How First-Generation Entrepreneurs Are Rewriting India’s Luxury Playbook And Reshaping Consumption
By:-– Karan Bhangay, Co-founder, Indulge
I’m a first-generation entrepreneur who built a luxury concierge out of Goa with one simple promise: access beats ownership. In India’s new luxury market, the most precious commodity isn’t a product, its time, context, and the right phone call. That shift is changing what India’s affluent buy, how they buy, and why they buy.
From “what you own” to “what you unlock”
A decade ago, luxury signalled status via objects. Today, my team is asked to secure a private box at Roland-Garros, a last-minute table at a closed-door chef’s table, or a Northern Lights trip built around a child’s school calendar. The purchase is the memory; the item is a souvenir. Global data backs this pivot where experiences keep gaining share across luxury even as the overall market stabilises.
Time is the new ultra-luxury
One of my favourite lines from my recent conversation with Raj Shamani: a client once paid a premium simply to save six hours. That’s not extravagance; it’s rational ROI when your time compounds opportunity. The wealthiest Indians increasingly outsource friction and not taste.
Luxury is coming home (onshore confidence)
Five years ago, many Indian HNIs shopped abroad and parked capital offshore. Today, we’re seeing assertive onshore consumption right from art to bespoke experiences to record residential deals in Mumbai’s Worli, where INR 40–100 crore has become a real (and rising) bracket. India’s ultra-prime pipeline is expanding, mirroring confidence in domestic lifestyle and assets.
A younger, broader, more curious buyer
India’s wealthy cohort is expanding and getting younger. That means faster adoption cycles, curiosity about niche labels, and comfort with concierge-led discovery. The macro numbers are clear: India’s HNWI base has been climbing, with 2025 reports placing the country among the global leaders by absolute growth, a momentum that will keep cascading into luxury categories.
The quiet rise of “India-forward” luxury
Luxury here no longer needs foreign validation. Clients ask for Indian itineraries with global standards from Goa farm-to-table dinners, textile ateliers in Kutch, private Hindustani recitals, all curated with the same precision as Paris or Tokyo. This pride sits alongside a surge in categories like prestige beauty, where global players are racing to localise for India’s climate and cities.
And here’s what first-gen founders are doing differently
Building trust as a product.
At Indulge, we don’t just “book things”; we de-risk high-stakes moments. Trust is engineered through vetting, authentication, and a network you can’t Google. That’s why clients value us for access, discretion, and judgment, not just logistics.
Designing for outcomes, not catalogues.
We start from the outcome (“a once-in-a-lifetime birthday the child remembers at 40”) and reverse-engineer the pieces such as talent, travel, tables, timing. This is product management, not ticketing.
Blending human taste with tech discipline.
AI helps us forecast availability windows, sentiment around venues, and demand spikes; humans provide taste, cultural fluency, and that last mile of persuasion. Margin pressure in luxury globally is pushing this performance discipline to do more, better, with less waste, without dulling desirability.
Curating over scaling.
The temptation is to scale breadth. We scale depth with fewer clients, higher context, compounding trust. Paradoxically, that’s better business.
New consumption behaviours we’re seeing (and shaping)
- Wait-list culture without the wait.: Clients want the drop and the story behind it; we add provenance, private previews, and maker access.
- Purposeful extravagance: Big spends now align with values such as family rituals, heritage, philanthropy, wellness. The most memorable “luxury” I’ve arranged lately? A silent, phones-away dinner with an artist couple and eight guests.
- Luxury as life-ops: From school calendars to visa clocks to weather windows, life ops are the rails. The purchase rides on them.
- Domestic first, global always: The calendar now reads: Mumbai art week, AlUla under the stars, Kyoto in sakura, Lakshadweep when the tides are right, and Worli keys in hand. The axis is India-outward, not abroad-inward.
The Founder Edge
First-generation entrepreneurs don’t inherit playbooks; we write them in real time. My own voice online reflects that plain-spoken, operator-led, Goa-rooted, relentlessly client-first. We’re comfortable saying, “Tell me what you really want the moment to feel like,” then moving mountains to deliver it.
What’s next? More context-rich, India-forward luxury. Less noise, more meaning. And a concierge model that treats your attention as sacred.
If you’re building in this space, remember: status follows substance; substance follows stewardship. Curate trust, protect time, and luxury will take care of itself.