Indian start-up Rocket I bet the next big opportunity is the part before vibe coding: having AI help people decide what to build. She launched a platform that produces consulting-style product strategies.
The startup, based in Surat, India, launched its Rocket 1.0 platform on Tuesday, which connects research, product creation and competitive intelligence in a single workflow. The platform generates detailed product strategy documents, including pricing, unit economics and go-to-market recommendations.
As AI-powered coding tools proliferate, from platforms such as Cursor, ReplicateAnd Kind to features such as Claude Code And Manuscript — writing code has become much easier and faster. “Anyone can build the code now… it’s become a product. But what to build is something that everyone is missing,” said Vishal Virani, co-founder and CEO of Rocket (pictured above), adding that “running a business and just building a code base are two different things.”
TechCrunch briefly tested Rocket’s platform before its launch and found that it generated product requirements documents in PDF format from simple prompts. These documents resemble consulting-style reports rather than flavor coding tools or chatbots, which focus largely on functionality and execution.
However, some analyzes appear to have been synthesized from existing data – combining known pricing models, user behavior patterns and competitive insights – rather than based on independently verifiable information. This suggests that users may still need to validate the results before making trading decisions. Virani said the platform can offer human assistance when users encounter problems.
The product can also track competitors, including changes to their websites and traffic trends. Rocket relies on more than 1,000 data sources for its analysis, including Meta’s ad libraries, Similarweb’s API and its own crawlers, Virani said.
Rocket’s subscription plans range from $25 per month for app building to $250 for strategy and research capabilities, and up to $350 for the full platform, including competitive intelligence.
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The $250 plan can generate two to three “McKinsey-quality” research reports alongside product construction, Virani told TechCrunch, positioning its higher-tier offerings as a lower-cost alternative to traditional consulting, which often costs thousands of dollars for similar strategic work.
Rocket raised a $15 million funding round in September by Accel, Salesforce Ventures and Together Fund. Since then, the startup claims to have grown from 400,000 to more than 1.5 million users in 180 countries. It also reported an average annualized revenue per user of around $4,000, although it did not disclose the detailed number of paying customers. The startup said it operates with gross margins above 50%, with 20-30% of its customers being small and medium-sized businesses.
Rocket has a team of 57 employees and is headquartered in Surat and operations in Palo Alto.
Jagmeet covers startups, technology policy updates and all other major technology developments in India for TechCrunch. He previously worked as a senior correspondent at NDTV.
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