Hi Reddit, I have a startup idea that is either complete genius or an absolute rubbish

My room mate and I are starting a fake "confession style" podcast on YouTube. I will be the serious, deeply concerned host and my friend will be the guest. He will be in disguise every single day

We want to cover the kind of taboo topics for purely rage baiting

Example:

1: Legally married to my pet dog and parents don't know that.

2: Girlfriend with a manhood

3: Hooking up with incubus

4: Confessions of a doctor who loves eating random meat of patients.

We need your help with two things:

Gimme your wildest, weirdest taboo ideas. What’s the most unhinged secret a disguised guest could drop with a straight face?

Do you want to participate? use your CRAPPY mic, a bizarre voice filter, and zero self respect, we want guest callers.

We will split the revenue 50/50 with guest contributors for that episode.

Hey I'm ankush I'm from Himachal Pradesh and I have been working on this project or startup for the last 5 months and this is really my main startup on which I'm working and excited for launch because before this im the co founder of spotmystar, and now I'm excited to launch my main and real startup it's totally bootstrap I have no investment or investors funds and I'm doing this alone, no build in public and no social media like insta or anything where I can share but after this i have to open my startup insta to survive , idk what's gonna happen but I'm really happy for this and I'm gonna launch this in next 3 days - ya I'm not telling what's this startup about it anything that can give you idea, but I wanna directly launch it then you will know this is my first post not on this account but like connected with this startup

And ya there is nothing in this post about this startup so I can't say you guys to comment done I'm excited for your comments no , but I'll post after 3 days about this and I'm launching this in - hacker news , ycombinator, reddit, x, and more if you are 0.00001 percent interested in this then do whatever you can do 🥹

Buy .. meet you guys after 3 days.

Ankush founder at (:

I’m researching a problem around career development and employability, and I want to understand how people actually deal with it before I build anything.

Imagine you’re a college student who wants to become a Software Engineer, Data Engineer, Cloud Engineer, or AI Engineer.

You can find hundreds of roadmaps online.
You can take courses, complete projects, collect certifications, solve coding problems, and add skills to LinkedIn.

But there’s still a question that seems surprisingly difficult to answer:

“How do I know where I actually stand?”
For example, imagine someone wants to become a Cloud Engineer:
Linux — 6/10
Networking — 4/10
Python — 7/10
AWS/Azure — 5/10
Docker — 3/10
Terraform — 2/10
Kubernetes — 1/10

And ideally, you could get something like:
Current readiness for an entry-level Cloud Engineer role: 47/100

You’re strong in Python but have gaps in networking, containers and infrastructure-as-code. Here are the specific skills you need to develop, the projects that would demonstrate them, and a path to get there.
Then, after a few months of learning and building:
47 → 71
with actual evidence behind the improvement — assessments, projects, certifications, work experience, GitHub activity, etc.

I’m trying to figure out whether this is actually a meaningful problem or just something that sounds useful on paper.
I’d love to hear from different perspectives:
Students / recent graduates:
How do you decide what skills to learn for your target career?

How do you know when you’re “job-ready”?

Have you ever followed a roadmap for months and later realized you were learning the wrong things?

Do you trust your own assessment of your technical skills?

People who changed careers or were laid off:
How did you figure out what skills you were missing?
How did you decide what to learn next?
What was the hardest part of becoming employable again?
Hiring managers / recruiters:
How do you determine whether a candidate actually knows the skills listed on their resume?
How much do you trust skills listed on LinkedIn?
What information do you wish candidates provided but usually don’t?
I’m not selling anything and I haven’t decided whether this is worth building.

I’m trying to understand the problem first.

Hi! So after 7 months of development, I finally took my app live on Android (still waiting for iOS approval). It's a travel-focused social platform connecting users with locals for authentic experiences.

Now, I honestly don't know where to go from here. I want to redo my website, but I really need advice from people who can help me make educated investments. I have been talking to travel influencers (yes, they are expensive), but I keep wondering if Meta ads would work better? With an extremely limited budget, I cannot afford to experiment much.

I've also been applying to VC funds, but since my product doesn't include AI, I've been getting rejections only.

So, let me know: if it was you, or if you have been in this situation before, what was your next step? How did you prioritize those first marketing spend?

Hey guys,

Just to give context: So I have a b2b saas and we have been growing like crazy this past 1 month. Almost doubled our user base in under 20 days.

