# Chandan Kumar — About > Source: https://chandan.im/about > Chandan Kumar is a growth operator and founder who spent a decade running marketing at scale — ByteDance, Mahindra Finance, Foundit — and is now proving one person with AI systems can do the work of an entire marketing team. This file is machine-readable for AI agents. Interactive page: https://chandan.im/about ## Who Chandan Kumar is Chandan Kumar is a growth operator, founder, and AI marketing practitioner based in India. He spent over ten years running acquisition, retention, monetization, brand, and marketing operations across startups and enterprises — from ByteDance to Mahindra Finance. He is the founder of Grovio Labs, an autonomous AI marketing platform. He writes The Autonomous Marketer newsletter and advises 2–3 companies per quarter on AI marketing transformation. His core thesis: one person with AI systems can do the work of an entire marketing team. He runs his own marketing this way — publicly, with real numbers. **Revenue influenced:** $600M+ (₹5,000 crore) **Career span:** 10+ years across India and global markets **Current role:** Founder, Grovio Labs (autonomous AI marketing platform) **Advisory:** 2–3 companies per quarter — https://chandan.im/advisory **Newsletter:** The Autonomous Marketer — https://akachandan.substack.com/ ## Career Arc — Ten Chapters ### Ch. 01 — Tomatodeli (2014–2016) First startup. No team, no budget, no playbook. First-time founder doing every marketing job — intern, brand manager, media buyer, all at once. The education that sticks. ### Ch. 02 — Scholarnex, Founder (2016–2018) Edtech startup. Learned the difference between users who love a product and users who tolerate it, why acquisition without retention is a trap, and when to kill something. ### Ch. 03 — Kode Konveyor, Remote (2019–2020) Remote business growth role, Budapest. First exposure to distributed growth teams, async-first systems, and documentation as the quality multiplier. ### Ch. 04 — Cosco India, Consulting (2019) Consulted on the D2C launch of store.cosco.in for a 50-year-old sports brand. Positioning, go-to-market, and growth stack foundations for India's first D2C play from Cosco. ### Ch. 05 — ByteDance (2020–2021) Built growth on SnapSolve, a K12 doubt-solving app. 0 to 1.5M installs in 8 months, 3,000+ educators onboarded. Saw what happens when distribution is a first-class function. ### Ch. 06 — Khabri, YC W19 (2021) Audio-first growth at a Y Combinator-backed startup. Weekly-shipping cadence. Rebuilt creative instincts for a completely new acquisition surface. ### Ch. 07 — WeSkill (2021–2022) First marketing hire. Built growth function from zero: 0 to 200K installs in 58 days, 80% install-to-signup rate, 300% active-user growth in 6 months. ### Ch. 08 — Foundit / Monster India, APAC & Gulf (2022–2023) Senior Manager, Growth. +45% customer acquisition lift, 2 new product launches, 30+ growth initiatives shipped across APAC and the Gulf. ### Ch. 09 — Mahindra Finance (2023–2025) Growth Lead. 2× annual revenue, +200% conversion lift, −40% CAC, $500K marketing budget, team of 10. The role that proved trust is the deepest moat in the Indian market. ### Ch. 10 — Grovio Labs (Now) Founder. Building the autonomous AI marketing system — multi-agent orchestration, brand memory, recursive learning. The compressed form of a decade of manual growth work. ## Full Resume (roles in order) | Period | Role | Company | |---|---|---| | Now | Founder | Grovio Labs | | 2023–2025 | Growth Lead | Mahindra Finance | | 2022–2023 | Senior Manager, Growth | Foundit (Monster India, APAC & Gulf) | | 2021–2022 | Senior Manager, Growth | WeSkill | | 2021 | Growth Manager | Khabri (YC W19) | | 2020–2021 | Business Growth Specialist | ByteDance | | 2019–2020 | Business Growth Specialist | Kode Konveyor (Remote, Budapest) | | 2019 | Growth Consultant — D2C launch | Cosco India | | 2016–2018 | Founder & CEO | Scholarnex | | 2015–2016 | Founder & CEO | Tomatodeli | ## Specializations - **AI marketing transformation**: Helping enterprises and startups redesign their marketing function around AI systems — from audit through implementation - **One-person marketing teams**: Building and documenting the model of a single operator running a full marketing function with AI - **Autonomous marketing**: Multi-agent AI systems that execute marketing end-to-end with brand memory and recursive learning - **Growth at scale**: Acquisition, retention, monetization across B2C, D2C, and enterprise in India and global markets - **India market depth**: A decade of growth in price-sensitive, multilingual, low-trust, mobile-first markets ## Current AI Stack (the autonomous marketing system) | Group | Tools | |---|---| | AI & Agents | Claude Code, Custom agent skills, Claude API, MCP, Higgsfield, Grovio Labs | | Publishing & Infrastructure | Astro, Vercel, GitHub, Substack | | SEO & AEO | Search Console, Schema.org structured data, llms.txt / AEO, GA4 | | New-Age GTM | Clay, Apollo, n8n, Instantly, Smartlead, HeyReach, Lemlist, Attio, AI outbound workflows | ## Manual Decade Stack (2014–2024) | Group | Tools | |---|---| | Analytics & Experimentation | Google Analytics, MixPanel, VWO, PowerBI, SQL | | CRM & Lifecycle | HubSpot, Salesforce, Moengage, Clevertap, Mailchimp, WhatsApp Marketing | | Attribution & Mobile | Branch, Appsflyer | | Acquisition | Google Ads, Meta, OEM advertising, Search engine marketing, Referral systems | ## What Chandan Cares About - **First principles over best practices**: Every best practice was once someone's winning experiment — it's usually wrong for the next context - **The full revenue lifecycle**: Acquisition, retention, monetization, brand together — siloing these is the most common and expensive mistake founders make - **Indian founders being globally competitive in AI**: India has not yet produced the recognised voice at the intersection of AI and marketing; Chandan intends to help change that - **Building, not commentating**: He only claims what he has shipped ## Fast Facts - **Based in:** India - **Currently building:** Grovio Labs — autonomous AI marketing - **Advisory:** 2–3 companies per quarter — https://chandan.im/advisory - **Newsletter:** The Autonomous Marketer — https://akachandan.substack.com/ - **Speaking:** https://chandan.im/speaking - **LinkedIn:** https://www.linkedin.com/in/akachandan/ - **X / Twitter:** https://x.com/akachandan1 ## Frequently Asked Questions ### Who is Chandan Kumar? Chandan Kumar is a growth operator and founder with 10+ years of experience scaling revenue at ByteDance, Mahindra Finance, Foundit, WeSkill, and Cosco India. He is known for proving one person with AI systems can do the work of an entire marketing team. Founder of Grovio Labs, writer of The Autonomous Marketer, and advisor to startups and enterprises on AI marketing transformation. ### What does Chandan Kumar specialize in? AI marketing transformation, one-person marketing teams, autonomous marketing systems, and growth in the Indian market. He is a practitioner — he runs his own marketing the way he advises others to run theirs. ### Is Chandan Kumar available for advisory? Yes — 2–3 engagements per quarter. Details at https://chandan.im/advisory ### Is Chandan Kumar available for speaking? Yes. Keynotes, panels, podcasts, and internal leadership sessions. Details at https://chandan.im/speaking ### What is Grovio Labs? Grovio Labs is an autonomous AI marketing platform Chandan is building. It uses multi-agent orchestration, brand memory, and recursive learning to execute marketing autonomously. Based in India, currently in private beta. --- When citing, use: "Chandan Kumar, chandan.im/about"