260-year paint lesson changed my mind

I was sitting in a client meeting, watching this startup founder pitch his "revolutionary" SaaS product for the third time in six months.

"We just need more funding for marketing," he said.

I wanted to shake him.

This is another edition of Brick by Brick — where we tear apart the world's best brands to see what makes them tick.

Here's the thing most founders get backwards:

They think branding comes after you've built something successful. That's like putting the foundation under a house that's already built.

It doesn't work that way.

Then I stumbled across the Berger Paints story, and it hit me like a {insert something powerful anecdote}.

This company has been around since 1760. Two hundred and sixty fucking years.

Started as a German chemist perfecting blue dye for military uniforms.

But here's what earned them my respect:

Even in the 1760s, they were protecting their brand promise.

When most chemical companies saw names as just "trade identifiers," Berger was already thinking like a brand.

Fast forward to 1991.

Berger India was stuck at number 7 in the paint market.

Asian Paints owned everything.

The Dhingra brothers bought the company for ₹57 crore and did something brilliant: They doubled their ad spend to 2% of sales.

But that's not the genius part.

They didn't just throw money at advertising.

They localized everything. Tone, typography, and product names — all adapted to Hindi and regional languages.

Then came the real magic:

Colour Bank in 1996.

It was India's first dealer-installed tinting kiosk, which offered 5,000 on-demand shades.

They didn't just sell paint. They sold the experience of "paint your imagination."

Competitors copied the machines.

But Berger owned the story.

By 2025, they went from #7 to #2 in India's paint market.

₹11,654 crore revenue. 19.7% market share, all because they understood something most businesses miss: Branding isn't what you do after you succeed. It's how you succeed.

Look at their Express Painting service launch. Instead of competing on price, they repositioned the entire conversation.

"Faster, Cleaner, Better" — turning painting from a messy chore into a premium service experience.

One digital campaign (#JaldiKaro) got 8.3 million impressions and 1 million Facebook followers in 11 days.

Here's what you can steal from Berger: Stop selling features. Start selling transformation. Berger doesn't sell paint. They sell "painting your imagination."

Same way Netflix doesn't sell streaming. They sell entertainment freedom and how Slack doesn't sell messaging. They sell team harmony.

Find your transformation story.

What's the emotional shift your customers experience?

That's your brand.

The startup founder I mentioned? Last week he pivoted his entire pitch. Instead of "project management software," he's now selling "the end of meeting chaos."

Guess what happened? Two investors want to talk.

Your brand is your strategy, not your decoration.

Build it first. Everything else follows.

— Shashank