Home

“Build it and they will come” has been the mantra of virality startups, especially PLG ones. If you’re building anything that requires humans, this is relevant to you.

The Hanuman Ansh movie, created with a budget of around ₹1.5, 2 crore, made only ~₹10 lakh in its first few days. It was nearly written off. Then something changed, and it started to grow. Here is what the founders did: apart from the inherent virality, they took specific actions:

1) they turned community rituals into their GTM engine

Instead of buying ads, the team organized eight bhandaras (free community meals) at temples and made these the core of their campaign.

• Each bhandara served as both a spiritual act and a conversation hub about Neem Karoli Baba and the film.

• For a devotional audience, this wasn’t marketing; it was seva + satsang, the way they already gather, talk, and form opinions.

Product analogy:
For human-centric products, your “bhandara” is the ritual where your users already meet: user groups, meetups, webinars, WhatsApp communities, internal champion programs.

The question is: What value can you create in that ritual that naturally pulls people in and makes them talk?

2) they aligned with the right trust nodes, not generic influencers

The makers sought guidance from Premanand Maharaj and engaged with the existing spiritual ecosystem around Neem Karoli Baba devotees.

• In this category, maharaj/satsang leaders > film stars as trust anchors.

• Their endorsements (explicit or implicit) gave the film legitimacy that no trailer or poster could.

Product analogy:
In B2B or community products, your “maharaj” might be respected practitioners, category experts, internal champions, or power users.

Answer: Who does your audience already trust when deciding what’s worth their time? Build for them first; the rest follows.

3) they designed the experience to feel like darshan, not just entertainment

Audiences began treating theaters like temples: removing shoes, folding hands, crying, and calling it a “satsang.”

• The team didn’t fight this; they kept the tone sacred, avoided gimmicky promotion, and let the experience reinforce the spiritual “why.”

• This made people feel proud to bring family and community, not just to watch a movie.

Product analogy:
If your product touches identity, faith, health, career, or money, the experience must match the emotional weight of the job. A “fun” onboarding for something serious can break trust.

Ask: Does our UX match the emotional gravity of the user’s problem?

4) they were willing to be “slow” and read weak signals

The film opened on ~25 screens, dropped to ~40, and was considered dead by conventional metrics.

• But the team listened to community signals (full houses in certain towns, temple buzz, social posts) and let those dictate where to push.

• Exhibitors responded by adding shows and screens once they saw repeat attendance and strong hold, not just Day-1 numbers.

Product analogy:
Most startups kill products that don’t spike in Week 1. Human-centric products often need community discovery time.

The skill is: Can you spot early advocacy loops (repeat usage, unsolicited referrals, community chatter) and double down there, even if top-line looks weak?

5) they made the audience the PR department

Director Vishal Chaturvedi said: “We hardly did any promotion and PR. The audience played the role of PR with word-of-mouth and posting on social media.”

• No big press tours, no paid influencer blitz.

• Instead: real stories, real emotions, real rituals that people wanted to share as part of their identity.

Product analogy:
For PLG and community products, your best PR is:

• Users sharing wins (“This saved my quarter”)

• Teams showcasing workflows built on your tool

• Communities treating your product as part of their story

The founders’ job is to engineer moments worth sharing and then remove friction from that sharing.

The pattern for human-centric, virality products

If you translate Hanuman Ansh into a playbook for startups:

1. Start from the ritual, not the channel
   Where does your audience already gather and talk? Build value inside that ritual (bhandara = community event/value moment).

2. Win the trust nodes, not the masses
   Identify the 5, 10 people/roles whose endorsement changes minds in your category. Design specifically for them.

3. Match experience to emotional job
   If the job is sacred/serious/identity-laden, your UX, tone, and rituals must reflect that. Don’t dilute it for broader appeal.

4. Optimize for loops, not launches
   Measure: repeat usage, referrals, community chatter, champion activity. Be ready to go slow until loops prove themselves.

5. Make users your PR
   Give them stories, artifacts, and status they can share. Then get out of the way.

“Build it and they will come” works only when what you build fits a real human ritual, is trusted by the right nodes, and creates experiences people are proud to recommend.

Hanuman Ansh didn’t beat the system; it understood the humans behind it.

What about you?

Victoria’s Secret is benefiting from an unexpected effect of the GLP-1 boom: when customers lose weight, bras and underwear are often among the first items that need replacing. That has turned drugs such as Ozempic, Wegovy, and Zepbound into a potential demand driver for lingerie retailers.

For apparel retailers, GLP-1 drugs are not only a story about consumers eating less. They are also creating a “wardrobe reset,” as customers whose bodies and sizes have changed buy clothes that fit again. Bernstein estimates that this could add $3 billion to $13 billion in annual apparel spending.

Why lingerie is different

A loose sweatshirt can survive a few pounds of change. A bra usually cannot.

Fit is central to lingerie, and a change in band or cup size makes an existing drawer of bras less useful. Industry data already show that larger band sizes and D-cup bras are losing share, while sales are shifting toward smaller and mid-range sizes, including band size 40 and B and C cups.

Victoria’s Secret CEO Hillary Super said the company had seen roughly a 3% downward shift in the bra-band and underwear sizes being sold, a trend she linked to GLP-1 use.

The store opportunity

Weight loss does more than create demand for replacement products. It brings customers back into stores to find their new fit.

More than two-thirds of surveyed GLP-1 users said sizing changes made them more likely to shop in person, according to ReturnPro data cited by Reuters.

Victoria’s Secret has added AI tools to certain fitting rooms so shoppers can request other sizes, positioning the retailer for a customer who may be trying to work out what fits for the first time in years.

And one more thing..

Under CEO Hillary Super, the brand has:

• Leaned back into its “sexy” core identity after a period of brand confusion

• Reduced heavy discounting and promotions, improving margins.

• Focused on key categories like bras and the PINK line for younger shoppers, which are now growth engines

• Brought back high‑visibility events like the runway show, reigniting cultural buzz