India's D2C Reset: Which Brands Actually Have a Business Under the CAC
India's D2C wave produced 2,000 brands and maybe 20 real businesses. Here's the filter that separates them — and why most founders are optimizing the wrong metric.
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“The D2C brands that survived the 2023-2024 reset have one thing in common: they built repeat purchase behavior before they scaled acquisition spend. The ones that died inverted this order.”
“CAC is not a D2C metric. Contribution margin per cohort at 12 months is the only number that tells you whether you have a business or an acquisition experiment with a brand wrapper.”
“India's D2C opportunity is real but narrow: it exists at the intersection of a category where incumbents are structurally prevented from innovating (regulatory, channel conflict, or ingredient constraints) and a customer segment that is willing to pay a premium for the innovation. Outside that intersection, D2C is just expensive retail.”
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Amit Tyagi
Founder, AletheiaAI & GP, Fitoor Capital
Veteran of India's startup ecosystem. Writing about fundraising, investor psychology, and what it takes to build fundable startups in India.
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