India is a low trust high faith society. Small consistent bits of trust over a long period of time compound into faith.
Indian consumer startups need to think about faith-first behavior. A thread -

As a society, we don't trust someone or something easily but if we do it for a long enough duration we put our faith in everything they have to offer.
Eg - Bollywood celebrities

India's spend on celebrity endorsement as %age of marketing spend is one of the highest in the world. Getting celebrities to endorse a brand is a great hack to get a fraction of their faith embedded in the brand.

From politicians to startups everyone will eventually need an endorsement from an entity people have put their faith in. Dhoni today can sell SMB software, web hosting, and deodorants without being an authority on any of it and yet influencing the decisions of the customers.

Baba Ramdev - the OG influencer of India built a community and then monetized it in an unprecedented fashion, giving big FMCGs a run for their money. Consumers do not question the quality of the product he sells or endorses, they have faith in the Yogi.

This is not the same as "community" in the western context. While the concept of community in the west is driven by volume (number of followers), in Bharat communities go where faith is.

Following  ≠ Faith. Political leaders have following, yet they need Bollywood celebrities to earn votes. Bollywood superstars do not need politicians during their movie launch to make the movie a box office hit.

What @CRED_club is doing is not very different from Jio. Both are in the business of winning consumer’s faith. Once they have it, they can grow horizontally. While we all question CRED’s business model, I don’t think anyone questioned Jio's. High faith in Ambani vs Kunal Shah.

@zerodhaonline is doing it by introducing nudge has proved that it is okay taking a revenue hit if it means doing the right thing by its users. I won’t be surprised if CRED and Zerodha directly compete with each other given that the Indian market is wide, not deep

Having trust compound into faith is the long-term game Indian startups will play.
Here’s an essay I wrote about it - https://rajvardhan.com/bharat-needs-faith-first-startups/

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