Evolution of Indian unicorn business models - Copycat vs Indianized

Abstract

We believe that the early unicorns in India began as copycat business models of their US and China contemporaries: Flipkart & Amazon or Ola & Uber. More recently, however, we have seen the Indianization of many start-up business models like Meesho and Infra.market. Our hypothesis is that prior to this boom in internet penetration and smart phone usage in India, the target audience for the most part of the past decade for these early startups was more similar in demographics and habits to the target audience of the successful American counterparts, than it is now. However, now with significantly increased internet penetration and comfort with online payment among the masses, for mass adoption, improving the financials and operating metrics, customization of the business models and their activities to accurately suit the Indian lifestyle is becoming necessary