FILE · RJ / D2C / 2026
The new-age fractional CMO · D2C · India

The modern marketing arsenal is powerful — but tools, dashboards and agencies don't align themselves. I turn them into one accountable growth system.

I'm Rishi. I combine operator judgment, AI-assisted intelligence, creative direction and commercial discipline — the way a full-time CMO would, without the ₹35–60L salary.

Book a 20-min teardown call Run the 60-sec diagnostic

No pitch deck. I'll find one leak in your funnel, live, and you can take it and go.

IIT Kanpur · B.Tech 18 years building an operating business 10 years marketing consulting Works with founder-led brands across India
Portrait of Rishi Jain, fractional CMO
RISHI JAINOPERATOR · STRATEGIST
ONE ACCOUNTABLE OWNER
The operating system

A new-age CMO isn't the person with the most tools.
It's the person who makes them work together.

AI can synthesise. Dashboards can report. Agencies can execute. None of them can decide which constraint deserves the next rupee — or own the consequence. That remains the CMO's job.

OLD OPERATING MODEL

More tools.
More hand-offs.
Founder still integrates.

Every specialist sees a slice. The founder carries the whole picture in their head.

THE NEW-AGE CMO

One thesis.
One decision rhythm.
One growth number.

The arsenal gets faster. Judgment sets direction. Every partner works against the same commercial constraint.

01

Market intelligence

Research, first-party data and category signals — turned into a point of view, not another dashboard.

SEE THE SIGNAL
02

AI leverage

Faster synthesis, scenario work and repeatable workflows — with human judgment at the decision point.

INCREASE VELOCITY
03

Creative systems

Customer insight translated into sharper briefs, structured testing and content that compounds.

CREATE DEMAND
04

Commercial control

Budget, contribution, CAC, payback and channel economics read as one operating picture.

PROTECT MARGIN
05

Conversion engine

Storefront, offer, checkout and merchandising treated as revenue infrastructure.

REMOVE FRICTION
06

Lifecycle growth

Retention, repeat purchase and customer value owned with the same seriousness as acquisition.

MAKE GROWTH COMPOUND
THE PRINCIPLE Tools create options.
Judgment decides what deserves budget.
The work, end to end

From boardroom to buyer, the growth system has to survive reality.

I work where growth actually happens — aligning the commercial decision, walking the operation, examining the brand experience and listening to the customer.

AI-composed illustrative scene of Rishi Jain leading a collaborative growth review with a client leadership team
01 / BOARDROOMAlign the commercial decision.ILLUSTRATIVE BRAND SCENE
AI-composed illustrative scene of Rishi Jain examining a consumer-goods factory line with an operations leader
02 / FACTORYFind the truth behind the promise.ILLUSTRATIVE BRAND SCENE
AI-composed illustrative scene of Rishi Jain reviewing product packaging with a packing team
03 / PACKINGDesign the moment the brand becomes real.ILLUSTRATIVE BRAND SCENE
AI-composed illustrative scene of Rishi Jain listening to customers during product research
04 / CUSTOMERHear what dashboards cannot tell you.ILLUSTRATIVE BRAND SCENE
The real problem

You don't have a spend problem.
You have an ownership problem.

Symptom 01

Everyone owns a slice

Meta agency owns ROAS. SEO agency owns traffic. Email freelancer owns opens. Nobody owns the number that pays salaries.

Symptom 02

The founder is the glue

Every brief, every budget call, every creative approval routes through you — at midnight, between everything else a founder does.

Symptom 03

Spend rises, revenue doesn't

Each fix is "more budget". The leak isn't in the ads — it's in the checkout, the repeat rate, the margin. So money keeps missing it.

0%

Around 60–65% of Indian D2C brands stay stuck in the ₹1–50 crore band. A survey of 100+ Indian D2C founders found the blocker isn't demand and isn't product-market fit — it's how brands attempt to scale.

SOURCE: DSG CONSUMER PARTNERS × META SURVEY · REPORTED BY ENTREPRENEUR INDIA
The method — from the factory floor

When output drops on a line, you don't buy a second machine.
You walk the line.

