Ep #11 | WTF Goes into Building a Fashion, Beauty, or Home Brand? Nikhil w/ Kishore, Raj, and Ananth
Nikhil Kamath (host), Ananth Narayanan (guest), Raj Shamani (guest), Kishore Biyani (guest), Nikhil Kamath (host), Ananth Narayanan (guest), Nikhil Kamath (host), Nikhil Kamath (host), Ananth Narayanan (guest)
In this episode of Nikhil Kamath, featuring Nikhil Kamath and Ananth Narayanan, Ep #11 | WTF Goes into Building a Fashion, Beauty, or Home Brand? Nikhil w/ Kishore, Raj, and Ananth explores building Indian consumer brands: product, distribution, content, and scaling lessons Nikhil Kamath hosts Ananth Narayanan (Mensa, ex-Myntra CEO), Kishore Biyani (retail veteran), and Raj Shamani (House of X) to decode what it takes to build brands in fashion, beauty, and home in India amid perceived short-term consumption softness.
Building Indian consumer brands: product, distribution, content, and scaling lessons
Nikhil Kamath hosts Ananth Narayanan (Mensa, ex-Myntra CEO), Kishore Biyani (retail veteran), and Raj Shamani (House of X) to decode what it takes to build brands in fashion, beauty, and home in India amid perceived short-term consumption softness.
They break down India’s consumption reality (a small set of households drives disproportionate “value-added” spend), where growth is shifting (experiences, health/protein, pets), and why the “unbranded → branded” opportunity remains large.
The panel offers pragmatic 0→1 and scaling guidance: start with micro-niches, nail product quality and repeat rates, use marketplaces strategically, then build performance marketing and offline distribution as you cross revenue thresholds.
They also unpack modern brand-building levers—search data for product development, platform-specific growth hacks (reviews, freshness, visibility triggers), community-led marketing, micro-influencers, BNPL, and the psychology of signaling/luxury.
Key Takeaways
Indian ‘value-added’ consumption is concentrated; target precisely.
Kishore argues ~30M households drive ~60% of consumption value, with especially high concentration in beauty and packaged goods. ...
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Consumption cycles can look weak for non-demand reasons.
Short-term softness may reflect festival calendar shifts (Diwali later/‘Adhik Maas’), inflation/interest-rate pressure, post-COVID fatigue, and budget reallocation to experiences (travel, concerts, eating out) rather than a structural collapse.
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Micro-niche first: ‘be a shark in a pond.’
All three emphasize entering via a narrow wedge—specific cohort, geography, use-case, or category transition—then expanding. ...
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0–20 crores should be product-led, not performance-led.
Ananth’s framework: early scale comes from product quality, reviews, repeat rates, content/community, and disciplined distribution—not heavy paid growth. ...
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Use marketplaces for reach, but don’t outsource your brand identity.
Ananth suggests an early mix (e. ...
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Platform ‘growth hacks’ are just digital shelf-space strategy.
Winning the first few mobile ‘swipes’ matters; different platforms reward different behaviors. ...
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Search data can drive product innovation faster than intuition alone.
Ananth describes building products by analyzing search queries and identifying “null sets” (high search volume, low satisfactory results). ...
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Returns are an economic lever; fit and communication are critical.
Fashion can see 30%+ returns; reverse logistics and stuck inventory can destroy unit economics. ...
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Influencer/creator brands work when community + authenticity + product expertise align.
Raj argues future brands add a third layer to function+emotion: community. ...
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Choose ‘addition’ categories over ‘replacement’ for higher adoption.
Raj’s heuristic: it’s easier to sell an extra step to an existing routine than to displace a deeply entrenched product. ...
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Luxury and ‘quiet luxury’ are signaling systems, not product systems.
They frame luxury purchases as signaling to different audiences: mass-visible status vs insider-only recognition. ...
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BNPL can lift premiumization, but it’s expensive money.
BNPL is described as fast-growing and easy to integrate via payment gateways—even for D2C. ...
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AI/ML near-term value is operational: forecasting, pricing, and efficiency.
Rather than instant ‘made-to-order AI fashion,’ Ananth highlights machine-learning for demand forecasting (clustering similar SKUs), markdown optimization (price elasticity curves), and faster cataloging—yielding meaningful EBITDA improvements via lower waste and better turns.
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Brand basics (name, logo, packaging codes) can make or break you.
Kishore cites post-mortems across ~120 labels: failures often traced to wrong brand codes—name, logo, typography, packaging color norms, pricing. ...
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Offline becomes hard to avoid at scale, especially for high-ASP categories.
They reference Bluestone and jewelry as cases where offline drove a step-change via trust and touch/feel, while noting Nykaa’s stores are a different model (platform vs single brand). ...