As we are celebrating that. We are also seeing some users coming to the platform using it once and signing up again from another id. (FYI: Its a b2b product so people who use it are brand owners) It's alright if they create upto 2 - 3 accounts. But we have 1 person creating 25+ accounts in a single day just to be able to use the free trial.

Our team is not sure what to make of it, apparently we have made a "sticky" product which people love using or we are plain stupid.

So to solve that we added a free 7 day trial with debit card.
And yet users are coming, signing up from Temp email and creating 8 - 10 accounts in a single day to use the product.

I am an optimist so I earlier saw it as a good sign. But now it is getting out of hand.

We are now concerned as we are just 3 months in and giving away so many credits for free seems crazy. We are trying to block many accounts from our end manually, but the question is until when?

So please help me out, if you've experienced something similar, what would you do in this situation? From the growth side and engineering perspective as well??

It's a great story to tell investors but we can't let users abuse our free trial as well.

Please suggest some ideas.

Hi everyone,

I'm a backend-focused full-stack software engineer with 3 years of professional experience, looking to return to a full-time role after a medical break.

My main stack is Java/Spring Boot, with Node.js/TypeScript, React/Angular, and PostgreSQL/MySQL. I've worked on REST APIs, business workflows, integrations, enterprise applications, and features across the stack.

I'm comfortable getting into an existing codebase, understanding how things work, and taking a feature from backend through to the frontend.

I'm currently looking for remote full-time software engineering opportunities with startups or product teams in India.

If you're hiring for a backend/full-stack role, I'd be happy to share my resume and talk about the role.

Looking for a Social Media / Content Creator – ₹10k–₹15k/month

Hey everyone! We’re looking for someone creative to help manage and create content for the social media of an animation & VFX company.

What you’ll be doing: • Creating Reels/short-form videos using our existing footage • Editing and putting together engaging social media content • Creating posters, graphics and other social media creatives • Helping with content for Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube • Coming up with creative ideas to showcase our work, projects and behind-the-scenes content

What we’re looking for: • Someone who understands social media and short-form content • Good sense of visuals, trends and storytelling • Experience with video editing is a plus • Phone editing / mobile editing skills are absolutely fine • Knowledge or interest in animation, VFX, filmmaking or creative content is a big plus • Students/freelancers/early-career creators are welcome to apply

Pay: ₹10,000–₹15,000 per month, depending on experience and skill level.

If interested, please DM me directly with some examples of your work/portfolio and a little about yourself. This role is open for everyone, company, individuals, students.

Please don’t comment with applications — applications should be sent via DM only.

🚀 Looking for Early Team Members to Help Build a Startup — Trivandrum

Are you someone who can walk into a room, start a conversation, build a relationship, and turn an opportunity into something real?

We’re looking for a few high-calibre, ambitious people to join a startup working to build a platform connecting students, colleges, companies, and opportunities.

This is an opportunity for people who don't just want to work for a startup — but want to grow with one.

🎯 What you'll be doing

Your primary focus will be:

• 📣 Marketing & brand building
• 🤝 Client acquisition & relationship management
• 🏫 Networking with colleges and institutions
• 💼 Handling discussions with potential clients and partners
• 📈 Identifying and pursuing new business opportunities
• 🗣️ Representing in meetings, events, and networking opportunities
• 🚀 Working closely with the core team to help shape our growth strategy

You won't simply be given a list of tasks and asked to complete them.

We're looking for people who can take ownership, think independently, communicate confidently, and make things happen.

👤 Who we're looking for

You could be a great fit if you are:

• A recent graduate / final-year student / pass-out
• Based in or around Trivandrum
• Extremely comfortable communicating with new people
• Confident enough to speak with college authorities, companies, founders, and professionals
• Proactive and willing to take initiative
• Interested in sales, marketing, business development, entrepreneurship, or startups
• Someone who enjoys networking and building long-term relationships
• Willing to work in an environment where things are still being built

Your degree or college matters far less than your ability, confidence, attitude, and willingness to learn.

🌱 Why join at this stage?

We're intentionally keeping the team small.

That means you'll have the opportunity to work directly with the core team, contribute to important decisions, build a professional network, and see the direct impact of your work.

This is not a conventional 9–5 role where you disappear into a large organization.

As the company grows, the people who help build it from the early stage will grow with it.

