'$80,000 gone, 2 years of torture': Exporting from India nearly broke me, says startup founder

Export from India may be championed as the future of "Aatma Nirbhar Bharat," but Jaineel A., founder of PlayVerse, says the ground reality for first-time exporters is riddled with red tape, regulatory chaos, and punishing scrutiny—especially when things go wrong.

In a LinkedIn post, Jaineel A. dismantles the glossy export narrative often projected by the government. While slogans like “Made in India” and “diversify exports” dominate policy talk, he says the experience for new exporters is “a nightmare.”

Jaineel outlines the bureaucratic hurdles in grim detail. Even with an Importer Exporter Code (IEC) and AD code in place, exporters must repeat extensive paperwork every time they change ports or switch between air and sea freight. “The best part?” he notes sarcastically. “You have to repeat this process for each port and each mode of export.”

Things get worse when it comes to receiving payments. According to Jaineel, GST offsets and export subsidies require more approvals and multiple follow-ups, slowing down operations and cash flows. “There is friction while bringing funds into India,” he says.

But the real blow comes if the funds don’t arrive at all. Jaineel recalls a painful case from 2016 when a Canadian client declared bankruptcy, leaving his firm with an $80,000 loss. Despite the client’s legal liquidation in Canada, Jaineel faced a two-year ordeal with the Reserve Bank of India, struggling to explain the missing payment.

“You are toast… literally,” he wrote. “The torture we endured from the RBI was a nightmare in itself.”

Jaineel criticized media and startup discourse for focusing obsessively on valuations and IPOs while ignoring everyday operational roadblocks that threaten genuine entrepreneurship. “Real problems that are easily solvable with resolve get no attention,” he said.