From India for the world: Scaling digital-first consumer brands

What does it really take to build a global consumer brand from India?
In this insightful TechSparks podcast, Ananth Narayanan shares a deeply practical, no-hype perspective on brand building, capital efficiency, execution discipline, and why money alone doesn’t create great companies.

From the rising cost of customer acquisition and the challenges of B2C brands, to leveraging technology, product differentiation, storytelling, and trust, Ananth breaks down the three real levers that matter when building enduring brands. He also speaks candidly about funding myths, profitability, scaling globally, personal branding versus company brands, and the mindset founders need to survive the long game.

This is a must-watch conversation for founders, operators, marketers, and anyone building consumer brands in a noisy, competitive world.

00:00 India’s global opportunity and level playing field
01:30 Why Indian consumer brands struggled to go global earlier
03:00 Technology, ecommerce, and understanding global consumers
04:30 Building brands from India for the world
06:00 Early signals of Indian products winning globally
07:30 Why building B2C brands has become harder
09:00 Rising costs across marketing, logistics, and platforms
10:30 The first lever product differentiation
12:10 Using technology to drive efficiency and margins
14:00 Brand storytelling and long-term consumer trust
16:00 Capital efficiency and the myth of easy funding
18:00 Why money cannot substitute execution
19:30 Discipline, profitability, and sustainable growth
21:00 Skills required to scale beyond India
22:30 Choosing focus over hypergrowth
24:00 Building brands versus building personal brands
25:30 Trust, consistency, and culture as brand foundations
27:30 Design, community, and emotional connection
29:00 Distribution challenges and rising acquisition costs
30:40 Profitability, cash flow, and real business health
32:00 Daily execution over long-term noise
33:30 Staying grounded through difficult years
35:00 Continuous innovation and evolving products
36:10 Closing thoughts on brand building and consumer centricity

ABOUT SHRADHA SHARMA:

Shradha Sharma is the Founder & CEO of YourStory. She started YourStory in 2008 to tell stories of entrepreneurs - something that mainstream media was not ready to do in 2008. Since then, Shradha has scaled YourStory to become one of India’s leading digital media platforms covering every aspect of India’s new economy.

She was featured on Fortune’s list of the best 40 under 40 entrepreneurs in India for three years in a row. In 2018, she won the Forbes Power Trailblazers award and was twice featured on LinkedIn’s list of powerful influencers, along with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and actor Priyanka Chopra.

Follow Shradha on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharmashradha/


ABOUT YOURSTORY:

YourStory is India’s biggest and definitive platform for startups and entrepreneurs related stories, resources, research reports, and analyses of the startup eco-system, mobile app developers, and more dedicated to promoting the startup ecosystem

Also, don't forget to watch some of our most loved videos:

Himanta Biswa Sarma - https://youtu.be/lEO4cf2YPxw
Amitabh Kant - https://youtu.be/jmv7RWcHVD8
Nithin Kamath & Seema Patil - https://youtu.be/b4N0Or9z3mU
Deepinder Goyal - https://youtu.be/7b2JVy0qQ2U

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