India’s D2C market is entering a more demanding phase. The conversation is moving beyond acquisition and launch velocity towards a harder set of questions: whether consumers trust the product, come back to it, and whether the business can deliver consistently as it grows. Those questions came into sharp focus at The D2C Soiree: The Experiential Dialogue, presented by Forbes India in association with DTDC, where founders across food, beauty, fashion, personal care and wellness came together to share the thinking, failures and operating lessons behind their brands.

What made the evening notable was the range of businesses represented in the room in Mumbai, with Abhishek Chakraborty, CEO of DTDC bringing the perspective of a leading logistics player at the heart of the D2C growth ecosystem. He was joined by Akash Valia of Secret Alchemist, Amit Sarda of Soulflower, Ankur Goyal, Co-Founder & COO, Epigamia, Bhuman Dani of Wicked Good, Ketan Munoth, Co-Founder of Plush, Rahul Jumale - Founder & MD of Kerology, Rrishiet K Sanghvve - Founder & CEO, Eat Anytime, Rutvika Charegaonkar of The Curl Co., Bharat Sethi of Rage Coffee, Srishti Tanwani of Indo Era, Shashank Buddhavarapu of Milton and Nihaal Mariyalla of Setu Nutrition. Together, they represented businesses across very different categories and at different stages of scale, with conversations repeatedly converging on the same fundamentals: knowing the consumer closely, building a product that earns trust and creating the operational foundations to support growth.

‘The First Sale Is Not The Finish Line’

One of the clearest ideas to emerge from the Soiree was the distinction between getting a consumer to try something and giving them a reason to return.

For Ankur Goyal of Epigamia, the task is to make everyday nutrition both tasty and convenient, without forcing consumers to compromise between health and enjoyment. At Soulflower, Amit Sarda described a customer-service philosophy built around resolving problems rather than defending the product: even a partially used product........

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