Same discipline, applied to a D2C funnel. Five stations, one fixed checklist, every time. This is the exact walk behind every audit and every Pattern File — nothing proprietary hidden, because the value isn't the checklist. It's doing it without flinching.

STATION 01

Homepage

  • First promise above the fold
  • Discount language — trained or not
  • Page weight on a 4G phone
  • Third-party scripts count
STATION 02

Product page

  • What's above the fold on mobile
  • Title tag vs what it actually sells
  • Price anchoring logic
  • Proof placed where doubt happens
STATION 03

Cart

  • Cross-sell — and by what logic
  • Free-shipping threshold visibility
  • When real shipping cost appears
  • What interrupts the buyer here
STATION 04

Checkout

  • First field the buyer meets
  • Coupon box — position and cost
  • Guest checkout · COD nudges
  • Mobile order-summary behaviour
STATION 05

Retention

  • Who owns the repeat purchase
  • Where the subscription hides
  • WhatsApp / email opt-in promise
  • What arrives after you say yes

Factory rule, translated: don't scale a process you haven't walked.

Free · 60 seconds · nothing to fill in

Is your marketing actually being led?

Ten yes/no questions. No email required, no download, nothing sent anywhere — it scores in your browser.

If you come out fine, you'll know not to bother booking a call. That's the point.

Inspection sheet — marketing leadership0 / 10
Answer all ten to see the verdict.
VERDICT
—

Proof, not promises

Every week I research five real D2C brands and publish the pattern — never a name.

The series is called The Pattern File. One category, one question, five brands, every week. Public data only, every claim screenshot-verified before it publishes, no brand ever named. It's the least comfortable way to prove I can diagnose a business — which is exactly why it's worth something.

FILE / 01

What's the first field a buyer sees at checkout?

Category: coffee. Five brands walked, every screen captured. The coupon-box pattern was more consistent than expected.

Researched · publishing now
FILE / 02

Where does the subscription hide?

Category: beauty & personal care. The retention surface almost every brand builds — and then buries.

Next up
The grid runs 12 questions deep: cart cross-sell logic · when shipping cost first appears · title tags vs reality · homepage weight on 4G · festive gifting readiness · what happens after the WhatsApp opt-in · mobile PDP folds · COD nudges · how reviews surface · the return-policy hunt…
Read The Pattern File on LinkedIn
The job

What the new-age CMO actually owns

Not a pile of tools. A connected operating system — with one accountable number.

The growth thesisHow the brand grows, where it will not play, and which constraint deserves attention first.
Commercial intelligenceCustomer signals, channel data and unit economics turned into decisions a founder can act on.
AI-enabled leverageResearch, synthesis and repeatable workflows accelerated — without outsourcing judgment to software.
Creative & agency leadershipSharper briefs, one testing logic and every external partner working against the same plan.
Conversion & lifecycleStorefront, offer, retention and repeat purchase managed as one connected customer journey.
The growth numberOne weekly operating view a founder can read in 30 seconds — with one person accountable for it.
Honest qualification

Who this is for — and who it isn't

I'd rather lose the call than take a brand I can't move. Read the right-hand column properly.

This works if…

  • You're doing roughly ₹1–50 crore and marketing still runs through you
  • You have two or more agencies/freelancers and no single owner
  • You can't say, in one number, what marketing returned last month
  • You're spending enough that a 15% improvement is real money
  • You actually want someone to own it — not just advise

Don't hire me if…

  • You want someone to run ads. Hire a good performance agency — cheaper and better at it
  • You're pre-product-market-fit. No amount of marketing leadership fixes that
  • You want a headcount you can overrule. Ownership means decisions actually stick
  • You need results in 30 days. The first 90 are mostly repair
  • You already have a strong in-house marketing head. You don't need me on top of them
How it works

Start small. Prove it. Then hand over the wheel.

STEP 01

A 20-minute call

You tell me the shape of the business. I find one leak, live, and tell you how I'd fix it. If I'm not the right person, I'll say so on that call.

STEP 02

Growth Audit — 2 weeks

I go inside the numbers: acquisition, funnel, retention, spend allocation, agency structure. You get findings plus a prioritised 90-day roadmap. Yours to keep, whether or not we continue.

