(The Weekend Insight) - India’s Product Consultants Economy: Where Expertise Is Rented, Not Hired

In today’s deep-dive report, we will explore how India’s top product minds - former PMs, designers, and founders - are quietly powering the startup ecosystem without ever joining full-time. What began as a side hustle during the pandemic has evolved into a parallel economy of “fractional product consultants” specialists who rent out their skills to multiple startups through Notion, Slack, and X, helping them ship better products faster and cheaper. From Bengaluru’s app corridors to remote freelancers in Goa, this silent network of consultants is redefining how India builds - and who gets to build - in the startup decade.

Every startup founder in India today knows this feeling - you’ve raised a small seed round, your idea has traction, and you’re ready to build. But hiring an experienced product manager or designer? Impossible. The good ones cost ₹30-40 lakh a year. The great ones are already locked into unicorns.

So instead, founders are doing something new: hiring them part-time.

A Bengaluru founder recently shared that her fintech app’s onboarding flow - something she struggled with for months - was finally fixed in two weeks by a fractional PM she found through a Notion community. “She worked 10 hours a week, charged ₹1.5 lakh a month, and gave me the kind of product clarity I couldn’t get from anyone full-time,” she said.

That’s India’s new silent product consultant economy - a massive layer of part-time PMs, designers, ex-founders, and product strategists quietly powering startups across the country. They don’t appear on payrolls, but their fingerprints are all over India’s best-designed apps.

This movement didn’t begin as a grand workforce revolution; it began out of survival. Between 2020 and 2023, India’s startup ecosystem went through three overlapping shocks - the COVID lockdowns that normalized remote work, layoffs across unicorns that displaced thousands of skilled PMs and designers, and the funding winter that made early-stage startups rethink every rupee of burn.

What came out of that chaos was a new work equation: expertise could be rented, not hired. Founders didn’t need to pay for full-time heads of product or design; they could bring in senior professionals for a few hours a week to fix specific problems, like user onboarding, retention drops, or checkout conversion. It was flexible, affordable, and brutally efficient.

According to a 2024 report by Flexing It, India’s freelance product and design talent pool grew 78% year-on-year, with over 40,000 experienced operators now consulting part-time for startups. What began as stopgap work after layoffs slowly turned into a structured, thriving layer of the ecosystem.

They’re not the typical freelancers chasing gigs. They’re the operators who built the backbone of India’s consumer internet wave - people who once ran sprints at Swiggy, scaled features at CRED, or designed flows at Meesho. Many left stable jobs not because they failed to find roles, but because they wanted control over their time and projects.

Anshuman Agarwal, a former Amazon leader, now works as a fractional CPO partnering with early-stage AI, B2C, and SaaS startups on product strategy and go-to-market design. Ajay Pillai, with over 14 years of experience across finance, CRM, HRMS, and AI/ML marketplaces, does the same - offering part-time CPO and PM support to founders who can’t yet afford a full leadership hire.

Ganesh Ram Natarajan focuses on B2B SaaS, helping startups define GTM playbooks and scale early product teams, while Rajat Srivastav consults as a fractional CPO for multiple SaaS ventures across both AI and non-AI segments. Others like Akshatha Hegde and Avijit D. combine design thinking with interim leadership, guiding startups through product discovery and positioning. Vibhor S. specializes in SaaS and AI MVP sprints under a fractional CPO model, helping founders validate ideas before committing to full-scale builds. Ayush Chauhan’s Quicksand Design Studio has embedded UX researchers inside companies like Dunzo and AI4Bharat to redesign app flows, often as part-time assignments.

Even global names are part of this wave - Ravi Mehta, former Tinder CPO and Facebook product head, now works hands-on with early-stage teams as an interim product advisor, while Shreyas Doshi, who led products at Stripe and Twitter, runs Notion-based cohorts and consulting sessions that have inspired an entire generation of Indian PMs to take the fractional route. Together, they represent a new archetype of leadership - one that’s flexible, cross-functional, and deeply embedded in India’s startup-building DNA.

All of them operate remotely, relying on Notion, Figma, Slack, and Loom instead of offices. Their work happens asynchronously, with founders leaving comments and consultants shipping designs or PRDs overnight. It’s fast, focused, and outcome-driven - very different from the committee-style product cycles inside larger startups.

