Marketplace · Growth

From six cities to sixty — one launch playbook, replicated.

The marketplace's India growth happened city-by-city, not channel-by-channel. The marketing job was to build a launch playbook tight enough that a new city could go from zero to viable in eight weeks — and run that playbook sixty times. The foundation built in this period made the platform attractive at acquisition.

Client
India-wide food-delivery marketplace (subsequently acquired)
Engagement
Growth marketing leadership
Duration
Pre-acquisition expansion

Challenge

The starting point

Each city had different competitive dynamics, different demand density, different restaurant supply. A national campaign would have been wasted on cities not ready, and a fully bespoke approach was unscalable.

Approach

What I did

01

8-week city launch

Pre-launch supply build, launch-week performance campaign, week-2 retention sequence — sequenced and standardised.

02

Geography-led performance

Hyperlocal Google + Meta campaigns, bus-stop and metro-station OOH where relevant.

03

CRM/retention engine

Driven by order-frequency cohorts, not generic email schedules.

04

Restaurant supply marketing

B2B-side marketing to bring restaurants on platform.

60+Cities operational at peak
8-weekStandardised launch cycle
Two-sidedDemand and supply growth, paced together
Acquisition-readyFoundation that made the platform attractive at exit

Lessons

What this engagement taught

Marketplace growth is two-sided marketing. Demand-side spend without supply readiness is wasted.

City-by-city beats national. Concentration produces network effects; dilution produces churn.

Standardised playbooks scale. Bespoke campaigns don't.

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18+ years across global B2B and D2C. Six working languages. Async-by-default operating cadence calibrated for distributed teams. India hours overlap with Europe, the Middle East, Asia-Pacific and the Americas — meaning live-hours coverage of every major target market.

Past engagements span the EU, the UK, the USA, the UAE, Latin America, and Southeast Asia — through agency, in-house and consulting roles.

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