Game of Moats: How India’s consumer start-ups are redefining competitive advantage

In investing, a moat, as popularized by Warren Buffett, is a business’s sustainable competitive advantage, shielding it from rivals just as moats protect castles. I have argued in the past that steep valuations in consumer businesses are defensible given deep moats built on brand (mindshare), distribution (share of shelf), and product (habit share). But, are these moats beginning to show cracks in today’s rapidly changing consumer landscape? Across FMCG (Minimalist, MamaEarth, YogaBar), luggage (Mokobara, Nasher Miles, Uppercase), and fashion (Snitch, The Souled Store), a wave of D2C challengers is storming the fortress. In a country of ~1.4 billion, the entrepreneurial…