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August 6, 2025
Naini Thaker, Forbes India
Aug 06, 2025
It’s a known fact that of the thousands of startups founded each year, only a small fraction survive—and even fewer scale to become unicorns. Rarer still are those unicorns which, after reaching dizzying heights, come crashing down. The Good Glamm Group is one such cautionary tale.
Once celebrated as a unicorn that cracked the code on content-to-commerce, the company’s meteoric rise was matched only by the speed of its unravelling. At the heart of its downfall lies a critical misstep: The relentless pursuit of growth through acquisitions and brand launches, even as cracks in its house-of-brands model began to show. Instead of pausing to consolidate and build sustainably, Good Glamm doubled down—prioritising valuation over viability.
That strategy came to a head on July 23 when founder and CEO Darpan Sanghvi announced the dissolution of the group’s house-of-brands structure. In a LinkedIn post, Sanghvi confirmed that lenders would now oversee the sale of individual brands, effectively ending the company’s vision of building a digital-first FMCG conglomerate.
Despite raising $30 million in 2024 and undergoing multiple rounds of restructuring, the group failed to integrate its acquisitions or generate sustainable profitability. With key investors such as Accel and Bessemer Venture Partners exiting the board and leadership turnover accelerating, the company’s ambitious empire—built on rapid expansion and aggressive brand aggregation—has now been reduced to a lender-led breakup.
In the aftermath of the announcement, Sanghvi offered a candid reflection on what went wrong. “In hindsight, it wasn’t one decision, one market force, or one acquisition. It was three levers we pulled, which together, turned Momentum into a Trap,” he wrote in a LinkedIn post. According to Sanghvi, the group’s downfall stemmed from doing “too much, too fast and too big”.
He elaborated: “At first, Momentum feels like your greatest ally. Every headline, every funding round, every big launch is a shot of adrenaline. And you start believing you can do more and more and more. But momentum has a dark side. If you stop steering and go in a hundred different directions, it doesn’t just carry you forward, it drags you faster and faster until you can’t breathe.”
Where The Model Broke?
In October 2017, Sanghvi launched direct-to-consumer (DTC) beauty brand MyGlamm. Most brands at the time were big on selling on marketplaces such as Amazon or Nykaa. However, Sanghvi believed, “We wanted to be truly DTC and not just digitally enabled. We believed that to own the customer, the transaction needs to happen on our own platform.”
But the biggest challenge with being a DTC brand is its customer acquisition cost (CAC). Towards the end of 2019, the company was spending about $15 (over ₹1,000) to acquire a customer to transact on their website. “Around the same time, our revenue run rate was ₹100 crore. We were spending about $0.5 million to acquire 30,000 customers a month. That’s when we realised it was time to solve the CAC problem,” Sanghvi told Forbes India in 2022. In an attempt to find a solution, Sanghvi turned to the content-to-commerce model.
And then, started the acquisition spree. According to Sanghvi, with a single brand in a single category one can’t build scale. He told Forbes India, “The most you can scale it is ₹1,000 crore, if you want a company that’s doing ₹8,000 or ₹10,000 crore in revenue, it has to be multiple brands across multiple categories.” In hindsight, this perspective might be debatable.
As Devangshu Dutta, founder of consultancy Third Eyesight, points out, the “house of brands” model is essentially a modern-day consumer-facing business conglomerate—and its success hinges on multiple factors working in harmony. While there are examples globally and in India of such models thriving, both privately and publicly, the reality is far more nuanced. “Brands take time to grow, and organisations take time to mature,” Dutta notes, emphasising that rapid aggregation of founder-led businesses under a single ownership umbrella is no guarantee of success.
In recent years, Dutta feels the influx of capital into early-stage startups and copycat models—often seen as lower risk due to their success in other geographies—has shortened business lifecycles and inflated expectations. The hope is that synergies across the portfolio will unlock outsized value, but that rarely plays out as planned. “It is well-documented that more than 70 percent of mergers and acquisitions fail,” he adds, citing reasons such as weak brand fundamentals, lack of synergy, inadequate capital, limited management bandwidth, and internal misalignment.
In the case of Good Glamm, these fault lines became increasingly visible as the group expanded faster than it could integrate or stabilise.
Scaling Without Steering
In FY21, the company had losses of ₹43.63 crore, which rose to ₹362.5 crore in FY22 and went up to ₹917 crore in FY23. Despite the mounting losses, Good Glamm marked its entry into the US market, in a joint venture with tennis player Serena Williams to launch a new brand—Wyn Beauty by Serena Williams. The launch was in partnership with US-based beauty retailer Ulta Beauty.
