Merchant Partnerships Lead

Company: Early-stage consumer food-tech startup (well-funded, founder-led) Location: Bengaluru Type: Full-time Reports to: Founder & CEOAbout UsWe are building a new consumer discovery and commerce platform launching in Bengaluru. Our first category is food, working with the city's best restaurants, bakeries, and cafes, but the platform is designed to extend across multiple local commerce categories over time. We are pre-launch, moving fast, and backed by founders with prior venture-scale experience.The RoleYou will own merchant supply for the platform: acquiring, onboarding, and activating merchant partners from zero. Food is the launch wedge; the playbook you build here will be replicated across new categories and new micro-markets as we scale. This is a founding role. You will build the machine, not inherit one. You will be on the ground with merchants daily, closing partnerships, setting up their operations on our platform, and making sure their first weeks are successful enough that they refer the next partner.What You Will DoOwn the full merchant funnel end to end: prospecting, pitching, closing, onboarding, activation, and early account managementBuild the merchant acquisition playbook as a repeatable system: pitch, objection handling, commercial structure, and onboarding SOPs that transfer across categories, not just accountsWork directly with owners and decision-makers of local businesses to structure commercial terms and get them liveSet up each partner for operational success: catalogue setup, staff training, and day-to-day workflow integrationDrive supply density in target micro-markets ahead of demand-side launchLead supply expansion into new categories as the platform grows, adapting the playbook and proving it in each new verticalFeed on-ground merchant insight back into product, pricing, and operations decisionsHire and train the first BD associates as the supply team scalesWhat We Are Looking For2 to 4 years in merchant acquisition, onboarding, or key account roles at a food delivery, quick commerce, hyperlocal commerce, or offline discovery platform. Experience at Swiggy, Zomato, magicpin, Rapido (Ownly), Zepto, EatClub, District, or comparable platforms is strongly preferredDemonstrated success in a zero-to-one or new-initiative context: launching a new city, category, or product line where you had to sell merchants on something unfamiliar, not renew an existing relationshipA track record of numbers: merchants signed, activation rates, time-to-live, retention. Come ready to talk specificsFluency in how small business owners think: unit economics, commissions, operating constraints, staffing realities, and what makes a partnership stick after the first monthSystems thinking: you build processes others can run, not heroics only you can repeatComfort with ambiguity, weekly iteration, and being measured on outcomes rather than activityKannada and Hindi proficiency alongside English is a strong plusBengaluru-based What You GetFounding team seat with meaningful ESOPsDirect ownership of a core function reporting to the CEOCompetitive fixed compensation plus performance-linked upsideThe chance to build a supply playbook from scratch and scale it across categories in one of India's densest local commerce markets