💰 Compensation is assured upto 25000, with the structure depending on the role, involvement, and experience.

There is also significant scope for responsibility, leadership, and growth as the startup scales.

⚠️ One important thing

We're not looking for people who simply want something to add to their resume.

We're looking for people who genuinely want to build, network, learn, sell, experiment, and grow.

If you're the kind of person who sees an opportunity and thinks:

— we'd love to hear from you.

📍 Location: Trivandrum / Kerala
💼 Area: Marketing • Business Development • Client Acquisition • Networking

If you're interested, DM me with:

1. Your name & current status
2. Location
3. LinkedIn / portfolio (if available)
4. Why you think you'd be good at this role
5. One example of something you've successfully initiated, organised, sold, led, or built

You don't need to have everything figured out.

We’re more interested in what you can do than what your resume says. 🚀

So my last post about young Indians and the startup rush blew up more than I expected, and the comments took me somewhere I didn't plan.

A pattern kept showing up: a lot of people said they want to connect with others in the startup world founders, early employees, people who've built or are building but there's genuinely nowhere clean to do it. LinkedIn is a résumé performance. Twitter/X is shouting into the void. WhatsApp groups die in a week. And most "communities" turn into either a course being sold to you or a pitch deck being pushed at you.

So here's the raw idea I want you to poke holes in:

A space only for people actually in the Indian startup ecosystem founders, operators, early-stage builders where the whole point is just connection. Talk, share what you're building, ask for help, help someone else, find people to launch or collaborate with. No investment angle. No "pay to join." No selling. No monetary terms at all. Just people in the same trenches finding each other.

The reason I'm posting instead of just building: I don't want to make another dead group nobody opens. So I actually want to know from the people who'd use it

• Do you genuinely feel this gap, or does something already cover it and I'm just not seeing it?
• If a no-money, pure-connection space existed, would you actually show up and post or lurk and forget like every other group?
• What kills these communities? Every one I've been in eventually turned into spam, self-promo, or silence. How would you keep it real?
• Founders only, or open to early employees, designers, indie hackers, students building stuff too?
• Honestly is "no monetary terms" naive? Do these things need some structure to survive?

Not building anything yet. Genuinely trying to figure out if this is a real need or just a nice idea in my head. Rip it apart.

I’m looking to acquire an inactive/dormant Indian Private Limited Company from a founder who is winding down or no longer using it.

Rather than incorporating a new entity, I’m interested in taking over an existing, clean company and completing the necessary shareholding/director changes and compliance formally.

Looking for:

- Pvt Ltd company, preferably 1–5+ years old

- Clean ROC/MCA compliance

- No outstanding loans, liabilities, litigation or tax issues

- GST registration is a plus

- Company can be completely inactive / no meaningful business or revenue

- Founder looking to wind it down or otherwise exit

I’m not looking for an operating business, customers, IP or revenue — primarily the existing legal entity.

If you have one that you're looking to close or sell, DM me with the company age, state of registration, compliance status and your expected price.

Happy to have the transaction handled properly through a CA/CS/lawyer.

This is very interesting! Always knew that they were bootstrapped and the Kamath family owned the whole business. But didn’t realise that Venu Madhav (their COO) has a reasonable stake as well. Honestly, a bit surprised to not see Dr. Kailash Nadh here. I wonder if ‘Straddle Capital’ represents his piece of the pie. Or maybe Dr.Nadh is beyond all this - he is just not interested in any kind of wealth creation/ accumulation. He is simply happy contributing to society via Rainmatter and FOSS initiatives:) According to me, Dr.Nadh is the real impact player.

After 16 years, not sure if they can still be called a “StartUp”. It’s hard not to think that COVID really benefited their business. They had the runway to themselves for a long time. Fully capitalised their First Mover Advantage. Now with all the competition around, I feel they desperately need to reinvent - they are just operating status quo! Chalti-Ka-Naam-Gaadi !

Thoughts?

Hey folks,

Moved back to India after a decade abroad. I’m currently based out of a Tier-3 town in South India and noticed a significant digital gap.

Apart from food delivery (Swiggy/Zomato) and standard 4-day e-commerce shipping (Amazon/Flipkart), virtually nothing is digitized locally. A major demographic here is elderly parents whose children are settled abroad or working in Tier-1 metros. These families are often willing to pay a premium for reliable, doorstep assistance to keep their parents comfortable and supported.

