Founding Restaurant Growth & Customer Success (0→1 | FoodTech / SaaS | Mumbai)

Orkeneo is building an AI Operating System for Restaurants — helping restaurants make better decisions around demand, inventory, procurement, operations and profitability.
We’re at an early stage and are now focused on building our restaurant customer base in Mumbai, and creating a repeatable customer acquisition and onboarding process.
We’re looking for a hands-on founding team member who can own the restaurant side of the business from first conversation → pilot → onboarding → feedback → customer success.
This is not a traditional sales or marketing role.
This is a 0→1 execution role.
What You’ll Own
🍽️ Restaurant Acquisition
Identify and approach restaurant owners, operators, QSRs, cloud kitchens and restaurant groups in Mumbai
Generate leads independently through your own network, referrals, LinkedIn, calls, WhatsApp and field outreach
Build and continuously manage the Mumbai restaurant pipeline
Conduct discovery conversations and understand real operational problems
Convert qualified restaurants into pilots/onboardings
🤝 Customer Onboarding & Success
Own the relationship with restaurants after the first conversation
Coordinate onboarding and ensure customers actually start using Orkeneo
Stay closely connected with early customers
Collect structured feedback on product, forecasting, inventory and operational workflows
Identify customer problems and communicate them clearly to the product/engineering team
Drive pilot → active usage → conversion
📈 0→1 GTM Execution
Experiment with different acquisition channels
Test messaging and positioning with restaurant operators
Build referral and partnership opportunities
Track the complete funnel: leads → conversations → demos → pilots → onboardings → conversions
Work directly with the founders on GTM strategy and execution
What We're Looking For
We are specifically looking for someone who already has genuine access to Mumbai's restaurant ecosystem.
You should ideally:
Personally know restaurant owners, founders, operators or decision-makers in Mumbai
Be able to activate those relationships for business conversations
Have experience in restaurant sales, FoodTech, SaaS, POS, hospitality or B2B sales
Be comfortable generating leads yourself rather than waiting for marketing to provide them
Be comfortable with cold calls, WhatsApp, LinkedIn and physical meetings
Be able to build relationships and stay involved after the sale
Have strong follow-up and customer-success discipline
Be comfortable working without a predefined playbook
Take ownership of outcomes rather than only completing assigned tasks
Have a strong 0→1 startup mindset
Be willing to take calculated risk and build alongside the founders
A strong restaurant network is a major advantage.
However, we are not looking for a contact list.
We want someone who can genuinely build relationships and create warm conversations, pilots and long-term customers.
First 90 Days
Your initial focus will be to build and validate the Mumbai restaurant acquisition engine.
First 30 Days
Build a qualified Mumbai restaurant pipeline
Activate personal/network-led opportunities
Establish repeatable outreach
Start restaurant conversations and demos
Onboard initial pilot customers
Create a structured customer feedback loop
Days 31–60
Increase qualified restaurant conversations
Convert more pilots
Improve onboarding and activation
Identify the most effective acquisition channels
Build referral/partnership opportunities
Days 61–90
Establish a repeatable restaurant acquisition process
Grow the active customer base
Improve pilot → customer conversion
Build a scalable customer-success process
Help establish the playbook for expanding beyond Mumbai
The exact targets will be finalized with the founding team based on the initial 30-day learnings and ICP.
Founding Team Opportunity
This is an early-stage founding-team opportunity, not a conventional salaried sales job.
For the initial 2–3 months, the engagement will be structured around equity/ESOP-based participation without fixed salary, subject to the final role, contribution, equity structure and applicable documentation.
As Orkeneo reaches the required funding/revenue and traction milestones, the role can transition into a larger paid founding-team position.
You should apply only if you are genuinely comfortable taking this kind of early-stage risk.
Who This Role Is NOT For
❌ Someone looking only for a fixed salary from Day 1
❌ Someone who wants to work only on strategy/decks
❌ Someone who avoids cold outreach or field conversations
❌ Someone who has a “network” but cannot actually activate it
❌ Someone who needs a detailed playbook before taking action
❌ Someone who expects leads to be handed to them
❌ Someone looking for a conventional 9–5 corporate role
Who Will Thrive Here
You may be a strong fit if you're the kind of person who says:
“Give me the product, the problem and Mumbai. I'll figure out how to get the first customers.”
You'll work directly with the founders and have significant ownership over restaurant acquisition, onboarding and customer success.
What to Apply With
Please share:
Your experience in restaurant/FoodTech/SaaS/B2B sales
Approximate number of Mumbai restaurant owners/operators you personally know
How you would get Orkeneo's first 10 restaurant customers
One example where you personally acquired/closed a customer or partnership
Your availability and commitment for the next 90 days
Why you're comfortable joining an early-stage company on an initial equity-based structure

Work arrangement
Yes