Category Director - Puja Vertical (B2C/D2C)

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About AppsForBharat (Sri Mandir App)

AppsForBharat, now a Series C funded faith-tech startup, is backed by India’s top venture capital firms including Fundamentum, Susquehanna Asia VC, Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia Capital), Elevation Capital, and BEENEXT. We're building digital platforms that serve the spiritual and devotional needs of hundreds of millions in India and across the globe. Our team includes alumni from IITs and IIMs, and experienced operators from high-growth startups.

Our flagship product, Sri Mandir, launched in November 2020, is the world’s largest app for Hindu devotees. It offers access to rituals, teachings, sacred temples, and a connected devotional community. Sri Mandir is growing, and the user love fuels our ambition to serve 100M+ users in the coming years. India’s $44B devotion economy is largely offline and underserved temples alone account for ~$27B in offerings, services, and commerce. We’re building to bring structure, accessibility, and meaning to this massive market through design and technology.

Role Overview: Category Director - Puja.

About the category

Puja is Sri Mandir’s largest vertical, compounding year on year on the back of focused innovation over the last couple of years. Our Puja category enables devotees to book authentic rituals at India’s most revered temples-from home-without compromising sanctity or cultural context. We’re now ready to scale the next phase of growth.

The role

As Category Director (P&L owner) for Puja, you will set the strategy, shape the annual business calendar, and define the propositions that power growth and repeat usage. You will co-own execution with Marketing, Product, Operations, and Supply.

What you will own

• P&L and plan delivery:

  Define targets and deliver revenue growth, contribution margin, and healthy payback driven by strong repeat behavior.

• Annual calendar ownership:

  Decide which dates, festivals, and temple events to prioritize across the year; turn them into quarterly and monthly category plans.

• Proposition design:

  Create puja offerings and bundles (price points, value-adds, packaging) that are authentic, differentiated, and drive users to opt.

• GTM with Marketing:

  Co-create briefs, segmentation, and channel plans (performance, CRM, brand); set success metrics; run experiments; optimize creatives, landing pages, and funnels.

• Product Roadmap:

  Guide how pujas are surfaced across app and web; improve conversion, and booking experience in partnership with Product, Design and Tech teams.

• Devotee Experience:

  Set clear guardrails for ritual accuracy, transparency, communication, and on-time delivery; raise ratings/NPS.

• Category Operations:

  Institutionalize SOPs, SLAs, and a go-live checklist for content accuracy and fulfillment readiness.

• Team leadership:

  Lead a high-performing category team; set goals, reviews, and a rigorous experimentation cadence.

How you will work (matrix, co-ownership)

• Product:

  Prioritize discovery, personalization, and checkout improvements; align on roadmaps and shared metrics.

• Operations & CX:

  Ensure timely, zero-defect fulfillment; close the loop on issues with clear escalation paths and root-cause fixes.

• Supply:

  Expand temple/deity coverage, maintain pricing integrity, and support successful launch of new temples.

• Marketing:

  Plan and optimize GTM for the annual calendar and new propositions; measure incrementality and improve ROI quarter over quarter.

What you’ll bring

Customer obsession, first-principles problem solving, and genuine 10x ambition-paired with cultural sensitivity, data fluency, and the influence to align cross-functional teams around clear goals.

Requirements

• MBA or Undergraduate from Tier 1 campuses in India (IIMs/ISB or IITs)
• 6–8 years of experience in category management in e-commerce or B2C tech companies
• Strong execution orientation with experience managing multi-stakeholder projects
• Excellent analytical, communication, and problem-solving skills
• Ability to thrive in a fast-paced, high-growth and culturally contextual environment
• A personal connection to spirituality or devotional practices is a strong plus

Why AppsForBharat

We’re not just building an app, we’re enabling spiritual journeys at scale. Here's what you'll experience:

• High Ownership: You’ll be accountable for what millions of users see every day
• Fast Growth: Work in a vertical that’s growing rapidly within a high-velocity org
• Meaningful Work: Help build spiritual journeys with impact and care
• Supportive Culture: Calm, collaborative, pet-friendly office in HSR Layout

talent@appsforbharat.com