CX Annual Symposium 2025: How India's D2C brands put customers first

Time of India

08-05-2025

India's D2C landscape is evolving rapidly, driven by a new generation of entrepreneurs who are reshaping
customer experience
, product development, and supply chain innovation. At
CX Annual Symposium
, a founders' panel joined by Bharat Sethi, founder and CEO, Rage Coffee; Deepanshu Manchanda, founder and CEO, Zappfresh and Abhishek Agarwal, co-founder, Farmley delved into what it takes to build a differentiated brand in a hyper-competitive market, the power of focus, and the role of customer insight in shaping growth. The session was chaired by Varun Markande, ETBrandEquity.
Sethi opened the conversation with a quiet confidence born from years of mistakes and discovery. 'Every product starts with instinct,' he said, 'but instinct must meet insight.' In 2019, he'd spent 18 months studying the market before launching a single product—a functional, flavored soluble coffee. At the time, the category was dominated by two FMCG giants. But Sethi saw a shift coming. 'Our Gen Z and millennial consumers were drinking three cups a day,' he recalled. ''We bet that coffee penetration would double in a decade—and we'd ride that wave.'
Next to him, Manchanda nodded. His business, fresh meat delivery, faced razor-thin margins and no roadmap. 'There were only problems in this category,' he said with a laugh. But where others saw chaos, Manchanda saw clarity. He built from the ground up, owning each part of the supply chain and learning on the job. 'There were no shortcuts. We had to take full control—piece by piece—to crack the code of service consistency.'
Farmley is a brand built around the value proposition of guilt-free snacking. 'As Indians, we want to snack—and we don't want to feel guilty,' said Agarwal. But crafting healthy snacks that still delivered on taste was no easy task. 'We tried everything—millets, makhana, fruits. You test 100 ideas and maybe one works.' The breakthrough came through relentless testing and listening to customers. That product-first mindset, he said, helped Farmley become the country's largest
healthy snacking
brand.
As the conversation deepened, a common theme emerged: focus. 'Do very few things, but do them every day and do them well,' Sethi emphasized. Rage Coffee had just one SKU (stock keeping units) for its first year—and even now, its first product drives 50% of revenue. Manchanda echoed that sentiment. 'We don't do sexy stuff. We do stuff that's already established, and we build depth there.' Even Agarwal admitted that their initial sprawl of 300 SKUs was trimmed to 80, focusing on hero products that resonated with customers.
But innovation didn't die—it was just disciplined. 'We created two teams,' Agarwal explained. 'One focused on execution, and one was free to experiment without the pressure of RoI.' That balance allowed them to encourage creativity while staying grounded.
The final piece of the puzzle was customer experience—not just at the end point, but across the value chain. 'You can't delight the customer if your factory workers aren't motivated,' Sethi said. Manchanda added, 'The customer may think their local meat vendor is best. Competing with that trust is the real challenge.' And for Agarwal, the mantra was simple: 'Taste comes first.'As India's D2C ecosystem matures, the conversation is shifting from simply acquiring customers to building lasting experiences and meaningful value across the entire chain—from product innovation to delivery. Whether it's selling flavored coffee, fresh meat, or healthy snacks, these founders showed that
sustainable growth
in D2C lies not in flashy innovation but in relentless execution.