For early-stage founders, this model makes perfect sense. Hiring a senior PM or designer full-time costs anywhere between ₹25-40 lakh annually, not counting equity. For a startup still figuring out product-market fit, that’s a luxury. But hiring a consultant for ₹1-2 lakh a month, for eight to ten hours a week? That’s manageable. It’s enough to get senior-level clarity without burning runway.

Many startups use consultants as “product shock troops.” A fintech app might bring in a UX designer for two months to improve its onboarding experience and reduce drop-offs. A D2C brand could hire a product strategist to design its customer dashboard or checkout flow. A SaaS startup might call in a fractional PM to help prioritize features or clean up analytics.

Startups like IndMoney, Jar, Flow Club, and Blue Tokai have all used such external experts for short sprints, preferring deep focus over full-time commitment. As one logistics founder put it, “It’s like hiring a product head on demand - just for the 10% of your business that actually needs one.”

The benefits are clear. Startups get access to senior talent without equity dilution. Consultants bring frameworks and mental models from top companies - things founders would otherwise learn the hard way. And they offer an outsider’s clarity at moments when internal teams are too close to the problem.

Interestingly, a growing number of ex-founders are also joining this economy. Many who shut down or exited their startups have found a niche in consulting, bringing the kind of operational and strategic wisdom that’s hard to hire. People like Amit Ranjan, who co-founded SlideShare (later acquired by LinkedIn), now advise early teams on product, UX, and even public-sector innovation. Zishaan Hayath, who co-founded Toppr (acquired by BYJU’S), runs Powai Lake Ventures and mentors portfolio founders on growth loops, monetization, and early hiring playbooks. Aprameya Radhakrishna and Raghunandan G, who together built and exited TaxiForSure to Ola, now advise multiple startups - from fintech to logistics - on execution, operations design, and growth unit economics.

Most of these ex-founders bring what full-time hires can’t - empathy. They’ve built teams, raised capital, and made the same mistakes. So their advice goes beyond UX or A/B tests; it extends into pricing, positioning, and distribution. Founders describe them as “temporary co-founders” - people who don’t just advise but roll up their sleeves.

A typical project runs on a simple playbook. The consultant begins with a short discovery phase, reviewing metrics, existing UX, and team workflows. Then comes a four-to-six-week sprint where they deliver PRDs, wireframes, or product dashboards. Finally, there’s a handoff - the founder takes over, and the consultant moves on. Everything happens asynchronously: Notion pages replace status meetings, Loom videos replace presentations, and deliverables are measurable.

Payment is often retainer-based: ₹1-2 lakh per month for mid-level consultants and ₹5-10 lakh for senior or “fractional CPO” roles. The top one percent - usually those managing multiple clients - can earn ₹20-25 lakh a month, matching startup CXO salaries without the burnout.

A typical engagement runs like this:

1. Discovery phase (1-2 weeks): Consultant reviews metrics, current UX, and problem areas.

2. Sprint phase (2-6 weeks): Hands-on improvements - PRDs, wireframes, analytics dashboards, A/B tests.

3. Handoff (1 week): Founder or team takes over; consultant moves on.

The work happens asynchronously, across Notion pages and Slack threads. Deliverables are measurable: reduced churn, faster onboarding, higher retention.

Most charge on a retainer model: ₹1-2 lakh/month for ~10 hours per week. Senior consultants or “fractional CPOs” charge ₹5-10 lakh/month per client, often managing 2-3 clients simultaneously.

The top 1% earn upwards of ₹20-25 lakh/month across projects - comparable to startup CXOs, but without the 14-hour days.

This economy works because the infrastructure around it now exists. Communities like The Product Folks (with over 30,000 PMs) have job boards dedicated to short-term consulting roles. Superteam Earn, built on Solana, pays Indian designers and PMs in crypto for completing micro-bounties. Platforms like IndieWork, TalentDeck, and SwarmWork curate freelance product experts specifically for Indian SaaS and D2C startups. On Upwork and Contra, dozens of PMs list themselves as “Fractional Product Consultant” or “PM as a Service,” charging between $50 and $150 per hour - roughly ₹4,000 to ₹12,000.

Beyond formal platforms, there’s a thriving underground network of private Notion and Slack groups - Build in India, Freelance PM Circle, 0 to 1 Founders Club - where projects move entirely through referrals. A founder posts a problem on Slack in the morning; by evening, two consultants have sent Loom breakdowns and sample audits. Word of mouth spreads quickly because these consultants deliver visible results.