For its international expansion, it invested close to ₹250 crore over three years. “We anticipate that the international business will account for 25 to 35 percent of our total group revenues by the end of next year. This strategic focus on international expansion is pivotal as we prepare for our IPO in October 2025,” he told Forbes India in April 2024.
Clearly, things didn’t pan out as expected. As Sanghvi rightly points out, it was indeed a momentum trap. “You tell yourself you’ll fix the leaks after the next milestone. But the milestones keep coming, and so do the leaks. Soon, you’re running from fire to fire, never realising that the whole building is getting hotter. And somewhere along the way, you lose the stillness to think,” he writes on his LinkedIn post.
Dutta feels that a strong balance sheet is the most fundamental requirement, “to provide growth-funding for the acquisitions or for allowing the time needed for the acquisitions to mature into self-sustaining businesses over years. In the case of VC-funded businesses, the pressure to scale in a short time can go against what may be best for the business or for its individual brands”.
The Good Glamm Group’s fall is a reminder that scale alone doesn’t build resilience. Its story reflects the risks of expanding faster than a business can integrate, and of prioritising valuation over value. The house-of-brands model can work—but only when backed by strategic clarity, operational discipline, and patience. This is less a warning and more a reminder for founders: Scale is not success, and speed is not strategy.
(Published in Forbes India)
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January 9, 2025
Sagar Malviya, Economic Times
9 January 2025
Starbucks, Barista, Chaayos and Third Wave Coffee are among café chains facing the brunt of a slowdown in discretionary consumer spending. The impact is more severe for these retailers as they opened hundreds of new stores last fiscal year even as losses widened. To be sure, smaller chains such as Tim Hortons and Blue Tokai have bucked the trend.
Experts attribute the expansion rush to the urge among these retailers – both chains and standalone stores – to outpace competition. In certain instance, it led the same retailer to add stores in the same location, impacting its own growth instead of growing the pie.
At Rs 250 to Rs 350 for a cup of coffee, most chains target affluent, discerning coffee enthusiasts with artisanal brewing and experiential consumption, restricting the consumer base.
Devangshu Dutta, founder of retail consulting firm Third Eyesight, said the number of outlets have been expanding since 2022.
This was true for not just the new brands but also existing ones, Dutta said. “Cafe density in larger cities has gone up dramatically in the last couple of years.”
Growth rate fell to just 5% in FY24 from nearly 70% at Barista and Chaayos while Starbucks’ sales growth declined to 12% in FY24 from 70% in FY23. Third Wave saw sales growth slump to 67% from 355% during the period. Cafe Coffee Day posted a 9% increase in FY24, though sharply slowing from 59% a year ago.
Tim Hortons, however, more than doubled its sales last fiscal, its first full year of operations. Blue Tokai also bucked the slowdown trend with a 70% growth in FY24, compared to 73% in FY23.
Blue Tokai cofounder Matt Chitharanjan believes growth in India’s out-of-home coffee market is more than just a caffeine surge—reflecting the country’s shifting economic fabric. “Coffee consumption is strongly linked to income growth and India has reached a tipping point where it will support growth in the segment and should only accelerate going forward,” Chitharanjan told ET. “We have not seen any slowdown in coffee consumption and our positioning is also more product centric instead of just a cafe, which helped in double-digit same store sales growth.”
Tim Hortons, a Canadian coffee chain, which opened its first outlet in India in 2022, plans to have over 100 stores in the next three years. British coffee and sandwich chain Pret A Manger too launched its first shop in Mumbai as part of a franchise agreement with Reliance Brands. It plans to open up to 100 stores over the next five years. Third Wave and Blue Tokai are running more than 250 stores combined while Starbucks had over 330 stores as of March-end.
Tata Starbucks—the equal JV between Tata Consumer Products and US-based Starbucks Corp—said store footfalls have become a concern and the company has tweaked portfolio and pricing to attract traffic. Last year, the chain introduced classic hot and iced coffee starting at Rs 150 for a small cup, about 20-30% cheaper than regular coffee offered at Starbucks and other cafe chains.
“The stress is being seen across the quick service restaurant segment. It’s an overall consumer spending issue, especially in urban areas. And my hypothesis is probably food inflation is higher than what we think,” Sunil D’Souza, MD at Tata Consumer Products said during the December quarter earnings call.
