Irtif Lone

Can India's next unicorn grow on an apple tree? I keep thinking about Kashmir. Not just the orchards stretching for miles, the smell of earth and apples, but a question that has hovered over the Valley's startup ecosystem for years: can it produce a unicorn? @OrchardlyApp might just have an answer. "Farmers do not resist innovation," co-founder Ehsan Quddusi told me when we met in Srinagar last week. "They resist complexity." Most people blame Kashmir's apple troubles on climate or cheap imports. Ehsan says that diagnoses the wrong problem. The real one is the thousands of decisions made every season without data. His solution isn't just an app. It's an operating system for Kashmir's orchards: soil testing, AI advisories, physical stores, genetics. They have even helped enable the first commercial cherry exports to Singapore and Dubai. Bootstrapped. $2M revenue. 15,000+ growers. EBITDA-positive from day one. Can a model built this deep in Kashmir scale beyond the Valley? The software can travel across India. The trust, the relationships and the local intelligence are much harder to replicate. This is what gives us the most joy at YourStory: spotlighting founders building real, resilient businesses where it matters most. Read on. yourstory.com/2026/07/orchar… Cc: @PremManukonda @AdithCharlie – at New Delhi, India

A kilo of apples: ₹80 in September, ₹220 by January. India produced a record apple crop, yet spent $418 million importing 5.6 lakh tonnes in 2024-25. Why? Because India owns the harvest, but not the year. For four months, domestic apples flood the market. For the next eight, gaps in storage, grading and processing allow imports to fill the shelves. The opportunity is not simply to grow more. It is to keep premium fruit sellable longer, turn lower-grade apples into juice and concentrate and build a supply chain that earns throughout the year. In my latest deep dive with @AdithCharlie and @PremManukonda, we explore a billion-dollar opportunity hiding in plain sight for entrepreneurs. Read the full story on @YourStoryCo and tell me what you think! yourstory.com/2026/07/india-…

Honestly, I'll take a builder over a commentator any day. That's exactly what India is getting right in education now. Aadhaar. UPI. FASTag. Nandan Nilekani didn't just show up; he showed how. Now he will bring that same get-it-done mindset to exam reform. Millions of futures on the line. Great move by PM @narendramodi for the youth of our country. Right builder. Right time. Btw, here's my 2-year-old chat with @NandanNilekani on the future of learning.

भविष्य पर विश्वास किसी आँकड़े से नहीं, भारत के युवाओं से मिलता है। और जब कश्मीर की बेटियों से मिलती हूँ, तो यह भरोसा और गहरा हो जाता है। कश्मीर का भविष्य बहसों से नहीं, इस नई पीढ़ी के सपनों से लिखा जाएगा। 🇮🇳 #KashmirStories #startups