Should I launch with one hero product or a full range, and how much does repeat-purchase matter?
The short answer
Launch with one hero SKU. It concentrates your cash, your story, and your reviews, makes the brand instantly legible ('the ___ people'), and one product can carry a business for years, NARS still does ~a quarter of its volume on a single blush. Expand only once that hero has stable, repeatable sales, and weight your choice toward consumable, replenishable products, because in India repeat purchase and healthy margins, not one-time viral spikes, are what separate the brands that survive.
A quick summary to orient you. The real value is below: the resources worth your time, from people who've actually done it, not us.
Here are the resources
Hand-picked from around the web, each with a note on why it earns your time. India-specific ones carry a badge.
Why we picked it
Long-form, unhurried interviews with Indian consumer founders and investors where category choice, repeat behaviour, and unit economics come up candidly, the kind of operator detail you can't get from a listicle. A standing resource to binge as you narrow down what to sell.
Why we picked it
The best argument we found for launching with one hero SKU instead of a sprawling catalog, it shows how brands dilute themselves by chasing new SKUs while neglecting the product that actually built them (NARS still does ~23% of US volume on one blush). Exactly the discipline a cash-strapped first-time founder needs when tempted to launch a 'range.'
Why we picked it
A data-backed India newsletter deep-dive arguing that gross margin is the single strongest predictor of which D2C brands reach EBITDA positivity. Exactly the kind of India-specific pattern-matching that explains why revenue growth and profit diverge here.
