CardByte Engagement Proposal

THE HONEST PART

A deck won't get you funded.

Investors have gotten very traction-focused with SaaS. If you're pointing at tailwinds but can't show the growth underneath them, that reads as a problem, not a story. The numbers don't lie, and right now they aren't where they need to be, here or abroad.

If you raise ~$2M

The numbers have to be a lot better, with week-on-week growth that points to market fit. Not close today.

If you raise ~$500K

Smaller ask, but you still need more than you have, and it has to be climbing fast.

Polish still matters. The site, the design, how it all reads to an investor. You need every bit of it, and you will build it. It just won't carry a raise on its own.

THE APPROACH

So do we skip the deck, the site, the product?

No.

We build them. But in parallel with the harder work: figuring out why growth is slow. Why adoption stalls once an org is onboarded. Why people don't use it more. Why card counts stay low, and whether that can change.

I don't have that answer yet, and it isn't one you can call from the outside. If it were obvious, the growth would already be showing, or the reason it isn't would be clear. That's what the first five weeks are for.

FIRST, DISCOVERY

Five weeks getting deep into the company, the market, and the people you sell to, then back with a diagnosis and the levers worth pulling. I start most engagements here. I wouldn't skip it on this one.

Your company, and what you're actually building
The market, and who else is in it
The people you sell to: the buyer, the champion, the person who actually uses it
Customers, plus people in your market who looked and didn't buy
The whole path a user takes once their org is on board
The growth levers that could realistically work for you
A clear read on the opportunity, and an honest diagnosis of what's going on
The fixes worth trying first

Why not just build the deck?

We could. But then I take everything at face value and work with the same assumptions you already hold. You'd get a sharp deck and a clean site. It might not move growth, which is the thing actually blocking the raise.

How I work it

Alongside you, not at arm's length. On your side most of the time, arguing the other side when it earns its keep. The diagnosis is honest even when it isn't flattering.

THE PLAN

Then two things run in parallel.

Once we know what's going on, we act on it. Build everything you need to raise, and start moving the KPIs that matter, at the same time.

Discovery

wks 1-5 · fixed

Findings & decision

end of wk 5

Tap any node for detail. Both tracks run together from week 6. The diagnosis comes first because I can't tell you what to build until I know why growth is slow.

TIMELINE Hover a bar for detail. Weeks across the top.

12345678910111213→

Discoveryfixed

Discovery

Traction & growthretainer

Adoption · GTM · experiments →

Build · systemfixed

Design system

Build · assetsfixed

Website · product · deck

Data roomlater

when investors bite

THE WORK

What I'd actually do.

I do the work, not just advise on it. I write, run the interviews, think through the UX, design and ship the non-core code through agents, and run the experiments. My own people handle research, content, and design, so you're not chasing vendors.

DiscoveryWKS 1-5 · FIXED

Customer interviewsFive or more accounts, several people in each: the buyer, the admin who rolls it out, the people meant to use it daily. Plus folks in your market who didn't buy.

CompetitorsWho else is in the space, where you genuinely win, and where the pitch has to get sharper.

The funnelThe real path from a seat being handed out to someone using it by habit, and where it falls apart.

The B2C appWhether the dormant consumer app can come back as a growth and data engine, and how it pays for itself without ads, since ads are what killed it last time.

Growth leversSEO, events, partners, in-product virality. Which ones could actually work for you, looked at properly.

The diagnosisAn honest read on what's going on, a sequenced plan, and the numbers a raise would need to show.

Traction & growth optional · ongoingWK 6 → ON

AdoptionRework onboarding and activation, and push real rollout inside the orgs you've already sold to. I lead the design; your team ships it into the product.

Go-to-marketA way to win logos that doesn't depend on the founder being in every room.

The growth engineProduct-led growth inside the org, and the B2C revival if discovery backs it. Consumer builds the data and the graph; enterprise builds the revenue.

ExperimentsStand up the channels discovery validates and run the tests. I own the marketing site and the experiments end to end.

The build fixed · parallelWK 6-13

Design system · 2 wksThe brand identity, tokens, and components everything else is built on. This goes first.

Website · 6 wksA site that reads like a company an investor takes seriously, built on the real story discovery surfaces.

Product design · 6 wksThe product experience reworked for adoption, running alongside the rest.

Pitch deck · 6 wksReading and presentation versions. The gaps you've already flagged in the current deck get fixed in the process.

Data roomHeld until there's serious investor interest, then put together fast.

PRICING

What it costs.

FIXED FEE · 5 WEEKS

Discovery

₹3.5L

The foundation. Ends with the findings and decision session.

FIXED FEE · ~8 WEEKS · PARALLEL

The build

₹7L

Design system, website, product design, and the deck. Starts after discovery, runs alongside the growth work.

MONTHLY RETAINER · SCOPED

Traction & growth

From ₹1.5L / month

The ongoing work. 40 to 50 hours a month, scoped to need. Optional.

All-inclusive

I bring my own people for research, content, and design, so the fees cover it. You're not funding or managing vendors on the side. Figures in INR; L = lakh. Paid stock imagery and font licenses aren't included, if you go with paid options.

BACKGROUND

Why me.

Fourteen years building or running growth at startups, usually as a fractional CMO or head of growth, with a small team and a network behind me. Two kinds of past work line up with what you need.

Fundraising materials

Built the pitch deck on every one of these.

Nabhdrishti Aerospace

$3M, led by Accel

PierSight

$6.6M, led by Elevation Capital and Alphawave

TeamIndus

>$10M from Nandan Nilekani; ~$2M from the TeamIndus Foundation

KorrAI

>$500K in government grants and commercial contracts

Cupick

$120K

Orbitt Space

Raise in progress

Kepler Aerospace

Pitch deck

Product, growth, marketing

smallcase

200K → 1M users in 2 years

PierSight

Fractional CMO

Cupick

~10K artists, ~50K artworks

Bored · SuperGaming

Grew to 3K orgs

Sportskeeda

E-commerce revenue stream

Atlas

Content & outbound

IndieFolio

Growth consulting

Same order I'd use here. Get something real moving first, then the story has something true to stand on.

Three steps from here.

01

Tell me where you land on the opening. If you don't buy the read on the numbers, nothing else matters, and now is the time to say so.

02

A short call to line up the discovery and the timing.

03

If it's a yes, I start right away. First marker is the findings and decision session at the end of week 5.

Let's talk it through The written version

A SNEAK PEEK

I went ahead and built you a preview.

A taste of the rapid prototyping I'd bring to the table: a full brand and product design system for CardByte, a working marketing site, and a live dashboard prototype. None of it briefed.

Raw & unbriefed. Built end-to-end with my own agent systems and existing workflows — designed, generated and assembled in roughly 8 hours.

cardbyte.masonry.studio › system

Tokens, components, two UI kits and the brand foundations — one searchable source of truth for how CardByte looks, reads and behaves.

Open the design system ↗

cardbyte.masonry.studio › landing

A working marketing homepage — hero, product story and enterprise social proof, built straight from the system tokens.

View the landing page ↗

cardbyte.masonry.studio › dashboard

A live enterprise dashboard — card analytics, contacts and a card editor. Interactive: open it and click around.

Open the dashboard ↗