Globally as well as in India, coffee growers have been hit with uncertain weather conditions while geopolitical factors are also affecting supply chains, which in turn, lifted prices to a record high. “The biggest challenge is erratic weather and climate change which has sent coffee prices to a 50-year high, but we will have to see how it impacts our pricing and profit after the current harvest,” said Chitharanjan at Blue Tokai.
(Published in Economic Times)
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December 4, 2024
Sagar Malviya, Economic Times
4 December 2024
Demand for sportswear from running shoes to joggers and yoga mats slowed down for leading firms such as Puma, Adidas, Nike, Skechers and Asics, halting their sprint since the easing of the Covid-19 pandemic when they doubled their sales in two years.
Sportswear firms have reported 1-25% year-on-year increase for 2023-24, down from 35-85% increase for the previous financial year, according to the latest regulatory filings. While demand for fitness wear and sports equipment for disciplines other than cricket grew as people prioritised health with the onset of Covid-19, consumers cut back on discretionary spends across categories over the past six to eight quarters.
Experts said companies capitalised on the popularity of more casual styles in the wake of the pandemic, a trend that has subsided now although people are more health conscious than ever. A broader slowdown, especially in cities, hurt premium categories including sportswear, which are completely dominated by global players.
“Sportswear or footwear has a slower replacement cycle than apparel and lifestyle products. Also, there is a distinct slowdown as it all comes down to income growth versus inflation. So, a longer term potential still remains for the segment but there is a short-term consumption stress,” said Devangshu Dutta, founder of retail consulting firm Third Eyesight.
With a population of 1.4 billion, India is among the fastest growing and largest international markets for footwear companies and over the years companies such as Under Armour, Asics and Skechers have expanded aggressively in the country.
Puma India managing director Karthik Balagopalan said the category has outpaced market growth with mid to high single digit growth rates even as subdued demand has lagged expectations.
“When it comes to health and fitness, consumers continue to spend on performance products and our sports-first strategy also leans towards that. Our ambition continues to grow at or be above market CAGR (compound annual growth rate) over the mid-term, and we think we are in a good place with our back-end infrastructure, our product portfolio and pipeline, BIS (Bureau of Indian Standards) readiness and our best-in-class team, who will continue to cement and retain our lead on competition,” he said.
In October, Foot Locker entered India through a long-term licensing agreement with Metro Brands, which will own and operate stores, while Nykaa Fashion will be its exclusive e-commerce partner.
However, there are challenges. In August this year, the government made it mandatory for footwear companies to obtain BIS certification for more than a dozen footwear products including sports brands. This impacted sales even last year as BIS had not issued licences to several foreign brands whose products were manufactured outside India, which in turn, forced brands to cut down on supplies.
American footwear firm Skechers said in its last earnings call that it had been growing exceptionally well in India for several years but there was a bit of an anomaly in part because of some of the regulatory changes that it had not yet fully responded to.
“We continue to work closely with both our India team and regulators to further advance our local sourcing strategy. We are seeing positive trends and remain optimistic about the progress in this important market. We see tremendous opportunity, not only in our lifestyle business, but also in performance,” Skechers chief operating officer David Weinberg told analysts.
(Published in Economic Times)
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July 28, 2024
Writankar Mukherjee, Economic Times
Kolkata, 28 July 2024
Top retail chains such as Reliance Retail, Shoppers Stop and Spencer’s Retail are facing a prolonged slowdown in consumption, pushing them to exit unprofitable markets, raise debt and control costs.
India’s largest retailer Reliance Retail shuttered 249 stores in the three months ended June. The company is also going slow on expansion, opening 331 new stores in the quarter compared to 470-800 stores opened every quarter in FY22, FY23 and FY24. The closures mean the retail business of Reliance Industries made 82 net new store additions last quarter–the lowest in 15 quarters.
Spencer’s Retail has decided to completely exit North and South India markets by closing 49 stores in the National Capital Region (NCR), Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. The step will erase Rs 490 crore of annual revenue, but the company is hopeful it will improve profitability.
Shoppers Stop chief executive officer Kavindra Mishra told investors last week that it may have to defer a few store openings this fiscal due to regulatory and other issues. The company will also borrow Rs 100 crore for expansion with demand remaining soft.
Meanwhile, V-Mart Retail has closed 22 stores in the first six months of 2024, as per its latest investor presentation.
