Lenskart's Peyush Bansal to startups: 'Go 20 levels deep on customer needs'

Lenskart CEO & co-founder Peyush Bansal, on the first day of Startup Mahakumbh 2025, emphasised "deep customer focus" as the key to scaling. "Ask why people buy or don’t buy, 20 levels deep," he advises young startup founders at a panel discussion on the "D2C revolution" with Archana Jahagirdar, Founding & Managing Partner, Rukam Capital.

On building a successful business, Bansal said startups must go "very, very deep. Ask every day for the next 20 years: Why are people buying? Why are people not buying? What is the real problem you're solving?"

He shares how solving small pain points (e.g., queue systems for eyewear repairs) drove growth for the unicorn company. On rising customer acquisition costs, he advises founders to prioritise retention over new sales: "Junior staff sells; senior staff serves."

He critiques "omnichannel" as outdated, urging "omnicustomer" strategies — focusing on unified customer experiences across channels. For startups, he warns against benchmarking past success in today’s AI-driven market: "Think fresh, solve real problems."

He said Omnichannel is merely a buzzword and that it comes with its own problem. "The customer is an omni-customer, not the channel," said Bansal. He praised affordable innovations like a ₹3,000 ECG device saving lives, stressing purpose-driven entrepreneurship over short-term gains.

He also talked about retention vs. acquisition, saying: "Junior most person will sell; senior most person will serve. Incentivise your team to deliver enthusiastic customers, not just sales, new acquisition costs will automatically fall."