SETITUP
One business.
One bottleneck.
One custom software.
To mark our founder's birth month, we're selecting one growing SMB to receive a custom business software MVP — designed and built from scratch with Django, React/Next.js and PostgreSQL, free of development charges. This round closes October 31.
Still running the business out of spreadsheets, notebooks and WhatsApp threads?
Most SMBs don't lose money to one big failure — they lose it to one small process, repeated badly, every single day. An enquiry that sits unanswered. A stock count nobody trusts. A follow-up that never happens because it lived in someone's head. Cost and technical uncertainty keep most owners from fixing it. This grant exists to fix one of those, properly, for one business.
A working MVP, built around your actual workflow
Not "anything you want" — one system, scoped tightly around the process that costs you the most time. Typical shapes it could take:
CRM & lead management
Capture, assign and follow up on every enquiry before it goes cold.
Inventory & purchasing
Stock levels, reorder points, suppliers and purchase orders in one dashboard.
Booking & appointments
Slot management, reminders and staff scheduling for service businesses.
Attendance & task management
Staff check-in, task assignment and progress tracking.
Customer & service portal
Self-serve requests, order status and support in one place.
WhatsApp-integrated enquiries
Turn scattered chat enquiries into a trackable pipeline.
Reporting & analytics
One dashboard replacing five disconnected spreadsheets.
What's in, what isn't
A defined 30–45 day build, so the grant stays deliverable and the case study stays real.
- ✓Business-process discovery session
- ✓Requirement documentation & UI/UX design
- ✓Web application development
- ✓Admin dashboard & user authentication
- ✓PostgreSQL database
- ✓Deployment assistance
- ✓Basic documentation & training
- ✓30 days of bug-fix support
- ✕Unlimited revisions
- ✕Native Android / iOS apps
- ✕Paid third-party subscriptions
- ✕SMS, WhatsApp, email, hosting or API charges
- ✕Complex accounting, payment or gov. integrations
- ✕Long-term maintenance
- ✕Large-scale data migration
- ✕Features outside the approved scope
Six steps, three stages
Ten businesses get a free audit. Three finalists get a free prototype. One gets the full build. This birth-month round closes October 31 — applications submitted after that go into the next open round.
Submit your business problem
Tell us what's manual, how often it happens, and what it costs you.
Shortlist & discovery call
Ten businesses selected for a workflow interview.
Free automation audit
Process review, bottleneck ID and a software recommendation — no strings attached.
Three finalists, free prototype
Wireframe, technical outline and estimated business impact.
One business selected
Chosen on problem importance, feasibility and impact — not popularity.
We build & launch the MVP
30–45 days, with training and 30 days of bug-fix support included.
Who can apply, and how we choose
- Legally operating SMB, startup or professional service business
- Based in Kerala or elsewhere in India
- A genuine, repetitive operational problem
- Decision-making authority, or written owner permission
- Willing to join interviews and a demo
- Willing to provide a testimonial / case study
This isn't a random draw — applications are scored against fixed criteria:
Two studios, one team
SETITUP runs this grant. SETITUP LABS studies the problem before a line of code gets written.
SETITUP
Full-stack software studio — Django, React/Next.js and PostgreSQL builds for growing businesses. Runs and delivers this grant. setitup.in →
SETITUP LABS
R&D and product studio, a division of SETITUP. Studies how businesses run, then builds the software they lack. setituplabs.in →
Show us the bottleneck
One question matters more than the rest: show us one repetitive task your team does every day, and what happens when it's delayed or done wrong. That's what we're actually scoring. This birth-month round closes October 31.
Application received
We review every submission against the scoring criteria above. Shortlisted businesses hear back for a discovery call — no response doesn't mean no, our team just takes time to review each one carefully.