LocalUncle · 3 min read · 14 October 2026
50 providers, zero ad spend
Every marketplace has the same first problem. Customers won't come without providers, and providers won't join without customers. We got the first 50 providers to say yes in three months without paying for a single ad. Today there are more than 100 across Tricity.
- Market
- Chandigarh, Mohali, Panchkula
- First 50
- In 3 months
- Today
- 100+ providers
- Ad spend
- ₹0
- My role
- All the tech
The problem nobody warns you about
When you build a marketplace, you think the hard part is the app. It isn't. The hard part is that on day one, it's empty. A customer opens it, sees nobody, and leaves. A provider hears about it, sees no customers, and doesn't bother.
So we decided early that supply came first. If someone in Mohali opened LocalUncle looking for help at home, there had to be someone real and verified on the other side.
No ads, just people
We didn't spend a rupee on ads. All of the first 50 providers joined in the first three months without us paying to reach a single one of them. No campaign, no boosted posts, just the platform and the people behind it.
How we split the work
My job was the tech. My partner ran the business side, and that split is the only reason it worked. I could spend my time making onboarding fast and the platform reliable, while my partner spent their time with providers.
From 50 to 100+
The first 50 were the hard part. Since then, LocalUncle has grown past 100 providers across Chandigarh, Mohali and Panchkula.
What we're focused on now
Right now we're not adding features at all. The focus is reworking the payment flow, upgrading the database and fixing the UX. Making what we have solid matters more than adding more.
Supply first, features later. A marketplace with ten good providers beats one with fifty features and nobody on it.