u/Mysterious_String824

For people who are already past college , what’s one thing you wish someone told you before you started?

Could be about studies, friendships, career, anything.

For people who are already past college , what’s one thing you wish someone told you before you started?

Could be about studies, friendships, career, anything.

Genuine question, not trying to rant.

I’ve been trying to build something on the side for a while now (nothing crazy, small product/service ideas), but I keep hitting the same wall - distribution and reach.

Feels like in India:

• either you need connections to get early traction
• or you need money for ads/influencers
• or you get completely lost because there’s just too much noise

I see a lot of startup stories online, but most of them either raised funding early or already had some kind of network.

Bootstrapping sounds good in theory, but practically it feels very slow and honestly a bit discouraging when you’re starting from scratch.

Also noticed customers here are super price-sensitive, so even if people like what you’re building, converting them is a different problem altogether.

Not saying it’s impossible, just trying to understand if I’m missing something.

For people here who are building/bootstrapping in India:

• how did you get your first real users/customers?
• did you rely on ads, cold outreach, or something else?
• and how long did it take before things started moving?

Would really appreciate honest answers, even if it’s “it took way longer than expected.

Idk if I’m just bad at this or what, but I feel like I’ve been going in circles for the last 2 years.

Everywhere you look it’s “start with 10k”, “no risk business”, “high margins” etc. I tried a bunch of those types of things — reselling, small online stuff, even thought of doing some service-based thing.

In the beginning it always feels like okay this might work… then slowly reality hits. Either margins are trash, or competition is insane, or you end up spending more on ads than you planned.

And the worst part is every few months there’s a new “thing” — first dropshipping, then reels pages, now AI agencies. Same story again and again.

I’m starting to feel like all this “low investment” stuff just means low barrier, so basically anyone can jump in and kill the margins.

Maybe I should’ve just gone for something boring and stuck with it instead of chasing all this.

Anyone else went through this phase or am I just overthinking it?