Go-to-market strategy
Pick the segment, map the competitors, decide the message, sequence the launch. Then actually run it.
Issue #1 Marketing · Business development · GrowthMarketing · BD · Growth
AdeoluwaAdesunloye
Marketing, Business Development & Growth Specialist
- 6+ years' experience
- Based in Greece · open to remote and relocation
- MA Strategic Marketing, Greenwich
- English · Yoruba · Greek (A1, in lessons)
- Available now
I build businesses from the ground up and run the whole flywheel: find the leads, close the sales, keep the customers coming back. Over 900 vendors signed in person, 22,000 app users in seven months, a sold-out investment conference, and charity events that drew 31,500 people. Give me a market and a target.
Lagos → London → Greece
912Vendors signed door to door
22,000App users in 7 months
31,500Event attendees
Sold outPrinvest 2022 conference
+30%Market share, UK charity
Origin story
No cape, just footwork
The short version of how I got here, and what I'm looking for next.
I started in Lagos, on foot. My first jobs were not marketing jobs so much as building jobs: two marketplace apps that existed on paper and needed merchants before they could have a single customer. So I mapped every business in a district on Google Maps, split the map into territories, and walked them. I pitched, I signed, I onboarded, and I went back when the first orders came in. That taught me the thing I still believe: a strategy is only as good as the number of doors it gets you through, and a sale is only finished when the customer comes back.
Six-plus years later I have run the whole flywheel more than once, from zero. At 201Stores and CoupinApp I generated the leads, closed the merchants, grew the user base and fixed what users complained about, which cut churn by 60%. At Prinvest 2022 I sold out a national property conference as sales lead, one speaker and one exhibitor at a time. At New Vision Hospitality, three restaurants and a bar, a social and PR push lifted revenue by 35% and a rebuilt booking journey lifted direct bookings by 30%. Around those roles I deliberately worked the other side of the counter: front of house at Bar Enclave in Lagos, then night reception at Beds and Bars and Frasers Hospitality in London, running Opera Cloud, night audits and Booking.com enquiries. That was the point of the whole mix: SaaS marketplaces, trade, education, events, hospitality and charity, each one chosen so I would understand a different market from the inside and could turn what its customers actually do into insight for the next one. At Source AZ I built the sales pipeline and the website from nothing as Business Development Manager and beat the sales targets by 20%. At EkoHacks, a developer education startup, I took the product from concept to its first 30 paying customers. In between I took a Master's in Strategic Marketing Management at the University of Greenwich and won the GreHacks challenge with Ambitious About Autism.
Today I run Gleamcave, a marketing consultancy I took from an idea to a trading business, where that cross-industry read on customer behaviour is the product. I'm looking for a full-time growth, business development or marketing role where the targets are real and the product deserves to be found. I don't stop at awareness. Give me the lead list and I'll give you the conversions and the repeat customers. I work well in a team, I'm comfortable with a quota, and I don't mind the phone.
“Know thyself. Know the customer. Innovate.”
Beth Comstock · the line I work by
Timeline · scroll sideways for the full run
- 2012–2017BSc Geography & PlanningUniversity of LagosMarketing & Events ExecutiveCampusheat HQ
- 2013–2018Assistant VP, Media & PublicityKonamiiLagos (volunteer)31,500 attendees over 5 years
- 2018–2019BD & Marketing Consultant TraineeAdebola Sobanjo & CoFive consulting contracts won
- 2019–2022Customer Acquisition & Growth Manager201Stores412 merchants signed · churn down 40%Marketing & Events ManagerBar Enclave, LagosRetention up 40%
- 2021Head of Public RelationsI'll Take Care Of You (volunteer)£3,000+ raised for 500+ people
- 2022Marketing CoordinatorCoupinApp500+ vendors · 22,000 users in 7 monthsBusiness Development & Sales LeadPrinvest 2022, BusinessDay MediaSold out · £18,000+ revenue
- 2023Marketing & Events ManagerNew Vision Hospitality, London£48,000 added to quarterly salesNight ReceptionistBeds and Bars, LondonReviews 2.9 → 3.7 · upsell revenue +20%
- 2023–2024MA Strategic Marketing ManagementUniversity of GreenwichMerit · GreHacks winner · GreStartup runner-up
- 2024Business Development ManagerSource AZTargets beaten by 20% · engagement up 70%
- 2024–2026Marketing ManagerSocialising Angels CIC (volunteer)£25,000+ raised · organic traffic +35%
- 2025–2026Founding Growth & BD LeadEkoHacksConcept to 30 paying accounts · CAC down 40%Night ReceptionistFrasers Hospitality, LondonRepeat complaints down 15–20%
- NowFounderGleamcaveMarketing consultancy, gleamcave.grFounderClothes for Humanityclothesforhumanity.gr
Powers
What I bring to the fight
Skills, in the order I reach for them.
