Chief Marketing Officer

Founding CMOSaraathi AI Private Limited | India (Remote-friendly) | Full-time | Founding TeamAbout SaraathiEveryone needs someone to talk to — yet millions of Indians have no one they can open up to without judgment. Saraathi.ai is an anonymous, AI-matched peer-support platform for emotional wellness, built for India in Hindi, Hinglish, and 11 Indian languages.

We connect people going through life's everyday challenges — work stress, relationships, exam pressure, big life transitions — with trained peer listeners who've lived through the same, in their own language.

We are an early-stage, incorporated startup with our product design and frontend complete (live at saraathi.ai), a Startup India Seed Fund application in advanced review, and a focused 6-month roadmap to our first users and revenue.

The Role

We're looking for a Founding CMO to own the entire demand side of the business: brand, growth, community, and revenue. This is not a campaign-management job — it's category creation. Emotional wellness through peer support barely exists as a category in India, and your job is to make talking to a saarthi feel as normal as calling a friend.

The challenge is unique: we're growing a product people love but hesitate to talk about publicly. You'll need to build growth loops that respect anonymity, content that destigmatizes without preaching, and communities that market themselves. You'll work directly with the founder as a true partner: product and technology on one side, brand and growth on the other.

This is a founding-team position with meaningful equity, and full ownership of how India meets Saraathi.

• What You'll Own
• Category & brand — define how Saraathi talks about emotional wellness in India: warm, stigma-free, never clinical; build a brand voice that works in Hindi, Hinglish, and regional languages0→10K user growth — own the roadmap to our first 10,000 users on a lean, grant-funded budget; find the channels that work (campus communities, creators, vernacular social, partnerships) and double down
• Two-sided acquisition — grow both sides of the marketplace: people seeking support and peer listeners; design the listener recruitment and recognition engine
• Community & retention — turn early users into advocates in a product where word-of-mouth must work around anonymity
• Content engine — relatable, vernacular-first content across Instagram, YouTube Shorts, and regional platforms that makes opening up feel normal
• Revenue — launch and grow Saraathi Plus (our premium tier), own pricing experiments and conversion
• Responsible marketing — every claim, ad, and post must respect user privacy and the sensitivity of the space; you set that bar

What We're Looking For

• 6+ years in growth, brand, or consumer marketing, including taking at least one consumer product from zero to its first real user base
• Proven low-budget growth chops — you've grown something through community, content, virality, or partnerships, not just paid spend
• Deep fluency with Indian consumer audiences beyond metro English speakers
• Tier 2/3 cities, vernacular content, campus and youth culture
• Strong content instincts — you can write, brief creators, and recognize what travels on Indian social media
• Data discipline — you run experiments, kill what doesn't work, and report honestly
• Comfort with early-stage reality: ambiguity, doing the work yourself before hiring, equity-weighted compensation, and high ownership
• Nice to Have
• Experience marketing in a trust-sensitive category (wellness, health, fintech, dating, communities)
• Hindi plus at least one other Indian language
• Experience growing two-sided platforms or marketplaces
• Creator-economy or campus-ambassador program experience
• A personal connection to why a platform like this should exist

How to Apply

Don't lead with a resume. Write to heena.agarwal@saraathi.ai with your why — the core reason you want to help build this — plus one example of something you grew and how. We'll take it from there.

Saraathi.ai is an equal-opportunity company. We especially welcome applicants from diverse linguistic and regional backgrounds across India.