“Pruning underperforming locations is a natural reaction during times of demand stress,” said Devangshu Dutta, CEO of retail sector consulting firm Third Eyesight.
Pure Economics
“Demand forecasting can never be perfect due to a lag between demand assessment and supply. Retailers now try to do away with underperforming stores at the bottom of the pile quickly. Earlier there were prestige issues in shutting down stores, but now it’s acceptable industry practice and pure economics,” said Third Eyesight’s Dutta.
Analysts say most retailers expanded rapidly after the pandemic, banking on pent-up demand and revenge shopping at the time. With demand turning sluggish, the industry is now being forced to take various steps to sustain operations. At Reliance Retail, net profit rose by a modest 4.6% from a year earlier in the June quarter to Rs 2,549 crore while revenue grew 6.6% to Rs 66,260 crore. It was the slowest pace of revenue growth and came after a 9.8% increase in Q4FY24. Net profit and revenue from operations fell sequentially in the June quarter.
Spencer’s Retail CEO Anuj Singh told analysts on Thursday the 49 stores it is closing make up nearly 22% of revenue, but also Rs 56 crore of losses at the regional Ebitda level in North and South India. “They were a drag on the balance sheet. We will now focus on Uttar Pradesh and the East where there is a sizable consumption opportunity with a 250 million population,” he added.
Singh said the store rationalisation exercise and about 35% headcount reduction at corporate offices will reduce overheads from 8% operating cost to 6.3% of total sales. “We now expect to achieve Ebitda breakeven by March 2025 which will give us the option to raise capital,” he said.
Mishra at Shoppers Stop said demand remained subdued last quarter due to fewer wedding dates, long election season with polling dates on weekend, heatwaves, and high level of cumulative inflation. All these factors combined hit growth and volume recovery, except in value fashion and beauty.
More stores shut than opened
In fact, the sustained demand slowdown saw chains like Pantaloons, Spencer’s Retail and Nature’s Basket close more stores than they opened last fiscal. Retailers like V-Mart Retail, W, Aurelia and Titan Eye+ had a higher rate of store closures than openings in the March quarter.
(Published in Economic Times)
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May 20, 2024
Sagar Malviya, Economic Times
Mumbai, 20 May 2024
Spain’s Inditex, the owner of fashion brand Zara, saw its slowest ever sales growth in India, excluding the pandemic year, in FY24 as the world’s largest fashion group faced rising competition from global rivals in the clothing market that is increasingly getting cluttered.
Inditex Trent, its joint venture with Tata that runs 23 of Zara stores in India, saw revenue rise 8% to Rs 2,775 crore last fiscal, significantly down from 40% growth a year ago, according to Trent’s annual report. Net profit was down too at Rs 244 crore, an 8% drop.
Zara has been a runaway success since its arrival in the country more than a decade ago but after initially doubling sales every two years, the brand’s rate of expansion had come down in the past few years. “The market is very competitive, and the challenges are real. Nevertheless, the opportunity pool and the size of the market means that there is space for multiple successful players. Trent remains well placed to navigate this next phase of growth by leveraging our platform and growth engines,” P Venkatesalu, chief executive officer at Trent, said in the report.
Trent that runs Westside has shifted focus on its lower priced fast fashion brand Zudio, which opened about four new stores every week on average last fiscal to take the total store count at 545 doors. Trent also has a separate association with the Inditex group to operate Massimo Dutti stores in India. The entity saw revenues rise 14% to Rs. 102 crore.
Experts said consumer demand has been affected in the past couple of years with brands having to work extra hard to get same-store growth and much of top-line growth has come for brands from store additions.
“Most international and premium Indian brands are competing for a relatively narrow slice of the population pie in the larger urban centres. While the Indian market is a bright spot amid the gloom in the world’s major economies, global pressures are likely to play a part in the confidence among brands to invest in expansion,” Devangshu Dutta, founder of retail consulting firm Third Eyesight, said, adding there is not necessarily “fatigue” for the brand.
“But if the contest for the consumer’s attention is more intense and the consumer’s choices are more fragmented across a wider choice of brands, that will definitely have an impact on any individual brand’s performance.”
Being the world’s second most-populous country, India is an attractive market for apparel brands, especially with youngsters increasingly embracing western-style clothing. Most of Zara’s back-end and merchandise sourcing are handled by Inditex, while the Tata expertise is mainly for identifying real estate and locations.
(Published in Economic Times)
