Protest Is the Pulse of a Movement

We’ve forgotten that all movements start with a protest.

Not a press release.

Not a rebrand.

A protest.

It’s uncomfortable, inconvenient, and deeply sacred.

Because protest is the soul saying, “This is not right. And I will not comply.”

Before there was momentum, there was resistance.

Before there was traction, there was tension.

We’ve just been taught to ignore that part-especially in business.

Let’s rewind to the first recorded protest in history.

It wasn’t in the 1960s.

It wasn’t even in the 1700s.

It was 3,000 years ago-in ancient Egypt.

The first recorded labor strike happened under Pharaoh Ramses III in the 12th century BCE.

Artisans working on the royal tombs at Deir el-Medina walked off the job. Why? Delayed wages. Unfair conditions. Lack of food.

They sat down. Refused to work. And documented their demands in writing.

A protest.

Not chaos. Not crime.

A demand for dignity.

History remembers revolutions. But it forgets what sparked them.

The American Revolution wasn’t just a declaration. It was a protest against taxation without representation.

The French Revolution wasn’t a pivot. It was the storming of the Bastille, sparked by hunger, inequality, and rage.

The Salt March in India wasn’t a branding stunt.

It was a 240-mile act of civil disobedience led by Gandhi, rejecting British colonial salt taxes.

And in each case, the same truth rang out:

A protest isn’t the afterthought of a movement.

It’s the birth cry.

But let’s not stop at the headliners.

Let’s name the ones they don’t teach in textbooks:

Claudette Colvin, a 15-year-old Black girl in Montgomery, Alabama. She refused to give up her bus seat nine months before Rosa Parks did. She was fierce. She was arrested. And the civil rights movement took notes.

Sophie Scholl, a 21-year-old student in Nazi German. She led the White Rose resistance, handing out anti-Hitler leaflets on university steps. She was executed for treason. Her last words? “What does my death matter, if through us, thousands of people are awakened and stirred to action?”

Bussa, a little-known enslaved man in Barbados. He led a full-scale rebellion in 1816 against British colonialists. He died in combat, but his defiance lives in the country’s emancipation memory today.

Chavela Vargas, the queer Costa Rican singer who fled to Mexico, dressed like a man, carried a pistol, and sang heartbreak with no apology. She lived her protest out loud-against gender, tradition, and silence.

Lulu White, a Black businesswoman in New Orleans who used her brothel to fund civil rights lawsuits in the early 1900s-long before anyone was ready to see sex work and protest walk hand in hand.

Rani Gaidinliu, a Naga spiritual leader and freedom fighter from Northeast India-who led a rebellion against British rule at age 16. She was arrested, imprisoned for 14 years, and emerged with her faith unbroken and her people awakened.

These are not side stories.

They are soul sparks.

They didn’t wait for the moment to be safe.

They made the moment mean something.

And in each case, the same truth rang out:

A protest isn’t the afterthought of a movement.

It’s the birth cry.

And here’s what most people miss: Protest isn’t just political. It’s spiritual.

In the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna’s resistance to fighting his own family is a protest of conscience.

And Krishna doesn’t shame him.

He clarifies his dharma.

He calls him in. He says, “Stand up and act.”

Protest is a sacred reckoning between soul and system.

It asks:

What will you no longer stand for?

And what truth are you willing to name-even if the world isn’t ready for it?

So why does this matter in category design? In business? In movements?

Because too many so-called “movements” today are built in boardrooms, not in hearts.

Crafted by positioning decks, not lived experience.

We’ve entered the era of category cosplay-

where companies manufacture a villain to juice valuation,

not to solve a real, burning need.

They slap a slogan on a sales deck, give it a clever name,

and call it a revolution.

Please.

That’s not a category.

That’s a costume.

A true movement doesn’t start with a go-to-market plan.

It starts with a gut punch.

With a deep knowing that something is broken-not just in the market, but in the culture.

If there’s no real injustice, no real cost to doing nothing,

then what you’re building isn’t a movement.

It’s a marketing ploy.

And here’s the problem:

When founders fake the fight,

they train the market to stop trusting people who actually mean it.

They dilute the power of real protest with empty noise.

We’re watching companies manufacture friction just to justify market cap:

“Let’s create urgency.”

“Let’s reframe the problem.”

“Let’s give it a name and declare ourselves #1.”

That’s not movement work.

That’s market theater.

Performance protest.

Mimicked rebellion.

And the cost?

When you build a category from the outside in-with no lived tension, no real sacrifice, no soul-

you’re not leading a revolution.

You’re LARPing one.

Worse: you’re teaching a generation of founders that protest is just a positioning tactic.

A cute slide in a deck.

A brand asset.

But protest isn’t optional.

Friction is the flame.

It’s the sacred tension that gives the movement its meaning.

Because at the core of every real movement is not a product.

It’s a person.

A seer.

Someone who said, “This breaks my soul-and I’m not willing to stay silent anymore.”

That’s where true category creation comes from.

Not from the market. From identity.

Because identity precedes product.

It always has.

Your category isn’t what you sell.

It’s what you stand for.

It’s the line you won’t cross.

It’s the old story you’re here to end-not with code, but with conviction.

So ask yourself:

• What are you refusing to comply with?

• What sacred tension are you standing in?

• What truth are you here to tell before the world is ready to hear it?

If you can’t answer those questions,

you’re not building a movement.

You’re building a pitch.

And no one follows a costume.

They follow a spark.

If you are a founder, a creator, a builder-this is your invitation:

Don’t skip the protest.

Don’t sanitise the story.

Don’t fear the tension.

Because the greatest movements in history?

They didn’t begin with consensus.

They began with dissent.

And if you’re holding the match,

let it burn.