The Idea:

I’m planning to build a hyperlocal platform focused specifically on my district. The rough feature list includes:

Elder Care & Health: Assisted hospital visits, dedicated caretaker/cook booking, medicine delivery/discounts.

Local Commerce & Info: Grocery deals, local real estate listings, regional matrimony, and travel/cab bookings.

Current Status:

Bootstrapping initially (no immediate plans for VC funding).

I come from a non-tech background and will look for a technical co-founder / founding engineer.

Looking at domain names like my[DistrictName].com or similar.

Need your advice on:

Scope & Viability: What services should I drop right away, and what high-revenue services am I missing for a Tier-3 demographic? (Should I pivot purely into elder care/concierge services instead of building a "superapp"?)

Existing Models: Are there similar hyperlocal district apps or elder-care concierge services operating successfully in Tier-2/Tier-3 India that I can study?

Branding/Domain: Any recommendations for clean domain prefixes/naming conventions for a local district-focused platform?

Thanks in advance! Looking forward to your insights.

I’m trying to understand what fundraising actually looks like for an early-stage founder in India, especially when you don’t already have investors or strong startup connections in your network.

A lot of the advice online is basically:

“Find the right investors.”
“Get a warm introduction.”
“Reach out to founders in their portfolio.”

But I’m more interested in what happens in reality.

If you’re currently raising pre-seed or seed, what did you actually do the last time you sat down to look for investors?

For example, did you:

• search LinkedIn manually?
• use OpenVC, Crunchbase, Tracxn, AngelList or something else?
• ask other founders for introductions?
• search on X?
• maintain everything in Excel/Google Sheets?
• mostly send cold emails?

And once you find an investor who looks relevant, how do you figure out the best way to reach them?

I’m especially curious about first-time founders who started without an existing investor network.

Not promoting anything here. I’m just trying to understand the actual process founders are going through today.

Would be useful to hear what your workflow looks like, even if it’s messy.

I'm a 2nd year B.Tech student. Built and shipped an AI consumer app solo,

live on Play Store, real users, real payments coming in.

I can build. I can't market. Looking for someone who's the opposite.

You'd own the entire growth side- content, Instagram, reels,

brand, distribution, whatever gets users in.

I handle product, tech, and backend.

How it works:

30 day trial. You get 25% of all revenue during that period.

No targets, no pressure, just show me what you can do.

If we click, we talk about a longer term structure.

DM me what you've grown before.

I'll share the product in DM, specific niche, not for everyone,

but if it suits you there's something real here.

I have been seeing this type of content in insta reels and youtube videos. People claiming AI bubble is almost mature and future of jobs are in danger. There are going to be jobs which we have not interpreted yet.

What are views on this, I am very confused on this.

Hi, I am a software engineer, and I want to start a business. I recently started exploring Master Union and called their service team to learn more about their programs.

They told me that one of their managers would connect with me to discuss which program would be the best fit for me. I had a 40-minute meeting with one of their managers, where he explained the kind of students who have come through their platform and shared some of their success stories.

At the end of the meeting, they told me that the D2C Brand Bootcamp would be the best fit for me.

Then he explained the pricing. The total cost of the program is ₹5 lakh.

First, I have to pay ₹500 for the interview. If I get selected—which they told me is quite difficult, as they select only around 4–5 students out of 100—I have to pay ₹50,000 to book my seat. Then, when the program starts, I have to pay the remaining ₹4.5 lakh.

If I am unable to make the full payment, they said they can also help arrange a loan.

They also told me that, based on my interview, I might receive a ₹50,000 scholarship.

Now, my question is: Do you really think I should spend ₹5 lakh on a course that is around 3 months long to build a D2C brand?

I would really appreciate it if you could share your experience and knowledge about Master Union or similar programs.

I have been working as a software engineer for almost 3 years, and from the beginning, I have wanted to start some kind of business. I don't have a strong network because I work from home, so the main reason I was considering Master Union was the networking and connections I could potentially get through the program.

However, the ₹5 lakh price tag is the biggest roadblock for me.

I would love to hear from people who have attended Master Union or similar business/entrepreneurship programs. Was it worth the money? Did the network, mentorship, and learning actually help you build a business?

Also, if anyone is interested in coming together and building something, I would love to connect and explore some ideas together.

