Most activewear brands began with a mood board. Blissclub began with a complaint. Actually, hundreds of them. Long before Minu Margeret, Founder and CEO of Blissclub, sewed a single tag onto a legging, she sat in rooms listening to Indian women describe the quiet violence of bad activewear.
The waistband that dug in. The fabric that went sheer when you squatted. The ‘one-size-fits-all’ that fit no one who actually moved.
In conversation with Brand Beats, Margeret offered a rare glimpse into how the brand had quietly built one of India’s most community-obsessed activewear labels from the ground up.
The Only R&D That Matters: Listening Before Launching
“Every product we’ve built has come from a dominant consumer signal,” Margeret said. “Before we made our first legging, we spent months in conversations listening to women talk about how activewear was failing them.”
That approach, she insisted, had not changed. “Our community is still very much our R&D function,” she said.
When asked about how Blissclub decided what to launch next, Margeret did not give a spreadsheet answer. She offered a question instead. “We ask ourselves, ‘Is this a real, recurring frustration that women in our community are voicing? If it’s loud, consistent, and underserved, we build to solve it,” she affirmed.
But as Blissclub scaled, with presence on Myntra, Amazon, Flipkart, Nykaa Fashion, and a growing chain of 16 offline stores across India, how did authenticity survive? Margeret’s answer was refreshingly unsentimental.
“Honestly, authenticity doesn’t survive by accident. One has to build systems to protect it,” she noted. For Blissclub, she explained, that meant keeping the community as a genuine input mechanism. “We’ve been intentional about preserving our brand community as a genuine input mechanism and not relegate it to being just a marketing layer,” Margeret said.
Balancing Hard Metrics and Gut Feel
In the D2C ecosystem, where startups were often measured purely by growth velocity, Margeret refused to pick a side between quantitative and qualitative. “It has to be both. It would be worrisome if one gets picked over another,” she admitted.
She described sustainable growth as “balancing a healthy pace of growth and growing the right way.” And longevity? That was not just about repeat purchases. “Longevity for us wouldn’t just be about long-term repeat purchases and enduring relevance,” she added, “but also about how much of a habitual, no-second-thoughts choice we are with respect to our consumers’ daily wardrobe choices.”
Against The Performance Marketing Cult
Asked how Blissclub balanced short-term acquisition metrics with long-term brand loyalty, Margeret was precise with her language. “We view performance marketing as a tool,” she said. “One of the key pegs of the overarching strategy, not the entire strategy.”
The foundation of the brand, she explained, was built before a single product existed. “We built our community months before we had a product to sell. That foundation means our word-of-mouth and organic channels carry weight that pure performance marketing can’t replicate,”
She further explained, “We also work with a vibrant community of creators who build relatability and trust. So in a nutshell, we strive to balance short-term acquisition numbers with retention and community depth metrics. That helps keep the overall brand health strong.”
What made people stay? Margeret’s answer was simple: “The product working, feeling seen by the brand, and being part of something deeper than a transaction,” she put it out.
Premium, Not Pricy
One of the sharpest lines in the conversation came when Margeret unpacked premium positioning. “Premium for us has never been about the price point. It’s been about the product experience.”
She pointed to the Indian consumer’s sophistication, where she stated, “Indians are sophisticated and discerning consumers, and we acknowledge and build for this. We don’t amplify the ‘value’ conversation. We leave it to be discovered in the product experience.”
That meant obsessing over the details. “We work hard to ensure women understand why we chose a particular fabric construction, what went into the fit across sizes, or why certain details,” she explained. “Our consumers know these things very well and share them forward passionately. That’s the premium positioning we care most about, that our products are seen as a premium experience which solves compelling problems.”
From Activewear To ‘Move-Wear’
Blissclub’s origins were in activewear, but Margeret saw a broader canvas. “Activewear is our origins, but high technical comfortwear and move-wear is our broader play,” she said.
The brand had expanded into work, travel, swimwear, and most recently, menswear. “These allow us to capture a larger share of the customer’s wardrobe and create a more even and diverse revenue mix for us,” Margeret explained.
So how did emotional values like confidence and community translate into business outcomes? Margeret connected the dots directly. “Confidence, comfort, and community translate directly into lower return rates, higher repeat rates, high NPS scores and strong advocacy,” she said.
“When a woman slips into our clothes and feels like she can move without thinking about her clothes,” Margeret added, “that translates directly into repeat purchase. When our community makes a woman feel seen and represented just as she is, she becomes a long-term customer and an evangelist.”
Five Years From Now
Asked what success would look like in five years, Margeret painted a clear picture. “In five years, success is Blissclub being the de facto choice for fabric supremacy, high technical comfort and all degrees of movement in India: for real Indian bodies,” she said proudly.
She also added, “Beyond hitting our revenue milestones, we want to have redefined the category. And we believe we will do this because we continue to be disproportionately and unreasonably obsessed with our consumers.”
Not reasonably obsessed, not efficiently obsessed, disproportionately and unreasonably. That, Margeret suggested, was the only obsession that actually scaled.