The math behind this system is simple but powerful. A mid-level consultant charging ₹1.5 lakh a month and handling three startups makes ₹4.5 lakh monthly while working roughly 25 hours a week. A senior design consultant charging ₹3 lakh per client and managing three clients earns nearly ₹9 lakh a month. Fractional CPOs, typically ex-founders or operators with 8-10 years of experience, charge ₹5-10 lakh a month per client and often juggle two at a time.

Average project duration is about four to eight weeks. Tools of the trade: Notion for collaboration, Figma for design, Slack and Loom for communication, Mixpanel or Amplitude for analytics.

A growing number of consultants now prefer performance-linked contracts. A PM might charge ₹2 lakh base plus ₹1 lakh bonus if activation improves 15%. A designer might charge ₹1.5 lakh plus a revenue-share clause if conversion rises beyond a threshold. These models align incentives and make consulting outcomes measurable - something founders increasingly appreciate.

This system fits India’s startup rhythm perfectly. Early-stage founders don’t need full-time PMs; they need structure. Growth-stage teams need experts to fix one metric fast. Consultants, in turn, want freedom, variety, and fair pay. Everyone wins.

The model has even reached VC firms. Investors at Blume Ventures, Accel, and Peak XV now maintain informal rosters of vetted consultants they introduce to portfolio founders. When a founder struggles with retention or product strategy, a VC partner might suggest a “fractional PM” who’s already helped another startup in the fund. It’s fast, trusted, and capital-efficient.

A few such collectives already have names. Obvious, a Bangalore product design consultancy, works with startups spanning fintech and mobility. 10k Designers, a cohort-based academy, runs client collaborations and case studies with startups, showcasing end-to-end processes and reviews. Superteam India - a closed, application-gated workspace - coordinates scoped bounties and projects through Notion.

It’s not hard to see why startups love this structure. A founder gets senior expertise without dilution, frameworks without fluff, and outcomes without long-term hiring risk. And because consultants come with playbooks from Swiggy, Razorpay, or CRED, they often save founders months of trial and error.

As one investor at Blume Ventures summed it up: “We’ve moved from a world of startups hiring teams to startups assembling talent like Lego blocks. Product knowledge is now modular - it plugs in, fixes something, and moves on.”

Yet, this ecosystem also has its challenges. For one, it lacks structure. There are no standardized contracts, NDAs, or payment safeguards. Many consultants still rely on informal agreements or Notion pages to define scope. Delayed payments and blurred deliverables are common. As the ecosystem matures, expect to see the rise of standardized templates - “fractional PM agreements,” “outcome-based design contracts,” and formal performance frameworks.

Another issue is institutional knowledge. When a consultant moves on, much of their context leaves with them. Startups that rely too heavily on external talent risk losing continuity. To fix this, experienced consultants now build detailed documentation systems - shared Notion dashboards, user journey maps, analytics libraries - to ensure knowledge transfer.

There’s also the question of legal structure. Most of this economy still runs as individuals issuing invoices or using freelancer platforms. Over time, more will likely register small LLPs or studios to manage taxes, contracts, and compliance. Already, mini-agencies like Unconform and Design Sundays operate this way, treating consulting as a scalable business rather than gig work.

If the past five years were about proving that India could build products, the next five will be about proving that India can export product expertise. The same way IT services turned India into the world’s coding capital in the 2000s, this layer of independent PMs, designers, and strategists is turning it into the world’s product capital.

This isn’t a gig economy; it’s a knowledge economy. Every Notion doc, Loom video, and Figma frame created by these consultants becomes a building block for India’s startup ecosystem. The invisible workforce that once built unicorns is now building with founders, not for them.

And that’s the most fascinating part. In this new ecosystem, careers don’t climb ladders - they grow in networks. Influence isn’t measured in designations but in dashboards shipped, sprints completed, and products improved.

As one founder put it, “I don’t know where my product team sits anymore - Delhi, Goa, or somewhere in between - but they deliver every week. That’s all that matters.”

The silent consultants behind that delivery are not employees. They’re a new class of builders - independent, ambitious, and deeply Indian. And together, they might just redefine what it means to work in a startup.