D2C BUSINESS HEAD GURUGRAM WORKS WITH FOUNDERS

An open letter to whoever this role is meant for.

We'll say this plainly because it isn't a hook, it's the reality.

This is an exceptional opportunity for a product, growth, or business-minded operator to move from running a function to running a business with the coaching, the relationships, and the groundwork all built around setting you up for everything you do after this. A bigger seat, a startup of your own, a category you go on to lead whatever that shape is, this is the role we'd want our closest people to say yes to.

If that lands, keep reading. If it doesn't, no harm done we won't have sold you on anything you'd regret later.

01. THE ROLE:

First, why this is bigger than the title.

We've been sitting with it for a while. Every time we tried writing a clean JD for it, something felt off. Not because we didn't know what we needed we do but because what we need is hard to see from the outside looking in.

On the tin, it reads like "D2C Business Head at a home loan fintech." And almost immediately, that description runs into two instincts that would push a thoughtful operator away.

WE THINK THE EXACT OPPOSITE

We think the exact opposite. Because it's once-in-a-lifetime, because the stakes for the customer are this high, the journey and the experience are precisely what this industry should have been obsessed with fixing. It isn't. Which is why the opportunity is enormous. Hiding in plain sight, in fact.

WE THINK THE EXACT OPPOSITE

But by that logic, plumbing, electrical work, carpentry, salon services, domestic help none of them should have become digital-first businesses either. Ten-minute grocery was unthinkable not long ago. Ten-minute domestic help was unthinkable last year. "Too complex for digital" has been the rallying cry of every category that got disrupted next.

So yes, it's hard. That's the job.

FROM THE CO-FOUNDER HOLDING THIS THESIS:

Building the mortgage rails India should have had a decade ago.

Raghuveer Malik Co-Founder & CEO LinkedIn

Two thoughtful operators have already clicked away. You're still here good.

02. THE SKILLS QUESTION:

Now the skills question which is harder still.

This role reads like a P&L lead. And it is. But

IF YOUR FORTE IS Running and scaling P&Ls:

1. 0-to-1 inside a 1-to-10

Building a channel from first principles while the company is already moving. Two speeds, in parallel.

IF YOUR FORTE IS CX, product, and process design:

1. A brand in a category where customers don't know what to search for

Most home buyers don't know what to type, let alone who to trust. You're building both at once.

IF YOUR FORTE IS Marketing:

1. Breaking old systems to build better ones

Designing for millions with exactly one customer in mind. Funnels you ship, then take apart.

Rameshwar Gupta

CO-FOUNDER & CPTO

Used to make payments work at scale. Now making mortgages do the same.

THE CONSUMER-FINTECH BUILDER YOU'D LEAN ON:

THE SEAT, IN CONCRETE TERMS:

What you walk into.

A ground-up D2C operation. You build the engine end-to-end and the authority to decide what gets built, by whom, when, and how sits with you.

03. THE SHAPE:

There are great engineers, and there are great doctors. But the pacemaker happened when people cared for and carried both worlds inside them picked up one discipline because they were obsessed with a problem in another. And yes turned it into a business along the way.

That's the shape of person we're looking for.

You report directly to the CEO. There is no D2C ladder above you, because there is no D2C ladder yet. You are the ladder.

Hiring, brand, channels, partnerships, performance budgets, tech stack, who owns the funnel your call.

The cap on what you build: none.

We mean it about the flexibility. The seat is what you make of it and the package adapts to who shows up.

04. WHO SHOWS UP:

So, who are we hoping shows up?

Someone who, in our heads, looks a lot like this.

- You've built something before. And this isn't the last thing you'll build it's not a matter of if, only when and what. You know this about yourself. So do we.

- You've worn multiple hats. Maybe because you were finding yourself. Maybe because somebody had to. Either way it became your superpower and you stopped trying to give it back.

- On paper you're a product leader, or a business leader, or a marketing leader. In practice you're the functional CEO of your pod. You learn, adapt, solve. You don't manage. You run.

You have genuine trouble with sentences like "that's marketing's job" or "we're waiting for product to tell us how." They make you twitch. Roles and responsibilities are useful fictions that allow people to grow and outdo themselves; the outcome is the only real thing.

- You can't help redesigning every journey you touch. And you can't start executing without scrutinising the funnel from ten different angles first.

And through all of it, one thing stays fixed: you care about the customer and you care about your team.

Not as a line in an all-hands deck. As the reason. If you see yourself here, we'd like to meet.

THE OPERATOR WHO KEEPS THIS SHAPE WORKING:

Operations brain shaped at ZestMoney and CarDekho.

