Growth-hacking for Turno BESS
Hemanth and Sudhi started Turno with a simple hypothesis: Li-ion batteries lasted longer than more than people assume, and this opens a new set of business opportunities. Back in 2022, when the company was just twenty people at the time, they hired CoreVoice for the first time. Turno was launching a fintech business to finance commercial vehicle purchase with a new underwriting system based on their understanding of battery tech. They brought us in to run a marketing experiment - could we generate leads through digital channels, and at what cost. In the course of time we also did some of the company's earliest branding work.
Turno has come to see CoreVoice as the team you bring in for early-stage growth hacking - the stage where startups have a hunch but nothing is proven yet, and a team has to figure out what will work. In early 2026, the CEO called us again, this time for a new business entity built to sell BESS (Battery Energy Storage System).
A prototype, a hypothesis, and not much else
We started with research. What is driving BESS adoption across the world, and in India? In what customer segments? What specifications? What features and benefits mattered? The founders had a conviction that the time for BESS has come. What would make Indians buy BESS? But how do we get from those insights to the first MWh sold?
Speaking with stakeholders of the ecosystem, we came up with a few narratives, messaging sets, and ad directions. Then we designed ads, call scripts and brochures. And we ran Meta ads. As leads flew in, calls were made and lessons were learnt. We reworked our hypothesis. Tried different SKU sizes, geographies, customer segments, pain points, etc. Ran ads again. Every cohort of early leads taught us something new about customer behaviour. Our research on how BESS was being sold across the world mixed with early customer insights helped Turno BESS team form a clear product-market-pricing thesis.
Three marketing teams rolled into one
The leadership chose to pursue premium residential as the primary category, followed by commercial and industrial. We built an entire marketing funnel around it. We set up the CRM, custom analytics, call-centre software, and re-wrote the call-centre scripts. We trained their call-centre agents and helped onboard their first salespeople. We built and ran the ads and owned the leads funnel. We influenced the customer experience and even the actual product SKUs.
In effect, CoreVoice was Turno's product marketing team, its digital marketing team, and its data team, all at the same time. And our goal was to help Turno sell its first MWh. Our teams reported to the BESS BU head and we worked as his core team.
Outcome obsession
In the early stages of a product's journey, startups fight multiple battles and things are uncertain across the board - strategy, product, sales, marketing. The minimum requirement for success is that all teams have to be outcome focussed. That's what we were able to bring to the table - how do we work with everyone else to get to that damn goal.
Got a product with no market yet, and a number to hit?
This is exactly the kind of chasm an outcome-focused retainer is built to cross.