1. BYJU’S Edu-Marketing Funnel
   • Free trials and sample classes
   • Personalized learning paths
   • Result: Valued at $22 billion in 2022
2. Zomato’s Gamified Loyalty
   • Zomato Gold membership for exclusive offers
   • Gamified challenges for rewards
   • Outcome: 70 million active monthly users
3. Paytm’s Cashback Strategy
   • Cashbacks for transactions
   • Referral bonuses
   • Impact: 350 million registered users
4. Ola’s Hyperlocal Approach
   • City-specific promotions
   • Driver incentives to ensure supply
   • Result: Operates in 250+ cities across India
5. Flipkart’s Festive Season Funnels
   • Big Billion Days sales event
   • Flash deals and limited-time offers
   • Outcome: $4.6 billion GMV during 2020 festive season
6. Swiggy’s Diversification Funnel
   • Started with food, expanded to groceries and more
   • Subscription model for loyal customers (Swiggy One)
   • Result: 28 million monthly active users
7. CRED’s Exclusive Community Approach
   • Invite-only model for high credit score users
   • Gamified credit card bill payments
   • Impact: 7.5 million users in 3 years

Key Learnings:

• Leverage India’s diverse market with localized strategies
• Use cashbacks and rewards to drive initial adoption
• Focus on mobile-first experiences
• Create FOMO with limited-time offers
• Build community and exclusivity

“In India, the funnel isn’t just about conversion, it’s about building trust and value.” – Indian Startup Wisdom

Which Indian startup funnel strategy impresses you most? How can these be adapted for different markets?

IndianStartups #GrowthHacking #StartupFunnels #DigitalIndia #UserAcquisition

The soft-landing dream is over; instead, the US economy is headed for a recession in the middle of 2024, Citi says.

“There’s this very powerful and seductive narrative around a soft landing, and we’re just not seeing it in the data,” Citi’s chief US economist, Andrew Hollenhorst, said in a CNBC interview.

On the surface, the data looks great: The economy is benefiting from historically low unemployment, strong consumer spending, and robust GDP growth.

But there’s more going on with the numbers than meets the eye.

One place the economy is showing a weakness is the labor market. January had a blowout jobs report, adding 353,000 jobs to the economy. But Hollenhorst noted that if you scratch beneath the surface, the number of hours worked is falling, the number of full-time workers has decreased, and sectors such as the restaurant industry have stalled on hiring.

“That’s the key to the economy — what happens in the labor market,” Hollenhorst said. “If the unemployment rate stays low, people continue to spend, the economy holds up.” But he added that the unemployment rate was expected to start rising, which would be “the sign that we’re going to have a more material decline in the US economy.”

Hollenhorst also said inflation was still too high. This week’s data from the consumer price index did show a higher-than-expected uptick in monthly inflation, which dragged stocks lower on Tuesday.

Credit-card delinquency rates are also rising. The top economist David Rosenberg has said a consumer credit default cycle has already arrived, with one in every 12 credit-card holders missing their payments.

And consumer weakness is also exposing itself in retail sales numbers. Thursday’s release showed a significant drop in activity, posting a 0.8% decline in January.

When an unprecedented funding winter freezes a vibrant ecosystem, do all startups suffer equally? For Indian startups, 2023 had been a challenging year as overall funding hit a seven-year low, tumbling to the levels of 2017.

As capital dried up across sectors and genres irrespective of funding stages, many women-led startups failed to attract venture capital despite the big strides made towards gender inclusivity.

India is not the lone sufferer. Globally, too, female founders lacked the much-needed financial backing from investors due to gender-based stereotypes and a limited number of iconic role models.

According to PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor, U.S. startups with at least one female founder bagged 26.1% of the VC pot in 2023, while all-women founding teams secured less than 2% (1.8%, to be precise) of the total deal value in the same year. Even in 2021, a year flush with VC money, female-led startups in the EU barely raised 2% of the funding, per a Reuters report.

Closer home in India, , women-led startups raised $480 Mn+ in 2023, an 80% decline compared to $2.4 Bn+ secured in the previous year, according to Inc42’s Indian Tech Startup Funding 2023 Report.

As for deal count, women-led startups saw a more than 50% dip in 2023 to 118 from 238 in 2022. In the Indian context, we have included co-led entities with at least one female founder, all-women teams and female solopreneurs.

Of the $10 Bn collectively raised by the Indian startups in 2023, 5% was scooped up by women-led businesses. It was lower than the previous year, when women entrepreneurs bagged $2.4 Bn+, or 9.6% of the $25 Bn funding.

Nevertheless, the highest amount in 2023 was raised by Pixis, a co-led martech startup founded by Shubham A Mishra, Vrushali Prasade and Hari Valiyath. It offers a codeless AI infrastructure for scaling up marketing efforts and has raised $85 Mn from a clutch of investors, including Touring Capital, Grupo Carso, General Atlantic, Celesta Capital and Chiratae Ventures.

Are Female Founders Falling Prey To Gender Bias?
According to Inc42 data, women-led early stage startups raised the lowest funding in 2023 at a little over $56 Mn, while growth and late stage businesses secured $198 Mn and $189 Mn, respectively.

There is a pressing need for heightened gender neutrality and an equitable evaluation process for more equitable funding across the investment ecosystem. With investors sitting on more than $23 Bn dry powder, 2024 may bring new hopes for female founders if the stage is set for diversity and growth.