Hey folks!

If you’ve ever paid for a gym membership you barely use, you’ll probably understand the appeal of what’s happening with Hyrox.

People are paying up to ₹10,000 to participate in an indoor fitness competition that involves an 8 km race broken up by eight brutal workout stations featuring sled pushes, wall balls, farmer’s carries and the works. But here’s the twist. There’s no prize money.

Sure, Hyrox does offer prize money. But that’s only if you compete at the professional Elite level, at events like the World Championships. Everyone else pays full price and walks away with nothing but a finisher’s badge.

Sounds like a terrible business, right?

Except Hyrox launched in India in May 2025 through a joint venture with Bengaluru-based fit-tech company Yoska, and less than a year later, Hyrox Bengaluru pulled in 8,200 participants, a nearly five-fold jump from its 1,650-person debut in Mumbai. 

So how does a race with no prize purse become a business worth crores?

Turns out, prize money was never the focus. Globally, Hyrox makes most of its money from race entry fees, plus merchandise, sponsorship from brands like Puma and Red Bull, and licensing fees from affiliated gyms.

The real money isn’t made on race day. Many gyms partner with Hyrox to run training programs specifically built for the event, charging participants for race-prep sessions that also drive up regular gym memberships. Every racer who signs up often buys an eight-week training block too.

Which means Hyrox isn’t really in the racing business. It’s in the training-funnel business, and the race is just the funnel’s finish line.

The genius part? None of this required Hyrox to pay out a rupee in prize money, because nobody’s really racing for the money. Hyrox’s global customer acquisition cost is close to zero, the entire machine runs on people paying to train, paying to race, and then posting about it for free. 

They’re racing for the badge, the one that says earned, not given.

So yeah, Hyrox figured out how to build a crores-worth business around a race with zero prize money. Would you pay ₹10,000 to earn that badge?

Here’s a soundtrack to put you in the mood… 🎵

Vazhimuzhudhum Varuvaayaa by Siri Xander and Arra Aria Khayal

You can thank our reader, Herradlin J S, for this lovely recommendation.

Also folks, keep your music recommendations coming. We’d love to feature them in our Sunday editions, especially gems from underrated Indian artists many of us haven’t discovered yet. Can’t wait to hear them!

Ready to dive in?

What caught our eye this week

The business of luxury fakes

A few days ago, a LinkedIn post went viral. A Delhi-based founder recalled talking to a businessman with a net worth of over ₹500 crore, who casually admitted that the Rolex Daytona on his wrist wasn’t real.

He had bought it from an Instagram page for about ₹10,000, while the real watch, depending on the model, could easily cost over ₹20 lakh.

So why would someone who could comfortably afford the original choose a fake instead?

His answer it seems was pretty simple. People compliment the watch. Nobody questions whether it’s real. So why spend a fortune?

At first, it might sound awkwardly logical for a wealthy chap. But it actually explains why the fake luxury business in India is several times bigger than the real one.

To put that in perspective, India’s luxury goods market for stuff like Gucci bags, Rolex watches or Coach wallets, is worth nearly ₹60,000 crore today and is expected to cross ₹1 lakh crore within the next couple of years.

But the market for fake versions of these very products is already estimated to be worth nearly ₹4 lakh crore and could in fact be growing at twice the pace of the real one.

So what’s going on?

Well, there are really two kinds of customers keeping this market alive.

The first is people like this viral businessman we just mentioned. They can afford the original, but simply don’t see the point. So if a ₹10,000 Rolex gets them the same compliments as a ₹20 lakh one, the economics look pretty attractive.

The second group is India’s aspirational middle class. You see, luxury brands have become status symbols, but owning them is still painfully expensive. Most of these products are imported, attract hefty duties, and end up costing far beyond what many people can realistically afford. Yet the desire to look affluent hasn’t disappeared.

And that’s where counterfeits step in. Sellers source imitation products, often from manufacturing hubs in China, and sell them through Instagram pages, WhatsApp groups and Telegram channels, making enforcement far more difficult than shutting down a physical shop.

They’ve even developed their own hierarchy. At the top sit “superfakes” or copies so detailed that they replicate stitching, logos, serial numbers and packaging so convincingly that they can sometimes fool authentication checks.

Below that come mirror copies, first copies and finally the obvious street fakes, each cheaper and a little less convincing than the last.

Which means that the end result is that originality has slowly come to become... optional.

And as you can imagine luxury brands aren’t thrilled by his. Many are expanding aggressively in India, seeing millions of aspiring customers entering the premium market, which is why they’re also fighting back.

Some brands now are apparently hiring private investigators who pose as regular shoppers in places like Delhi’s Palika Bazaar or Kolkata’s Kidderpore Fancy Market. They secretly buy counterfeit products, collect evidence and pass it on to brands to help them decide whether to sue the sellers.

But will that really solve the problem, you ask?

It’ll probably make life harder for some counterfeit networks. But it may not eliminate the demand. Because most people buying a ₹5,000 fake Gucci bag were never the kind of customers who were about to buy a ₹3 lakh original if the fake disappeared.

They’re buying something entirely different — the appearance of luxury.

And as long as looking rich remains far cheaper than actually being rich, the business of luxury fakes may continue to grow just as fast, if not faster than the real thing. What do you think?

Infographic

Readers Recommend

This week, our reader Harshini Baagyashri recommends reading Yuganta by Irawati Karve.

This seems to be an interesting and fresh, human reading of the Mahabharata, looking at its characters as real people rather than divine or mythical figures.

And here’s what Harshini has to say about it:

Yuganta by Irawati Karve is a fascinating character study of the people of the Mahabharata. Rather than portraying them as heroes and villains in black and white, Karve examines them as deeply human individuals shaped by their circumstances, desires, strengths, and weaknesses.

Unlike the Ramayana, where many characters are often seen as ideals to emulate, the characters in Yuganta are flawed, complex, and painfully real. They make difficult choices, carry regrets, and act out of ambition, jealousy, love, pride, and duty, while living with the consequences of those choices. Karve does not ask us to judge them; instead, she helps us understand why they became the people they were.

What makes the book so relatable is that it reflects real life. Human beings are not perfect, and neither are the characters of the Mahabharata. Yuganta reminds us that we do not need to hide our flaws behind a mask of perfection. Instead, we can acknowledge our shortcomings, take responsibility for our decisions, and accept the consequences of our actions. That honesty and self-awareness are what make the book timeless and deeply relevant even today.

Thank you for the rec, Harshini!

That’s it from us this week. We’ll see you next Sunday.

Until then, send us your book, music (preferably from underrated Indian artists), business movies, documentaries, or podcast recommendations. We’ll feature them in this newsletter! Also, don’t forget to tell us what you thought of today’s edition. Just hit reply to this email (or if you’re reading this on the web, drop us a message at morning@finshots.in).

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