For Founders & Emerging Brands
I work with founders building beverage and FMCG brands in India. Distribution, GTM, pack architecture, modern trade, and the readiness questions you’ll face before you scale.
What founders bring me
Multi-state scaling without burning your distributor margin chain or your working capital.
The pack ladder, distributor economics and beat plans that decide whether GT actually opens up.
A clear, honest read of where you are on outlets, depth, productivity and unit economics.
The structural choice that quietly decides your gross margin for the next four years.
Where I help
A single 30-60 minute call. Useful when you have a specific question and need a direct answer from someone who has run the actual playbook. Often the right starting point.
A standing relationship — a few hours a month — where I sit alongside the founder or sales head as a thinking partner across the quarter. We work through the live decisions: a new state, a new SKU, a distributor switch, a hiring call. No deck. No slides. Just judgement.
A 2-4 week diagnostic engagement that produces a Readiness Index™ on the Six Rights of Readiness™. Most useful when you’re heading into a new market, raising a round, or trying to understand why a market that should be working isn’t. Output is a written diagnosis and a prioritised intervention plan.
From the Six Rights of Readiness™
In my experience, founders who have built strong brands tend to have a sharp answer on three of the Six Rights — visibility, execution rhythm, and (usually) economics. The two that quietly trip up otherwise excellent brands are different.
The pack-price architecture you launched with — the one that worked for D2C, modern trade or your home city — is rarely the architecture that opens up general trade across India. The ₹10 single-serve, the ₹20 take-along, the right MPP — these are not afterthoughts. They are the gate. Most founders I meet are one pack short of where their distribution can go.
Founders measure outlet count. The right question is outlet quality. Five thousand right outlets in the right districts at the right depth will out-deliver fifty thousand wrong outlets. Almost every multi-state expansion I see is actually a right-outlet problem dressed up as a coverage problem.
A Growth Strategy Sprint will surface where you stand on all six. Most founders are surprised — not at how poorly they’re doing, but at where the constraint actually is.
Discuss an opportunity
Three fields and a short note. I read every one personally and reply within two working days. If a call is the right next step, I’ll suggest a time in the reply.
Your message is ready
Or just email hello@vikrammalik.co directly with the same details — works from anywhere.