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Notable Quotes
“It’s very easy to start in India, very hard to scale in India.”
— Ananth Narayanan
“If you can find out a way to make people lazy, you can do a great job—you will be able to sell more.”
— Raj Shamani
“In India, you should follow the festival calendar.”
— Kishore Biyani
“Brands are built on greed, fear, and altruism.”
— Kishore Biyani
“Content builds community, community brings culture, and culture changes the way you buy.”
— Raj Shamani
Questions Answered in This Episode
On the ‘0–20 crores’ debate: What specific evidence (repeat rate, CAC, contribution margin) would settle the marketplace-vs-D2C disagreement between Ananth and Kishore?
Nikhil Kamath hosts Ananth Narayanan (Mensa, ex-Myntra CEO), Kishore Biyani (retail veteran), and Raj Shamani (House of X) to decode what it takes to build brands in fashion, beauty, and home in India amid perceived short-term consumption softness.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
Ananth mentioned tools/APIs to find ‘null sets’ in Amazon/Google searches. Which exact tools do you recommend, and what’s a step-by-step workflow a founder can run in 2 hours?
They break down India’s consumption reality (a small set of households drives disproportionate “value-added” spend), where growth is shifting (experiences, health/protein, pets), and why the “unbranded → branded” opportunity remains large.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
For a new fashion brand, what are ‘good’ benchmarks for return rate, repeat rate, and review velocity in the first 6 months—by price band?
The panel offers pragmatic 0→1 and scaling guidance: start with micro-niches, nail product quality and repeat rates, use marketplaces strategically, then build performance marketing and offline distribution as you cross revenue thresholds.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
You discussed platform differences (Amazon search-led vs Myntra visibility-led). What are the top 5 ranking/visibility inputs for each platform that founders can control?
They also unpack modern brand-building levers—search data for product development, platform-specific growth hacks (reviews, freshness, visibility triggers), community-led marketing, micro-influencers, BNPL, and the psychology of signaling/luxury.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
Raj’s ‘conversation–convincing–conversion’ funnel: how do you measure each stage quantitatively when attribution is weak (especially for influencer/community)?
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Transcript Preview
[upbeat music] So I have been looking into consumption, and each one of you, I will explain how, but brings a totally different insight into consumption. [upbeat music] I want people who want to build a brand today, young guys-
Sure.
Zero to one, to learn everything-
Okay
... from all of your experiences. [upbeat music] And I'm going. So I have been looking into consumption. We created a fund to invest into companies around consumption. Uh, there seems to be a double standard in a way, wherein the reported numbers on the top are looking good, but everyone I talk to on the ground is talking about how consumption seems to have dropped in the last two or three months. Uh, this could be in travel, this could be in fashion, this could be e-commerce. Uh, across segments, very unlike a year leading up to an election, consumption seems to be dropping. Uh, as an investor and also talking to people who want to build a brand from zero to one, or to scale a brand in consumption, which I broadly believe is the larger India opportunity. We have too few independent Indian brands in consumption which have scaled. Uh, so I thought this would be opportune.
Yeah.
The timing is great, and each one of you, I will explain how, but brings a totally different insight into consumption. Don't be fooled by Raj. I think people have seen one facet of Raj, but the other more interesting facet, I think we'll all get to learn today, as I have in my time with Raj. Uh, since you're here for the first time, would you like to tell us a bit about yourself? How did Anant begin? Where did he begin? How did you arrive at Mensa or creating Mensa? Give us, like, a few minutes.
I just want to make sure it's not boring.
Yeah.
Actually, by chance, and a little bit a random path.
Mm-hmm.
I did fifteen years in consulting.
Before that. Start from the very beginning. Born...
Born in Chennai, grew up in Chennai.
Parents?
Did engineering. Parents... My father was a professional, worked in the auto industry. He worked at a-
Which?
... company, Hindustan Motors.
Mm-hmm.
Uh, which actually I think makes, or used to make, among the more iconic cars-
Ambassador.
So the Ambassador and the Contessa. So he sort of did that. Uh, so I grew up in Chennai, but I spent a bit of time in Calcutta, a bit of time in Indore, all of that. Um, did engineering, which seemed like the logical thing at that time. You know, you did engineering or were a doctor. The startup world actually hadn't really, you know, made it into-
What year is this?
This was '94-
Mm-hmm
... was when I graduated. Um, so '98 is when I graduated from college, and then I went and did engineering again, and I always thought I wanted to be an auto guy. Uh, my dream job, actually, at that point, was to design engines at Cummins. Um, instead, I joined McKinsey, which is a consulting firm. Um, they paid slightly more. I had a loan, [chuckles] so I decided to go to-
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