Every year, millions of college students in India seek ways to earn extra income, gain work experience, and manage expenses. However, they struggle to find reliable, structured, and student-friendly platforms to support them.
The student gig economy remains largely unorganised, leaving Gen Z to navigate scattered, sometimes exploitative avenues to hustle through college life.
This is the gap Timbuckdo aims to bridge. Founded in 2022 by Mythri Kumar, and joined by Apoorv Prasad in 2024, the Bengaluru-based startup is on a mission to help college students earn, save, and grow.
The startup offers verified part-time jobs, curated student discounts, and AI-led tools to build real-world skills for students.
“Many students seek ways to earn money during their studies—whether to support their families, cover living expenses, or gain financial independence. At the same time, they look for ways to save on everyday spending and build real-world skills outside the classroom. Timbuckdo addresses all these needs under one roof,” explains Mythri.
The platform currently has over two lakh registered users, and in just the last month, it has recorded one lakh monthly active users.
Student-centric vision
Mythri’s journey began during her college years in Bengaluru, juggling classes and part-time work to make ends meet. The firsthand experience with the challenges of student life inspired her to build Timbuckdo.
Apoorv Prasad, with a strong background in growth and operations at companies like Swiggy and Udaan, joined forces with Mythri to scale the vision. Introduced by a common angel investor, the duo quickly aligned on building a purposeful, student-first venture
Together, they are positioning Timbuckdo not just as a job portal, but as a student-first social commerce platform.
Timbuckdo is designed around three pillars. First, it helps students earn through verified part-time jobs, freelance gigs, and campus roles. Second, it helps them save with exclusive QR-enabled discounts for shopping, food, and lifestyle expenses. Third, it enables growth through real-world upskilling via work experience, AI tools for productivity, and community-led learning.
“Unlike traditional job boards or coupon apps, Timbuckdo is community-driven and curated for the realities of student life. The platform ensures every student is KYC-verified and trained in basic professional etiquette before they take up gigs. For employers, this means access to a smart, ready-to-work student pool, with AI-matching, skill filters, and flexible hiring models,” adds Apoorv.
Timbuckdo is a play on “Tim” for student, “buck” for money, and “do” for action. Mythri says, “We wanted a name that students would feel, not just remember. It’s playful but purposeful, just like the Gen Z spirit we’re building for.”
Not just a gig platform
Timbuckdo’s QR-based discount system offers instant savings to students at walk-in stores. An AI chatbot acts as a personal productivity and income planner, helping students manage time and earnings effectively. A growing campus ambassador network and community programmes help further student engagement.
One such initiative was the SightConnect project in partnership with Infosys, which provided both income and confidence to students.
“As a national-level rower, I rarely got to interact with people. The SightConnect project by Infosys, through Timbuckdo, pushed me out of my shell—and earning ₹6,000 in a week gave me a huge confidence boost,” says Pavani Sanjay, a student from Reva University, Bengaluru.
The company is also actively expanding its student reach by partnering with colleges and companies across major metro cities, including Bengaluru, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Pune, Jaipur, Delhi NCR, and Chennai.
Speaking of challenges Mythri recalls, “In the early days, one of the biggest challenges was building trust among both students and employers—especially in a segment where part-time work is often unstructured. We also faced typical startup hurdles like product iteration, AI training with limited data, and city-level operational scaling. But thanks to our lean and frugal approach, we were able to test, fail fast, and rebuild quickly.”
Business model and funding
Since raising Rs 2 crore seed round in June 2024, Timbuckdo has generated Rs 42 lakh in revenue, exploring early monetisation models through employer subscriptions and merchant commissions. For students, Timbuckdo is free to use, and for employers, the startup offers flexible subscription plans, starting at Rs 499/month, making it accessible for MSMEs, startups, and retail chains to onboard young talent.
The funding round was led by notable investors, including Morton Meyerson, former CTO of General Motors and first investor in Mark Cuban, who now leads the 2M family office; and Nandkishore “Andy” Kalambi, ex-SAP India CEO and a veteran enterprise tech leader.
Timbuckdo has also introduced premium features as part of its social commerce and student discount model.
“Students can now access exclusive online deals through promo codes available on partner platforms. More notably, the company is innovating in offline walk-in discounts—students can scan a dynamic QR code at participating cafes or stores during peak “student spend hours” such as 8:30 AM or 6:30 PM to unlock special deals,” adds Apoorv.
This feature has already been piloted successfully and is now being rolled out commercially.
The company’s 12-member core team has maintained a lean burn rate while refining product-market fit and steadily growing its user base across campuses and companies.
In the first two years, Timbuckdo was built with a lean investment of just Rs 35 lakh. This amount covered ideation, prototyping, MVP launch, testing, and onboarding its first 25,000 users—including clients like Decathlon, Purplle, Jio Mart, and multiple large food retail and QSR chains.
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The road ahead
Timbuckdo is scaling rapidly to tap into India’s ₹2.8 lakh crore (≈$34 billion) college student spending market, which includes food, fashion, entertainment, and essential services, and plans to expand into new verticals like student insurance, travel, and launching a QR-based discount payment system at offline stores for instant students savings.
On the product side, the startup is enhancing its AI-powered matching engine to offer smarter job recommendations and improve hiring efficiency for employers. Employers will be able to access new tools like advanced filtering, assessments, and campaign management.
While LLMs help students build stronger profiles, discover gig opportunities, and assist with customer support, employers benefit from AI-generated job descriptions, assessments, and smarter candidate matching.
Geographically, Timbuckdo plans to expand into more Tier I and Tier II cities with a hyperlocal growth strategy, tapping into regional student hubs and deepening partnerships with local colleges, student groups, and employers.
Timbuckdo’s broader vision is to become the go-to platform for students in India—not just for earning, but for every key aspect of student life. While global players like Handshake (US), Stint (UK), and Myunidays serve similar needs, Timbuckdo’s India-first, community-led approach gives it a local edge.
“There are no direct competitors to Timbuckdo in India offering end-to-end student ecosystem—which spans part-time jobs, student discounts, AI-powered guidance, and on-ground activations. That said, we do see indirect competition in specific verticals—for example, other platforms may offer gig listings or student offers, but no one integrates all five of our revenue models or solves the entire use case like we do,” the founders say.
However, platforms like Internshala and UNiDAYS operate in adjacent spaces—offering internships and student discounts, respectively—highlighting the broader demand for student-focused services.
Edited by Megha Reddy