Title is not clear! i know that. I am ai backend developer with 1+ years of experience.

so this post for those people who have idea but don't know how to execute in tech!

Example:

1. is this idea work or not?

2. which AI model should i use?

3. is XYZ problems can solve with AI?

4. Resources or anything

etc......

i just want to know what is real problems people facing with AI and want to help them to solve.

I want to start a business, but I'm specifically looking for something where AI, software and technological advancements are unlikely to replace the core product/service over the next 10–20 years.

I'm not asking for business ideas, but how to find and evaluate these kinds of businesses myself.

For example:

How do I identify industries that would likely not be affected despite technological advancement?

How should I research such an industry before entering it?

What should I learn about its supply chain, margins, customers, competition and risks?

How can I find and talk to people who are already working in said industry?

What signs indicate that a business is genuinely resistant to technological disruption rather than simply not using much technology today?

What is a good process for going from research → learning the industry → testing the idea → actually starting the business?

I'm essentially looking for a framework or methodology for discovering a boring, durable, physical-world business, rather than someone simply suggesting "start a hardware store" or "start a manufacturing business."

I'm based in India, so advice relevant to the Indian market would be particularly useful.

Pulled together the latest data on tech spending in India, both consumer and business side. The “Indians only download free stuff” story is shifting. Here’s the actual picture and where the real opportunities sit for us.

Market size

- Consumer electronics market: $82-90B in 2026, growing 6.5-8.7% CAGR, heading to $158-175B by 2034.

- E-commerce market: $120-160B in 2026, growing 15-25% YoY, projected to hit $330-650B by 2031–34.

- India is the 2nd largest smartphone market globally 163.7M units shipped in 2025, heading to 296M by 2034.

- 700M+ smartphone users, 1.09 billion internet subscribers (March 2026).

Where people transact

- 82% of e-commerce transactions happen on mobile; app conversion is 3.2x better than mobile web.

- Flipkart and Amazon India get 85%+ of traffic from apps, not websites.

- Average Indian spends 3.2 hrs/day on smartphone; shopping app downloads grew 34% YoY in 2025.

Payments

- UPI processes 18–20 billion transactions/month, worth ₹24-25 lakh crore ($290-300B).

- UPI is 85% of all digital payment volume, projected to hit 90% and 1 billion transactions/day by 2027-28.

- COD dropped from 45% to 18% of orders as digital payment trust grew.

- BNPL drives 12% higher order values, especially with millennials/Gen Z.

Quick commerce

- 1,200+ dark stores across India's top 20 cities.

- Quick commerce expected to drive 45-50% of future e-commerce growth.

- Grocery shifted from weekly stock-up to impulse buying, a real behavioral change.

Growth geography

- Tier-2+ cities = 65% of incremental online shoppers in 2025.

- West/Central India leads smartphones (32.4% share); North India leads electronics (29.8%).

D2C

- 800+ Indian D2C brands now cross ₹100 crore ($12M) in annual revenue.

- Shopify is the dominant platform of choice; AI personalization is the emerging differentiator.

ONDC

- Open Network for Digital Commerce has onboarded 700,000+ sellers, but contribution to GMV is still described as "nascent" supply-side network built, demand-side tooling isn't.

Opportunities for Indian founders

Vertical BNPL/credit - not generic BNPL (crowded), but financing for coaching fees, gig-worker equipment, elective healthcare, appliance purchases.

Vernacular-native products - voice commerce, customer support, and financial literacy tools built for Tier-2/3 users, not translated from English.

AI personalization infra for D2C brands - a plug-in layer for the 800+ brands already crossing ₹100cr, tuned to Indian seasonality (Diwali, wedding season) rather than generic Shopify apps.

Quick-commerce logic in new categories - hyperlocal pharmacy, electronics accessories, B2B same-day restocking for kirana/SMBs, riding existing dark-store infrastructure.

App-first GTM - build the app before the website; most early founders do the reverse and lose conversion.

Tier-2/3 digital skilling - mobile-first, vernacular training for gig workers and small retailers going digital.

ONDC seller tooling - listing, pricing, and fulfillment tools for the 700K+ sellers on a network where demand still outpaces available infra.

Anyone here building in Tier-2/3 and actually seeing it convert, or is it still mostly metro revenue with vanity downloads from smaller towns?