Beyond Convenience: What Building a Startup Taught Me About India’s Dual Need for Services and Deep Tech

When Minister Piyush Goyal draws a contrast between Indian and Chinese startups, I don’t hear a criticism — I hear a challenge. Having spent years building and scaling a consumer-facing venture in India, I’ve learned that service businesses are not easy shortcuts. They are hard, execution-heavy companies that formalise fragmented markets, create jobs, and deliver reliability to millions.

At the same time, the Minister is right. India must push harder into globally competitive innovation — into deep technology for climate, health, agri-tech, and manufacturing. The real challenge for Indian entrepreneurship is to hold both ideas at once.

What “Convenience” Really Means on the Ground

Most Indian startups that operate in consumer services begin with a deceptively simple question: why is something so basic still broken? Whether it’s clean clothes, timely deliveries, or affordable diagnostics, the real answer rarely lies in a new algorithm. It lies in a thousand small fixes that compound over time — disciplined processes, skilled teams, trust-building, and reliability.

When I built my company, we didn’t grow through marketing blitzes. We grew by sweating the basics — on-time delivery, transparent pricing, and consistent quality. Even seemingly “low-tech” sectors demand serious innovation in logistics, workflow, chemistry, and software. When done right, this work delivers dignity for customers and steady livelihoods for micro-entrepreneurs. That, too, is innovation — just not the kind that grabs headlines.

Also read: Talking Tech: How Voice and Vernacular Are Powering India’s Next Digital Wave

China’s Lesson: Services Can Be World-Class

China’s success is often credited to its deep-tech ecosystem, and rightly so. Massive R&D, patient capital, and supportive policy have powered breakthroughs in EVs, batteries, robotics, and AI. But China also shows that service businesses can be world-class.

Take coffee. In less than a decade, homegrown chains like Luckin Coffee and Cotti Coffee have outpaced global giants such as Starbucks in store count, pricing, and digital convenience. Their success didn’t come from a new bean. It came from innovation in systems — data-driven menus, micro-store formats, tech-enabled supply chains, and franchising models that scaled at record speed.

The takeaway for India is clear. Service models can be sophisticated engines of innovation. When executed well, they are not “soft” or “shallow” — they are competitive systems that blend technology, design, and logistics.

A Broader Lens for Indian Entrepreneurship

For India to become a top-tier innovation economy, founders must take on both types of challenges. We need entrepreneurs solving for hard problems — battery chemistries suited to India’s climate, cold-chain logistics that actually work on our highways, affordable diagnostic devices for rural health centres, and recyclable materials that support a circular economy.

But we also need service platforms that make urban life more efficient — payments, logistics, local commerce, and vernacular content. These sectors have formalised millions of small businesses, digitised consumer habits, and given young Indians their first experience of entrepreneurship and financial stability.

The mistake is to see one as superior to the other. Deep tech drives national capability; services build inclusion, jobs, and discipline. Both are essential to India’s growth story.

What It Takes from Here

Three shifts can help India bridge this divide:

1. Policy that buys, not just applauds: Deep-tech startups don’t need slogans; they need their first customer. Governments and public-sector buyers can play a catalytic role by running open, time-bound pilots for Indian hardware, climate solutions, and medical devices — and scaling what works. China didn’t grow on pitch decks; it grew on purchase orders.

2. Capital that’s patient: Service ventures can turn cash-positive quickly. Deep tech cannot. India needs blended capital that tolerates risk and longer gestation periods. Tax and regulatory friction should not force frontier founders to move their companies abroad just to survive.

3. Teams that cut across disciplines: The best companies blend skills early — chemistry with code, operations with UX, logistics with data science. In my own experience, chemists worked alongside software engineers and field trainers to improve both product and process. That cross-pollination is where innovation truly happens.

Also read: Financing Women: How Gender-Disaggregated Data Can Power India’s Growth

A “Both-And” Vision

So yes, let’s aim higher. Let’s build Indian companies that compete globally in batteries, precision agriculture, affordable medical devices, and advanced textiles. But let’s also celebrate the entrepreneurs who make everyday life work better — who fix inefficiencies others ignore, who train and employ thousands, and who build trust one transaction at a time.

A healthy startup nation is not a monoculture. It is an ecosystem where deep-tech moonshots and daily-life workhorses reinforce one another. Services create jobs, cash flows, and operational excellence. Deep tech expands our frontiers and national competitiveness.

India needs both. If we get that balance right, the next decade can produce homegrown companies that not only deliver your groceries or laundry on time, but also deliver the technologies that power a cleaner, healthier, and more competitive India.

Arunabh Sinha is the CEO & Founder of UClean.