Rashi Garg, Co-Founder & COO

If the last section felt like a mirror, the next bit is what you'd get in return.

05. WHAT WE'LL COMMIT TO:

What we promise, in return.

We've been on the other side of this. Most of us at Ambak grew up in rooms with leaders and coaches who took the time to build us not just the businesses we were on, but our taste, our judgement, our ceiling. Almost every meaningful thing we know about how to build, we learnt from someone who cared enough to teach. That is a big part of what set many of us up to go build what we're building now.

That is what we are trying to do here, again. So five things we'll commit to:

1. No one will work harder than us to help you succeed. That's a bar we've set for ourselves, not a platitude.

2. We will expect a lot. More than most places will. But no course, degree, or past role will come close to what you'll learn building something at this stage, in this category, at this speed.

3. We are far more worried about our leaders not trying, not thinking, not daring than about them failing. Failure we can work with. Timidity we can't.

4. Coaching is how we manage. Difficult questions will be direct. Not just plain reviews. Not escalations.

5. Caring is how we execute. About the customer, about the work, about each other. Without empathy we can't win.

Do this well, and whatever you choose to build next your own startup, a larger seat, the career surge you've quietly been staging for you'll walk into it years ahead of where you'd otherwise be. That's not a promise we can measure for you. It's one we've watched play out for ourselves.

POSTSCRIPT:

Four drafts on this letter. We re-wrote it the way we re-write a product brief until it says what it means and nothing it doesn't. If you're reading this hoping it's a faster path to a title, the rest of the page won't be useful to you. If you've been the operator running a function-within-a-function building inside someone else's ladder and you've been waiting for a seat where the ceiling is what you build, the next bit is for you. This isn't the safer alternative to starting your own thing. It's the foundry for what you'd start next.

Written by,

Pooja Dudani

CHRO AMBAK

06. ABOUT US:

Ambak, in two paragraphs.

Ambak is building the mortgage infrastructure India actually deserves. Backed by Peak XV and Z47. Two years in, scaling across Home Loans and LAP. Home buyers, DSAs, brokers, builders, and lenders on a single intelligent platform. No jargon. No middlemen. Progress you can see.

The D2C engine is yours to build. End to end. From the first Google search a nervous first-time home buyer types, to the keys landing in their hand.

Your success here won't sit next to ours. It will be ours. That's the only honest way this works.

Alright enough from us. Now you write back.

07. BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE:

If this letter is landing, tell us how you think.

Before the resume, before the call, before anything write back to us answering these. Short, unpolished, honest answers are more useful to us than perfect ones.

We drafted these with Ashish Lohia, our finance head the one who keeps us honest on what's a real question and what's theater.

1. What's your favourite mobile app anything that comes to mind, something you actually use a lot?

2. What's one thing about it that really annoys you?

3. How would you find out whether this problem is felt by a lot of users like you or just you?

4. Who is the closest competition to it? (If you think there's none, say so and tell us why.)

5. If you walked in tomorrow as the Business Head of that top competitor or if you had to build a competing product from scratch how would you think about it, draft the plan, and go after the customers most ripe to jump ship? Who would you need on your team?

No trick questions. We just want to see how you notice, how you frame, and how you'd move.

08. APPLY:

So, write back.

Three steps. About fifteen minutes of honest writing.

First we'll need who you are and a resume. Then your answers to the five questions typed in, or pasted from a doc you've already written. Then a final look before you send.

Your note compiles into one document and lands directly at pooja@ambak.com. A human reads it inside a week. No ATS. No auto-reject. If it lands with us, we write back.

The basics for forms, filters, and anyone who needs the fine print.

YOU'LL FIT IF YOU BRING:

- 510 years in D2C growth, consumer internet, or digital businesses ideally with full P&L ownership

- Performance marketing depth scaled Meta and Google spend while holding CAC

- A funnel brain every step from impression to disbursal is your playground

- Data-native instincts you build dashboards, run experiments, kill what doesn't work

- Partnership muscle affiliates, publishers, referral networks you've actually shipped and scaled

- Comfort in ambiguity, without losing quality or speed

HELPFUL, NOT REQUIRED:

- Fintech, lending, insurance, or other high-consideration categories

- An MBA from a strong school (we care more about the wiring than the tag)

- Founded or led growth at a Series AC startup

PROBABLY NOT THIS SEAT IF:

- You're looking for a CV-upgrade title rather than the chance to build the function from zero

- You work best with an agency doing the building for you

- You need a defined playbook before you move

- You think of "brand" as a thing that sits separately from conversion

- You read "D2C" and think "performance ads team"