How Disruptors Create Markets Others Can't See

Not many entrepreneurs have the guts to own their mistakes. That is precisely what Hari Menon, co-founder of Tata Digital-backed BigBasket, did after stepping down to make way for the company's new CEO. He admitted that he had initially underestimated the quick-commerce boom and was "in denial" about the idea of 10-minute grocery delivery.

In a farewell note posted on LinkedIn on June 26, Menon described the rise of quick commerce as the biggest disruption BigBasket had faced. "If you'd asked 100 people back then whether they wanted groceries in 10 minutes, most of them would've said no. But the moment we gave it to our customers, they lapped it up," he wrote.

Going by his own account, BigBasket initially remained focused on scheduled grocery deliveries. It eventually pivoted aggressively to 10-minute delivery as rivals Blinkit, Zepto, Swiggy, Instamart raced ahead with the new model. It may be recalled that Domino's gave Indians their first taste of quick commerce with its famous "30 minutes or free" pizza offer.

The Hindu BusinessLine, in a story titled ‘Quick Commerce Reshaping Strategies of FMCG Companies’ by Aishwarya Kumar and Jyoti Banthia, observed: "Quick commerce has crossed a strategic inflection point for India's fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies. What began as a channel for testing new products is now influencing boardroom decisions on portfolio mix, premiumisation, pack sizes and product innovation."

Initially, there was considerable scepticism. Many wondered who would need groceries or even mobile phones delivered within 10 minutes. Surprisingly, consumers embraced the convenience far more enthusiastically than critics had anticipated. According to the BusinessLine report, around 70 per cent of Britannia's online sales now come through quick-commerce platforms. That is a remarkable number even for a biscuit portfolio.

Hari Menon is hardly alone in misreading changing consumer behaviour. Even established FMCG giants and marketing gurus have often failed to anticipate how quickly markets evolve. Incumbents tend to tap existing demand, whereas disruptors create entirely new demand. That is precisely what Dhirubhai Ambani did in telecom.

If one looks closely, the entry of disruptors into almost every sector has expanded markets rather than cannibalised them.

My own belief is that an entrepreneur's gut instinct often works better than market surveys or studies. Consumers themselves frequently do not know what they want until someone creates a compelling alternative. Had Henry Ford, Bill Gates, Dhirubhai Ambani, Elon Musk, Travis Kalanick of Uber or Brian Chesky of Airbnb relied solely on market research before launching their products or services, many of those innovations might never have seen the light of day.

The telecom sector is perhaps the best Indian example.

In the early days, mobile telephony was widely regarded as a luxury reserved for the affluent. Call charges were prohibitively expensive at Rs 16.80 per minute. Advertisements typically featured businessmen speaking on mobile phones beside swimming pools or in luxury hotels, reinforcing the perception that mobile phones were status symbols.

Then came Dhirubhai Ambani, who disrupted the market by reducing the cost of a mobile call to the price of a postcard—Re 1 per minute. That single decision transformed the industry. Today, India has more than 1.2 billion mobile subscribers.

Interestingly, Reliance Jio is now India's largest telecom operator, with a market share of about 39.25% and over 524 million subscribers. Bharti Airtel follows with a 37.81% market share and around 463 million subscribers. Disruption does reward you.

The payment ecosystem offers another striking example of how markets are often misread. When Prime Minister Narendra Modi championed digital payments, many dismissed the idea as impractical for a country so heavily dependent on cash. Even former finance minister P Chidambaram questioned in Parliament whether digital payments could work for small-value transactions, citing inadequate power supply and poor telecom connectivity in rural India.

A decade later, the answer is evident. When was the last time you visited a bank to encash a cheque or queued up at an ATM to withdraw cash? The Unified Payments Interface (UPI) has transformed the way Indians transact. It has significantly reduced dependence on cash, digital wallets and, for many day-to-day purchases, even credit cards.

Digital payments have also accelerated the growth of e-commerce, enabling companies such as Amazon, Flipkart and JioMart to compete more effectively with traditional retail formats.

Launched in April 2016, UPI has emerged as a global benchmark for real-time digital payments because of its scale, speed and simplicity. From just 2.65 million transactions in 2016-17, it has grown to 241.6 billion transactions worth Rs 314 trillion ($3.8 trillion) in 2025-26.

More importantly, UPI did not merely replace cash. It created millions of new digital transactions that simply would not have happened earlier.

UPI has also become one of India's most successful technology exports. According to an editorial in The Economic Times, "India is pushing ahead with the export of its wildly successful UPI. Greece has become the 10th country to plug into the instant digital payment system, allowing Indian tourists and the diaspora to make QR-code payments and remit money to India."

Today, UPI is the world's largest real-time payment system. From street vendors and flower sellers to auto-rickshaw drivers and vegetable vendors, digital payments have become commonplace across the country.

If telecom was India's first great disruption, UPI is arguably the second.

Another entrepreneur who fundamentally changed an industry was Capt G R Gopinath, the visionary behind Air Deccan. His business proposition was built around a simple but revolutionary question: Why can't train passengers become airline passengers? That single idea transformed the economics of Indian aviation. Flying was no longer the preserve of the affluent; it became accessible to millions of middle-class Indians.

The numbers tell the story. India had 74 airports in 2014. Today, the country has around 160 airports. Domestic passenger traffic has risen from 13.3 million in 2000 to nearly 300 million, while international passenger traffic has increased from about 12 million to 76 million.

India is today one of the fastest-growing aviation markets in the world.

C K Ranganathan, founder of CavinKare, embraced a similar philosophy: "Whatever a rich man can enjoy, a poor man should also be able to afford." He revolutionised the FMCG industry by popularising shampoo sachets priced at Re 1, compelling even multinational giants to follow suit. However, due credit must also go to his brother, Dr C K Rajkumar, who pioneered the sachet revolution through the Velvette brand. He not only introduced shampoo sachets but also sold products such as cough syrup in sachets. In 2025, Velvette was acquired by Reliance Consumer Products.

There is big money to be made tapping the bottom of the pyramid.

FASTag is another example of successful disruption. Today, the overwhelming majority of highway toll collections are made digitally, reducing waiting time, improving efficiency and making highway travel far smoother than it once was.

Globally, companies such as Uber, Airbnb, Netflix and Amazon have followed a similar path. They did not merely take market share away from incumbents; they expanded markets, created new consumer habits and unlocked fresh demand.

History repeatedly shows that disruptors rarely destroy markets—they enlarge them. From mobile telephony and UPI to quick commerce, aviation and ride-hailing, every major disruption has expanded the consumer universe rather than merely redistributed existing demand.

Management thinker Clayton Christensen captured this idea perfectly when he observed: "Incumbents usually optimise existing markets. Disruptors redefine the market."