Field sales & merchant acquisition
Territory mapping, door-to-door pitching, onboarding. 912 vendors signed across two platforms.
Partnerships & sponsorship
Getting big firms, hospitality venues, employers and celebrities to say yes. Proposals, pitches, follow-through.
Event marketing
Conferences, tournaments, activations and seminars. From selling the booth to filling the room.
Paid social & search
Instagram, Google and LinkedIn campaigns with geo-targeting and A/B tested creative. £0.09 CPC on Google Ads for CoupinApp.
Email, cold outreach & CRM
Cold calling, email sequences and referral programmes that turn a list into a pipeline. HubSpot and Salesforce.
Content & SEO
Copy, blog content, landing pages and site structure that search engines and humans both read. Two website redesigns led.
PR & community
Radio, print, press conferences, WhatsApp ambassador groups and influencer seeding.
Utility belt
- HubSpot
- Salesforce
- Google Ads
- Google Analytics
- Mailchimp
- Hootsuite
- Canva
- Adobe InDesign
- Tableau
- Excel
- Opera Cloud
- Booking.com
- WordPress
- HTML & CSS
Case studies · Mission log
Missions
Nine jobs, each with the brief, what I actually did, the number at the end, and the footage where there is some.
Startup · 2025–26
EkoHacks
An early-stage developer education platform: a dojo that turns real engineering work into rank, so a team's merged pull requests and green builds become the game. I joined before it had a paying customer.
Mission
Take the product from concept to paying customers and find the segments, message and price that make it repeatable.
What I did
- Ran customer discovery and structured market research to find the priority segments and the pain points they would pay to fix, and turned the findings into positioning, pricing and go-to-market decisions.
- Converted the first 50+ registrations into 30 paying accounts by testing messaging, offers and acquisition channels in short cycles and keeping what converted.
- Cut customer acquisition cost by 40% as the channel mix settled.
- Used AI-assisted workflows to speed up research, competitor mapping and experiment cycles.
Channels
- Customer discovery
- Market research
- Positioning
- Pricing
- Community
- Experiments
Result
From concept to 30 paying accounts out of the first 50+ registrations, with acquisition cost cut by 40%.
Marketplace app · 2022
CoupinApp
Nigeria's first real-time discount app, connecting shops and restaurants to customers through live promotions and rewards.
Mission
Grow downloads, merchant sign-ups and in-app sales from a standing start.
What I did
- Catalogued every business in the target areas by industry on Google Maps, split the map into territories and assigned the team door to door, so no shop was visited twice.
- Ran content, cold calling, email, social and paid campaigns to drive downloads.
- Introduced flash sales and weekly category promotions to give users a reason to open the app.
- Partnered with Connoisseur Club, Johnny Rockets and Ozone Cinemas on exclusive in-app events and pop-up sales.
Channels
- Door to door
- Social
- Events
- Activations
- Paid ads
- Video
- Referrals
Result
500+ vendors and 22,000 users on the platform within 7 months.
Business directory · 2019–22
201Stores
Nigeria's first online business directory, listing products, prices and contact details for each vendor.
Mission
Build awareness, onboard merchants to advertise, drive sales through the platform and feed back what users needed.
What I did
- Used the same Google Maps territory method to list every business in the target areas, then visited each one myself.
- Searched social platforms by keyword to find people actively asking for a product, pointed them to the right vendor on the platform and earned commission on the referral.
- Ran online competitions and referral drives to grow the user base, and pushed fixes to the app and website that cut churn by 60%.
Channels
- Door to door
- Social
- Keyword search
- Referrals
- Competitions
Result
412 vendors onboarded personally, site traffic up to 3,800 hits a day, over 3 years.
Conference · 2022
Prinvest 2022
An annual property investment conference, property fair and TV show, held at Landmark Centre, Lagos.
Mission
Fill the conference with speakers, exhibitors and paying guests.
What I did
- Mapped the leading construction and real estate firms and profiled their competitors.
- Pitched each firm on the category it led, so a first-mover slot felt like something to lose, then invited the rivals too so the line-up covered the whole industry.
- Brought in smaller firms with the promise of networking with the big names.
- Coordinated every merchant and vendor needed to set up the venue.
Channels
- Cold calling
- Social
- Print & billboards
- Blog content
- Referrals
Result
Sold out, with revenue above £18,000.
