Frugal innovation can help Indian startups to succeed !

1. Frugal Innovation –
Made in India
Made for India
Dr Aniruddha Malpani
www.malpaniventures.com

3. Play to your strengths

4. The benefits of being frugal
• Too much money tempts you into doing stupid
things
• On a limited budget, you are forced to be
much more creative.
• This trial by fire will add to your longevity and
profitability, so you can create a sound
business which will scale over time.

5. KISS – Keep it Simple Stupid !
• Focus – do one thing at a time, and do it well
• Own a niche – go deep !
• Pareto rule – 80/20
• Know what to say No to !

6. Frugal is Fashionable and Cool
• Circular Economy
• Shared/ Rental Economy
• Open Source
• Tinkering /Maker movement
• Social impact
• Co-creation
• Investors and ESG

7. Unfair advantage !
• If you can sell in India you can sell anywhere in
the world !
• Indian customers demand value for money !
• Build bottom up and then add bells and
whistles = Reverse Innovation.
• Export solutions
• Much less expensive to run a startup in India !

9. Bootstrapping

10. Bootstrapping
• Proves you can implement !
• Shows faith in yourself ! If you don’t
invest in yourself, why do you expect
investors to ?
• Your customers are your best source of
funding !
• If you can get paying customers, the
investors will follow !

11. Frugal vs Miserly
• Once you have laid a healthy
foundation for your startup by being
lean and agile, you need to learn to
be able to think big !
• But you have to earn the right to do
so !

12. The Frugal Digital Manifesto
• Cost is the starting point
• Social impact is the goal
• Technology is the medium.
• * Make it economically worthwhile
* Source locally – Use what’s readily
available
* Re-purpose available technology
* Upcycle and recycle
* Make it serviceable and reusable
* Make it open source

14. Victim

15. Neutraliser

16. Transformer

18. Frugal vs Jugaad
• Jugaad = making do in the face of
scarcity
• Applied ingenuity
• One off, quick-fix, temporary band
aid solutions on an ad hoc basis

19. Frugal vs Jugaad
• Frugal innovation is low cost
• High-quality
• Affordable, sustainable and scalable.
• Frugal innovation can become reverse
innovation
• Frugal can be disruptive
• More for less
• ESG impact – investor friendly !

20. www.startupmentors.in