Career chapter · 2010–2013
Founding-team marketing at the platform that defined Indian baby & kids D2C.
Three years on the founding marketing team of what became India's largest baby and kids products e-commerce platform. Set up content standards, photography conventions, the retail-plus-online concept, the vendor B2B network, and contributed to the initial logo and brand identity. Ran D2C Google Ads and Facebook campaigns. Coordinated the campaign that brought a major Indian film celebrity on board as the brand's promoter.
Challenge
The starting point
Building a category-defining brand from near-zero with a small content team and a fast-moving founder. The platform was creating an entire category — baby & kids e-commerce — in a market that didn't yet have the consumer behaviour for it.
Approach
What I did
Initial marketing strategy
Co-developed the initial marketing strategy and helped build the e-commerce platform. Contributed to the initial logo design as one of the brainchildren of the early team. Introduced the retail-plus-online store concept and the direct-to-mother positioning. Ran D2C Google Ads and Facebook campaigns.
B2B vendor network
Built a B2B network of vendors with the help of the product team — the supply-side foundation that scaled with the platform.
Content & UX
Set up product photography standards, created user experiences, and advertised the website with a near-zero content team.
Campaign management
Managed campaigns, SEO, product descriptions, category curation, QA and website feature development to enhance UX.
Media coordination
Maintained blogs and coordinated with media channels, contributing to the website's promotion campaign featuring a major Indian film celebrity.
Lessons
What this chapter taught
Founding-team marketing is fundamentally different from joining an established marketing function. You don't optimise — you create.
B2B vendor networks are marketing assets disguised as supply-side operations. The two functions don't separate in early-stage D2C.
Content standards set in year one persist for a decade. Photography conventions especially.
Celebrity endorsement at category-creation stage compounds for years. The right celebrity earns trust the brand alone can't yet.
Recognise the pattern?
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