STEP 03

Embedded CMO

I run the roadmap as your fractional CMO — roughly 1.5 days a week. Strategy, budget, agencies and the number become mine to own.

Pricing

Published, because you'd ask anyway

A full-time CMO in India costs ₹35–60 lakh a year plus equity. This is a fraction of that, with no notice period and no hiring risk.

Start here

Growth Audit

₹75,000 – ₹1,00,000
ONE-TIME · 2 WEEKS
  • Full funnel & spend audit
  • Retention and margin review
  • Agency structure assessment
  • Prioritised 90-day roadmap
  • Yours to run in-house if you prefer
The main thing

Fractional CMO

₹2,00,000 – ₹3,00,000
/MONTH · ~1.5 DAYS A WEEK · 3-MONTH MIN
  • I own strategy, budget and the number
  • Your agencies report into one plan
  • Weekly founder review, monthly deep-dive
  • Hiring and vendor decisions
  • Capacity is genuinely limited — two retainers at a time
Lighter option

CMO Advisory

₹35,000 – ₹50,000
/MONTH · FORTNIGHTLY
  • Fortnightly strategy calls
  • Async review of plans and creative
  • Budget and channel guidance
  • Your team executes
  • For brands with a marketing lead who needs a sounding board

If the audit doesn't pay for itself in found money, don't continue to the retainer. That's the test I'm happy to be held to.

Questions founders actually ask

Straight answers

How is this different from hiring an agency?

An agency executes a slice and optimises that slice — that's their job and a good one will do it well. I don't execute a channel. I decide the strategy, set the budget, and lead whoever executes, including your existing agencies. Most brands don't need a sixth agency; they need someone who owns the five they already have.

Will you replace my current agencies?

Usually not. More often I keep the good ones, give them a single strategy to work against, and cut the ones nobody could justify. Killing spend that wasn't working is normally the fastest money I find.

1.5 days a week — is that really enough?

For strategy, budget and leadership, yes — that work is decisions, not hours. It isn't enough if you actually want a full-time operator running campaigns day to day. If that's the need, I'll tell you on the first call and point you elsewhere.

What happens in the first 90 days?

Mostly repair, not launches. I kill what isn't working, consolidate reporting so three agencies stop telling you three different truths, and build one number you can actually read. New spend comes after that, aimed at the constraint.

Can I see case studies?

I share client names and specifics on a call, with permission from the client — not on a public page. I won't publish someone's numbers to win your business, which is the same courtesy you'd get. What I do put in public is my thinking, weekly, in The Pattern File.

Do you work outside D2C?

My depth is founder-led consumer businesses selling a physical product. I've also worked with services and app businesses. If your model is far outside that, say so early and I'll be honest about fit.

What do you need from me to start?

Access to your ad accounts, analytics, and order data — and one hour of your time a week. The engagement fails without the second one.

Human-centred growth · AI-enabled speed

The tools are new. The job is timeless: understand people, create value, earn trust.

My approach combines human observation with modern intelligence: use technology to see faster, serve a specific audience better and scale only what earns attention and confidence.

01 / OBSERVE

Understand the buyer's mind

Look beyond campaign reports to the attention, social confidence, personal relevance and lived experience behind a decision.

02 / FOCUS

Serve a specific audience

Choose the smallest group the brand can serve exceptionally well. Specificity creates relevance and word of mouth.

03 / PERMISSION

Earn attention over time

Build direct, useful communication customers choose to receive — instead of repeatedly renting interruption.

04 / EXPERIENCE

Make the promise tangible

Align story, offer, sales conversation, product, packing and post-purchase experience around one credible promise.

05 / REMARKABILITY

Create something worth sharing

Growth compounds when customers recognise themselves in the brand and the experience gives them a reason to talk.

This is Rishi Jain's independent synthesis, informed by Marketing 7.0 by Philip Kotler, Hermawan Kartajaya and Iwan Setiawan, and Seth Godin's independent writing on permission, the smallest viable audience and remarkability. No affiliation or endorsement is implied.

Next step

One call. One leak found.
No deck.

Tell me the shape of your business and I'll find something worth fixing while we're on the call. If I'm not the right person for it, I'll say that instead.

WhatsApp me
rishijain.me@gmail.com · LinkedIn
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