of Technology, he started building the company while still in college and has since become a 2x TEDx speaker and the recipient of the Student Entrepreneur of the Year Award 2024.

When people talk about AI startups today, the conversation usually revolves around funding announcements, flashy demos, and billion-dollar predictions. But behind every AI company is usually a founder sitting alone at 2 AM, wondering whether they’ve made the biggest mistake of their life.

For me, that moment came at 20!

Growing Up Between Expectations and Ambition

I was born in Kharagpur and grew up in Kolkata in a middle-class family where stability mattered a lot. My father worked in the railways, and like most families around us, the path ahead always seemed very clear- study hard, get placed, secure a stable job, and build a comfortable life.

Entrepreneurship wasn’t something people around me spoke about seriously. To us, building businesses felt like something only privileged people could afford to do.

Things started changing for me during engineering college. Most of my college life happened during COVID, and honestly, it was a confusing and stressful phase. Everyone around me was worried about placements, careers, and what the future would look like. I was, too.

During that time, I explored different internships across startups, trading firms, and enterprise tech companies, trying to figure out what truly excited me.

One of my earliest experiences was being part of the founding team of a YC-backed startup. I got to witness the journey from zero to hundreds of thousands of users, and for the first time, I saw what building a company actually looked like. It changed the way I thought. I realised startups weren’t magical things built by extraordinary people- they were built by people who were willing to take risks and stay obsessed with solving problems.

The Internship That Made Me Rethink Everything

After that, I did a stint at a high-frequency trading firm. On paper, it looked like the perfect opportunity. It paid well, it was prestigious, and most people would have considered it a dream role. But somewhere deep down, I knew it wasn’t meant for me.

The work felt lonely. I couldn’t imagine spending years disconnected from people, family, and the kind of life I genuinely enjoyed. I’ve always been someone who loves conversations, energy, and being around people. That realisation pushed me toward enterprise tech, where I joined a technical product management team and started working closely with CXOs and enterprise workflows. Looking back now, that experience quietly became the foundation for what would later become Alchemyst AI.

The Hardest Decision

The biggest turning point in my life came when I made a decision that honestly terrified me. I walked away from placements and rejected a stable offer without having any backup plan. I was just 20 years old.

I still remember how difficult that phase was with my family. For almost three months, we barely spoke properly because they simply couldn’t understand why I would leave certainty behind for something so risky. And honestly, I don’t blame them.

But somewhere inside me, I knew I had to try.

So I moved to Bengaluru with just a few months of savings and a belief that maybe I could build something of my own. Some days, it genuinely felt like I was gambling with everything I had. I had no guarantee that things would work out in the next six months.

Watching your friends settle into stable jobs while you’re questioning every decision you’ve made can feel incredibly lonely. But I think that’s also what entrepreneurship teaches you.

It teaches you how to trust yourself before the world does.

The Story Behind “Alchemyst”

The name “Alchemyst” came from my connection with the book The Alchemist. The idea that something ordinary could be transformed into gold stayed with me for years.

I wanted to build products with that same philosophy- taking ideas and turning them into something meaningful. Since the original spelling wasn’t available, we improvised and turned it into “Alchemyst.” That “Y” made it feel ours uniquely.

When we started Alchemyst AI in 2024, the AI ecosystem was exploding with companies building individual AI agents for different tasks-sales agents, audit agents, support agents, workflow agents, and more.

Initially, we also started by building automation applications for enterprises. But as we worked closely with companies, I realised the actual problem wasn’t just the application layer. The bigger challenge was infrastructure- how these AI systems retained memory, shared context, and worked together intelligently.

That realisation completely changed our direction. Instead of building every application ourselves, we shifted focus toward creating the infrastructure layer that powers intelligent AI systems at scale.

The Reality of Being a Young Founder

There’s a romanticised version of young entrepreneurship online.

The reality is much heavier. “As a founder in your early twenties, people naturally doubt you. There’s always this assumption that you’ll fail because you lack experience.”

That lack of trust can quietly become one of the hardest battles. And then come the difficult founder moments nobody prepares you for: your first firing, missed family moments, burnout, and carrying responsibility when everything feels uncertain.

Slowly, as Alchemyst AI started gaining traction and recognition, things changed. My parents also started understanding what I was trying to build. Once the validation started coming in from the outside world, those conversations at home became much easier.

Building With a Friend Who Became My Cofounder

A huge part of this journey has been my cofounder, Anuran. We’ve known each other for almost eight years now. We first met through a common mathematics tuition in Kolkata during our school days.

Over time, we realised how complementary we were as people. I’m someone who naturally enjoys talking to customers, investors, and understanding the market, while he’s deeply focused on technology and engineering.

That balance became one of our biggest strengths. More than anything, what has helped us survive difficult moments is mutual respect. Startup life comes with disagreements, heated discussions, and stressful days, but respecting each other’s work has always mattered more than winning arguments.

The Milestones That Validated the Journey

Over the last two years, there have been moments that still feel surreal to me. Raising my first institutional funding round at 21 was one of them.

Sitting across experienced investors with no long corporate résumé, no fancy background, just conviction and hunger, was incredibly intimidating.

Another huge milestone was getting selected into Antler’s AI Disrupt program and receiving a $400,000 SAFE investment. But honestly, when I look back at everything so far, my biggest achievement isn’t funding or awards. It’s the team we’ve built.

We’re a young Gen Z team, and the speed at which we move still amazes me. We can go from idea to execution in a matter of days. But beyond speed, what makes me proud is that we’ve managed to hold onto the vision while scaling.

What Keeps Me Grounded

Outside work, I find balance in simple things. I love driving, riding bikes, travelling, swimming, cricket, chess, and reading.

Sports have always shaped the way I think about leadership. It teaches discipline, resilience, and how to keep showing up even after losses. I try to bring that same energy into how I work with my team every day.

If Not This, Then What…

And if there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s this: Even if Alchemyst AI didn’t exist, I would still be building something. Maybe not in AI. Maybe not in enterprise tech. But definitely as an entrepreneur.

Because somewhere along the way, entrepreneurship stopped being just a career choice for me. It became deeply personal.

What makes Uttaran Nayak’s story especially exciting for us at Razorpay Rize is how relatable and real it feels. Behind the funding, AI buzzwords, and startup milestones is a young founder figuring things out in real time, learning fast, and building through uncertainty with relentless energy.

His journey from a student founder to building a venture-backed AI startup reflects both the speed and ambition of India’s new-age entrepreneurs.

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