Watch
Hospitality · 2019–25
Hospitality operations
Bar Enclave in Lagos, then Beds and Bars, New Vision Hospitality and Frasers Hospitality in London: a bar, a hostel group, a three-venue restaurant group and five-star serviced apartments. I took these jobs on purpose, to learn the operating side of the businesses I market.
Mission
Learn how a hospitality business actually runs, from the front desk to the night audit, and lift guest scores and revenue wherever I stood.
What I did
- Ran the front desk on Opera Cloud, closed night audits with zero discrepancies, handled Booking.com enquiries and owned guest communication from pre-arrival to the post-stay review.
- Took over online review responses at Beds and Bars and lifted scores from 2.9 to 3.7; upsold rooms, food and local experiences for a 20% rise in upsell revenue.
- Recruited, trained and supervised night staff, cutting turnover by 80% and lifting breakfast service quality by 25%.
- At New Vision Hospitality, designed guest-centric events and campaigns across three venues that added £48,000 to quarterly sales and grew private bookings by 60%.
- Led service recovery at Frasers Hospitality, cutting repeat complaints by 15 to 20%; wrote the front-of-house SOPs at Bar Enclave that lifted retention by 40%.
Channels
- Front desk
- Opera Cloud
- Booking.com
- Guest reviews
- Upselling
- Events
- Social & PR
- SOPs
Result
Review scores up from 2.9 to 3.7, upsell revenue up 20%, £48,000 added to quarterly sales, staff turnover down 80%.
UK charity · 2023
Ambitious About Autism
A UK national charity that improves opportunities for young autistic people, including routes into employment. This was the University of Greenwich GreHacks challenge, which my team won.
Mission
Write and execute a go-to-market plan to bring the charity's employment programmes to recruiters in new regions.
What I did
- Built the business case for autism inclusion into content aimed at recruiters, and sent success stories to existing partners by email.
- Cold called, emailed and used LinkedIn to reach disability-confident employers, with diversity-quota compliance as the hook.
- Organised events and seminars that put recruiters in a room with candidates.
- Planned a website redesign for SEO and ran donation campaigns with dedicated landing pages.
Channels
- Cold calling
- Events
- SEO & copy
- Paid ads
- Referrals
Result
Market share up 30% in the target regions, with more recruiters converted to partners.
Charity · volunteer
Socialising Angels
A UK community interest company that supports young adults aged 18 to 25 with learning disabilities through quality social experiences, where members make friends and build everyday skills. I ran its marketing end to end.
Mission
Build a brand people recognise, keep the channels alive, and turn attention into donations and event tickets.
What I did
- Planned, created and published organic content on the charity's own channels and partner pages as the core of a multichannel programme, with a content calendar delivered 20% ahead of schedule across concurrent campaigns.
- Reinvented the brand identity and personality, then kept it uniform across every social channel.
- Supported fundraising by creating events, setting up crowdfunding, applying to funders and running the marketing campaigns behind each push.
- Managed the community day to day: replies, conversations, and the follow-up that keeps supporters coming back.
Channels
- Organic social
- Partner pages
- Events
- Crowdfunding
- Grant applications
- Community
Result
Over £25,000 raised in two years. Organic traffic up 35%, lead generation up 40%, event revenue up 30% within three months, and 4,000+ views a month.
Charity tournament · 2013–18
KonamiiLagos
An annual charity football competition raising money for institutions that serve the less privileged.
Mission
Grow attendance, protect the brand and attract sponsors and donors year after year.
What I did
- Recruited students from the top universities into curated WhatsApp communities and got them amplifying the campaign across their own feeds.
- Invited celebrities to attend and used their presence as influencer reach.
- Ran radio and print advertising and held press conferences ahead of each edition.
Channels
- Radio
- Press
- Social
- Influencers
- Word of mouth
- Paid ads
Result
Over 31,500 attendees and funds raised for 25+ institutions across 5 years.
Community outreach · 2021
I'll Take Care Of You
A charity outreach by the Ilupeju Experience, raising money for food and clothing for people in need in the Ilupeju community.
Mission
Raise awareness, protect the brand and bring in sponsorship and donations from businesses and individuals.
What I did
- Visited churches, pubs and community spots with flyers, where the audiences were already gathered.
- Wrote proposals and pitched local businesses for donations.
- Ran Instagram and Google ads targeted within a 3 km radius, A/B testing the creative.
Channels
- Social
- Paid ads
- Video
- Word of mouth
- Flyers
Result
Over £3,000 raised, spent on food and clothing for more than 500 people.
Side quests
What I'm building now
Two projects of my own, both live, both run in my own time alongside full-time work.
Send the signal
Need growth? I answer the call.
I'm available now for full-time marketing, business development and growth roles, remote or on site. Send a job description, a brief, or just say hello. I reply within a day.