Small Town, Big Deal

How CEOs from small-town India are quietly rewriting the startup playbook

- By MALLIK THATIPALLI

For decades, ambition in India came with a suitcase. The unspoken rule was clear: if you wanted to build a future, you had to migrate. Whether it was tech in Bengaluru, finance in Mumbai, policy in Delhi, or manufacturing in Chennai, the roadmap was always the same—move to a metro and make your mark. But somewhere between the steady rise of the internet and a generational shift in mindset, a new story is being written—not in the high-rises of megacities, but in the quieter bylanes of India’s Tier II and Tier III towns.

A transformative shift is silently reshaping the landscape. Once, metropolitan skylines hummed with CEOs gliding through traffic in sleek Mercedes and Audis, draped in Armani and Tom Ford, wrists adorned with Movado or Patek Philippe, luggage stamped with Louis Vuitton and Rimowa. They spoke in billions in glass-and-steel boardrooms, savoured sunset cocktails at five-star resorts, lounged on sun-drenched beaches, and swiped effortlessly into exclusive clubs, gala dinners, and invite-only art auctions.