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The operator’s decision desk for early-stage India.
Q2 2026
Read from 1,200 anonymised founder workspaces, not the press releases: how India’s earliest teams validated, hired, and raised in the last ninety days. Five findings, and what each one should change about your next decision.
43%
of founders regretted their first hire within twelve months
Regret tracked the timing of the hire, not the calibre of the person. Teams that hired before a repeatable demand signal regretted it nearly three times as often as those who waited for one — and the difference was a written, falsifiable reason for the role, not patience.
Source — 0to1 Data Drop · n=1,200 · 2023–2025
14%
median equity sold at the first institutional cheque — down from 22% in 2021
A colder market produced founder-friendlier paper. Median dilution at the first priced cheque has fallen every year since 2021, while uncapped and high-cap SAFEs displaced full-ratchet terms. Founders are paying for capital with discipline instead of ownership.
Source — Illustrative · 0to1 Ledger, pre-seed India · lower is better
39 days
median time to first paying user — almost halved in a year
The fastest-improving metric in the dataset. Teams compressed the gap between idea and first rupee by selling before they built — a message in a broadcast group, a manual concierge, a pre-order — rather than shipping an app and hoping.
Source — 0to1 Data Drop · rolling quarter · lower is better
2.3×
more SAFEs than priced rounds at pre-seed this quarter
At the earliest stage, the priced round is now the exception. SAFEs — increasingly capped rather than uncapped — let founders close on a rolling basis and defer the valuation fight to a moment of strength.
Source — 0to1 Data Drop · Q2 2026
57%
tested demand on WhatsApp or Telegram before writing code
India-first distribution is now India-first validation. A majority of teams ran their first demand test inside a WhatsApp or Telegram group — collecting intent, pre-payments, and objections — before a single screen was designed.
Source — 0to1 Data Drop · n=1,200
Findings are aggregated from 1,200 anonymised 0to1 founder workspaces active between 2023 and Q2 2026, weighted to the pre-seed→seed stage. No figure is attributable to an individual team; cohorts smaller than 30 are suppressed. Dilution and instrument figures are illustrative of the Ledger sample, not a market census. We publish the method so you can argue with it.
One pattern, one framework, one founder story. 800 words. No noise.