There is a new business disease in the ecosystem. Symptoms include starry-eyed self-belief, chest-thumping confidence, a pitch deck with celestial metaphors, and a firm expectation that the mass market will line up instantly, wallets open, with prepaid loyalty. And many believe the Mass market betrayed them. And that is a complete myth.
Diagnosis is simple: ganna boya nahi, juice chahiye.
The mass market, unfortunately, has not read your investor presentation. Nor is it impressed by words like “disruption,” “democratisation,” or “game-changer.” It is busy doing what it has always done: calculating risk, conserving money, trusting slowly, and rewarding those who show up repeatedly.
And this is where many dreams quietly go to die.
New-age businesses often assume that marketing, discounts, and cash burn (cash-burn and discounting is not marketing) can substitute for trust, that visibility can replace service, and that optimism can stand in for working capital. Upar se sab chamak raha hai, andar se dukaan khokhli. When reality hits, founders look shocked; they would want you to believe that it’s the mass market that has betrayed them personally.
But the mass market owes no one belief.
Trust is not built on launch day. It is built on the delivery day. And the next one. And the one after that. It is built when promises are kept, even when no one is watching, when complaints are resolved without drama. When refunds don’t require prayer. Trust, as our corner grocery stores have taught us for decades, is painfully boring, tedious and impossible to acquire. Moreover, once broken, it’s tough to repair and regain. Rahmina Dhagga Prem Ka, Mat todho Chatkay. Toote se phir na jude, jude gaant padh jaye.
That is why the neighbourhood shopkeeper survives every “this time it’s different” prediction. He doesn’t talk about customer centricity; he practises it. He knows when you will pay, why you are late, and when not to ask. His loyalty program is called Rishta. His service network is called ghar ke paas.
Startups, meanwhile, want to scale without service networks. They want millions of users, but it’s hardly worth talking about on-the-ground presence. They want technology to compensate for absence. The mass market responds with a polite shrug. Door ka dhol suhaavana hota hai—until it breaks.
Then comes working capital, one of the most overlooked chapters in the startup narrative. The mass market operates on thin margins, delayed payments, seasonality, and cash cycles that do not align with spreadsheets. If you can’t carry that load, your business will wobble. Vision does not pay vendors. Passion does not fund inventory. Niyat achhi ho sakti hai, par tijori khaali ho to dukaan band hoti hai.
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: this is not a marketing failure. It is a misunderstanding of human behaviour.
Marketing is not about clever messaging. It is about understanding people. Understanding how they trust, how they hesitate, how they forgive, and how they remember. What works in human relationships works in business. Consistency. Reliability. Humility. Presence.
Osho once told a story about a man who planted a seed and returned every morning to dig it up and check whether it had sprouted. “How will it grow,” Osho said, “if you don’t allow time and darkness to do their work?” Businesses behave exactly like that impatient man—constantly pulling at the roots, demanding growth, disturbing the process.
The mass market does not grow under pressure. It grows under reassurance.
In personal life, no relationship deepens because one side keeps saying, “Trust me, I’m serious.” Trust deepens because actions align with words over time. In business, it is no different. Yet founders behave like desperate suitors, seeking customer commitment on the first date, loyalty before proof, and revenue before reliability.
When adoption doesn’t happen, excuses follow. “India isn’t ready.” “Consumers don’t get value.” “The ecosystem is broken.” Naach na jaane, aangan tedha.
The mass market is not confused. It is cautious. And it has earned that caution.
Many enterprises have been shaped by learning this lesson early. Many more have been shattered by learning it too late. Time is not an enemy. Trust is not optional. Service networks are not overheads.
You can rush funding rounds. You can rush launches. You can rush headlines. But you cannot rush belief.
Until founders accept that marketing is really just organised empathy at scale, they will keep demanding sugarcane juice from fields that haven’t been sown.
The mass market will wait. It always has. The only real question to ask is simple and profound: Will you stay long enough for the crop to grow? The time you consider who is truly betraying: the mass-market consumer or the business chaos that is not aligned with them.
BLOG/097/637/1155 to connect, send an email. Twitter S_kotnala
…………….
Recent press articles prompted my thoughts on this subject.
These are occasional long-form essays on business and human behaviour. Written without a schedule and sent without noise. Subscribe if this kind of thinking helps. Reachable at email. To subscribe, send a message.
Read about – RESOLUTIONS: The Annual Festival of Delusional Self-Evaluation that we celebrate every year-end.
