My dad runs an import business and the rising dollar has crushed our margins over the last few years. We cannot raise prices because our customers are price sensitive. So we just absorb the loss every time. Large companies have treasury teams and strategies to protect themselves. We have experience, manual calculations and our bank relationship. There are lakhs of SMEs like us struggle to manage currency risk before it hits the bottom line.
In hardware and automotive work you cannot just build and ship. Every change needs validation. But the only proper labs around are ARAI and SGS and they are built for big companies doing final approvals, not for a small team tweaking things every week. They charge lakhs per test and the waiting list runs into months. So startups either skip testing and take the risk or burn their budget on labs that were built for bigger oems.
Every restaurants, hostels, apartments, vegetable markets and farms generates huge amounts of bio-waste. Just dumping it somewhere, releases dangerous gases and polluting the soil and air. This is happening in every city and every village across India. At the same time this waste is actually not useless, can be turned into useful with right treatment.
India exports medicines to over 200 countries. But more than 60% of the raw ingredients that go inside those medicines come from China. One disruption, one border tension, one supply delay and Indian pharma factories slow down, costs spike and medicine shelves go empty. we have capability to manufacture but not raw materia.
From a farming family. We grow vegetables all year. Ploughing and sowing have machines but that needed only once for a crop. But plucking tomatoes, chillies, brinjal happens every day and still needs people. Labour is hard to find daily. Everything on the farm getting easier, when plucking will be?
Walked past a dump near a market. Almost everything there was plastic packaging, biscuit wrappers, shampoo bottles, carry bags, water bottles. All from brands we buy every day. The product gets used in minutes. The plastic sits there for years. Nobody collects it, nobody recycles it, Tons of free plastic waste can turn into useful product if someone comes with innovation .
India remains as an assembler of smartphones screens, camera modules, circuit boards all still coming from imports. Assembly is crowded and low value. Making the components is where the real money is and that space is almost untouched in India. Yes it is expensive for newcomers also great reward and government is supporting manufacturers with great schemes like PLI.
I read in an article that on an average indians changes mobiles for every 24months. May be because they wants to update or the existing device damged. Not only mobiles, Laptops, Pcs damaged devices turns into e-waste. Every gadget has rare earth metals and that can be recycleabe. Instead of opening another resturant or cafe, if someone works on it in an organised way, collecting and recycling turns into impactful startup.
I live abroad and visit India regularly. Every time I come back road conditions are same problem. Small cracks are ignored and they become potholes and during rains they become small ponds. For small cracks you cannot lay new road. But you can fix it early, like how we use fevikwik to fill a crack at home, same way if there is a good material that fills the pothole or crack, stays firm and lasts long that is enough. No big project no big budget. Just fill it before it gets worse. Reduces accidents, pollution and saves so much money compared to rebuilding the whole road later. If the problem is exist present solutions are not solving clearly.
Comfy clothes we wear every day, innerwear gym wear anything that stretches needs elastic. Almost all of it is spandex, plastic based imported material and cannot be recycled. Countries depend on imports for this one material. Natural rubber can be used and it stretches naturally but nobody is processing it and supplying to garment manufacturers. Most people enter textile by white labelling, buying clothes and putting their brand. But there is more here. Procure natural rubber from farmers, process into elastic tapes with cotton cover and supply directly to manufacturers. Long term contracts and no more dependency on imports or crude oil prices.