Notebook · Vol. 01
Chandan Kumar

Chandan Kumar · Founder, Grovio Labs · India

Hi, I'm Chandan.

I've run growth at every scale there is — from two-person startups to enterprise portfolios. Across a decade at ByteDance, Foundit, and Mahindra Finance, I've helped move $600M+ (₹5,000 crore) of revenue.

Now I'm proving one thesis: one person with AI systems can do the work of an entire marketing team.

I spent ten years doing this work manually. I know exactly which parts a system can own — so I'm building Grovio Labs, the autonomous AI marketing system, and running my own marketing with it.

And advising a small number of startups and enterprises per quarter on AI marketing transformation — helping teams redesign how they grow.

This is my notebook. The systems, the numbers, and the field notes — published as I go.

the short story. the long arc is a few scrolls down.

— Chandan

Right now
Updated May 2026

The arc

Eleven chapters. One decade. still writing.

Read the full arc →

2014

First hire

Tomatodeli

the education you can only pay for in mistakes.

2020

ByteDance

Gurugram

where speed became a moat.

2022

Foundit

APAC · Gulf

+45% acquisition. 30+ shipped.

2023

Mahindra

Pan-India

2× revenue. 40% CAC down.

2025

IDFC FIRST

Asset products

+40% YoY, 8 products.

Now

Grovio Labs

Founder

betting the decade.

The notebook

What I'm thinking about out loud.

Open the archive →

Page

01

AI Playbooks · · 5 min read

What Is Agentic Marketing? A Definition

Agentic marketing is marketing executed by AI agents that plan and act without step-by-step instruction. What makes a system genuinely agentic.

Page

02

AI Playbooks · · 10 min read

The One-Person Marketing Team

One operator with AI systems doing a marketing team's work — under 5 hours a week, under $500 a month. The complete playbook.

Page

03

Teardowns · · 18 min read

boAt's Growth Teardown: ₹3,000 Cr, No Moat

boAt crossed ₹3,000 Cr without a patent, a chip, or a manufacturing moat. Here's the growth engine most Indian founders miss.

The work

Case studies, with receipts.

All work →

Open source · Claude Code Skills

The system, open-sourced.

All skills →

Not prompt templates. These are extracted from the same system that runs my actual marketing function — generalized so they read your brand instead of mine, and published with the same rule the system lives by: if it can't be verified, it doesn't ship.

Work with me

The work, three ways.

Newsletter

The Autonomous Marketer

The decade of marketing I wish someone had written down. Sent when I have something real to say — not on a schedule.

Subscribe on Substack

Free. Unsubscribe anytime.

— see you in the writing.

If any of this resonated, the easiest way to keep in touch is The Autonomous Marketer.