Should I launch with one hero product or a full range, and how much does repeat-purchase matter?
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.
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3 resources, 2 India-specific, 3 link-checked.
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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.'
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.
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.
