Every founder believes their idea is a smart one. The Indian start-up ecosystem is overflowing with innovation, so much so that the landscape has shifted. It’s no longer a dearth of ideas, but a deluge of pitches that now challenges the venture capital world.
As serial entrepreneur and start-up pro Rajneesh Bhasin observed, “Today every private equity company is flooded with pitches.” Investors are overwhelmed and are actively seeking trusted filters to sort the truly scalable and sustainable businesses from the cash-burning ones. This environment, where investors “look at people like us to recommend to them,” signals a profound shift – the focus is moving from idea novelty to Proof of Concept (POC) and capital efficiency.
This was the theme behind the first session of The Unstoppables, a Founders Meetup and Learning series presented by Mint in association with Fairfox. Titled “Growth Without Burn: Sustainable Marketing for Early Stage Start-ups”, the first session aimed to provide a framework on marketing for early stage founders.
Rajesh Kumar, CMO, Lentra at Mint The Unstoppables
The panel, comprising Deepanshu Manchanda, Founder and CEO, Zappfresh, Rajneesh Bhasin and Rajesh Kumar, CMO, Lentra, delved into actionable strategies for start-ups. Their consensus was clear – in an era of capital and idea overload, only businesses with a sound structure, demonstrated unit economics and a clear brand vision will attract and retain serious funding.
Marketing: A core part of start-up success
The session began with the panellists reflecting on their own journeys, emphasising that sound, sustainable marketing is the critical first step that ensures a start-up survives the initial chaos and proves its long-term viability. Rajneesh Bhasin, with over 28 years of experience across global markets, said: “Marketing is the cornerstone of any start-up.” He noted that a common misstep for new companies is prioritising other functions like distribution and sales, only turning to marketing as an afterthought, often contingent on available funds.
Bhasin argued that this approach is backward, and that a timely investment in marketing can unlock “5X-10X growth within a short period of time”. He stressed that a market as vast and diverse as India requires generating awareness: “India is a country the size of a continent. If you want to sell in India, you need to launch a campaign and create noise about the product.”
Echoing the sentiment, Rajesh Kumar from Lentra pointed to a fundamental shift required in the national mindset. He said: “In India, we have a production mindset where we create things in India but the profits are taken by foreign brands. In order to run a business successfully, we need to create as well as market the goods.”
Kumar spoke about the inherent limits of early growth, where initial sales are often driven by founder contacts, but after this initial momentum, scaling becomes a formidable hurdle without a deliberate marketing strategy. He argued that marketing is often misunderstood in the digital age and said: “Marketing is not social media. Marketing is not paid marketing. Marketing is not Google advertising. It is one of the things you can do… Somehow, we get lost in jargon. But building your name, building your reputation so that people trust you. They understand what you’re trying to do. That is marketing.”
The entrepreneurial perspective
Deepanshu Manchanda offered the perspective of an entrepreneur navigating the daily realities of a start-up, where every function is critical. He linked marketing directly to a company’s financial viability, especially when institutional backing is absent. “For a start-up where there is no other big group which is backing that project, everything whether they’re borrowing lending or doing any form of capital raise has a lot to do with how they’re able to market the brand,” he said.
He also brought the focus back to core business principles, warning against premature scaling or complex strategies without a solid foundation. “Till the time you understand the problem you are solving and the segment you are catering to, no matter what kind of money you have and how great the product is, you will always be standing on slippery ground. So avoid doing that and get the basics right,” he advised.
Kumar spoke about the theme of national potential, stating that the time is now for Indian brands to claim their rightful value on the global stage. He said, “The next era is ripe for building global brands from India and expanding the appeal of existing brands beyond the Indian diaspora out there. There are hardly any notable examples and the missing sauce is marketing.”
The traditional setup where Indian manufacturers retain only a fraction of the margin, while the major chunk is captured by foreign brands that focus on marketing. “My whole point is that as we are growing as a country and as an economy, we are understanding our position better, we should build our name to do things which sell in India,” Kumar said.
The question of brand vs performance marketing
The panel then delved into the perennial debate between brand marketing and performance marketing. Manchanda offered a simple yet powerful summary of the start-up’s choice: “I think brand is really what stands for you forever and you improve the brand equity as you grow as an organisation. Performance is really about converting leads into business,” he said.
He emphasised that while performance can deliver immediate results, it’s the brand that ensures longevity. He added, “Either you can run behind performance or you can run behind brand building. But, brand building definitely is a much more long-term game and that’s what will give you dividends for times to come.”
Building trust emerged as a central theme. Kumar said this essential factor, applicable at both B2B and B2C levels, boils down to keeping commitments. “It takes time to build, but it also stays for a while,” he said, referring to the importance of delivering on promised value. In a surprising take on resource allocation, Manchanda advocated for professional marketing help from the very beginning, even for budget-constrained start-ups.
“I think one should have a marketing agency from the get-go,” he said, suggesting a small, boutique agency that aligns with the budget. He argued that for any product or service, “packaging and presentation is really critical,” and “the journey of branding starts from when you have thought of the name as early as that.” However, the panel was quick to caution that only branding and marketing without delivering on the promises is not good, as it takes away the trust factor.
Avoiding the pitfall of ‘growth at all costs’
Bhasin delivered a firm caution against unsustainable models, reinforcing the need for the very filtering VCs are looking for. “Growth at all costs according to me is a no-go. Many companies are trying to build brands which are 500 crore in revenue with 200 crores of losses. That is not a sustainable business model. It doesn’t work. And a lot of these guys fall as they rise,” he warned.
His prescription for a sound business model is simple: a Proof of Concept (POC) at a per unit level. He dismissed the notion that “economies of scale will always bring efficiency,” noting that most successful businesses have worked around a strong POC. He uses this unit-level profitability as his yardstick when recommending start-ups for private equity funding, emphasizing that a sound business can always be amplified. The panel agreed that a successful start-up is determined by a trinity of factors, with money not being the most critical. The three essential variables are: timing, stakeholder interest (including customers, funders, and employees), and finally, money.
Mastering the marketing funnel
In the final segment, the speakers dissected the common omissions start-ups make in guiding a consumer to the point of purchase. The consensus was on the supreme importance of data quality and customer journey mapping. Manchanda highlighted the difficulty in tracking branding efforts.
“It’s very difficult to capture eyeballs into quantitative numbers… So, from a branding point of view how many people saw and then how many are going to buy you know is a very tricky thing… what you can capture as much data as you can capture first of all is more critical,” he said. He stressed the need to validate data, whether collected directly or purchased, before pitching promotional messages.