Growth-hacking 101, for Turno BESS
CoreVoice's relationship with Turno goes back to 2022. Back then, the founders had a hypothesis: Li-ion batteries keep getting longer-lasting and more affordable every year, which makes them worth far more than people assume. The company was just twenty people at the time, running a fintech business that financed commercial vehicle purchases. They brought us in to run a marketing experiment - could we generate leads through digital channels, and at what cost - along with some of their 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 someone has to go find 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 everything to prove
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. But what makes Indians care about an uninterrupted life experience? But how do we get from that to the first MWh sold?
Speaking with stakeholders of the ecosystem, we came up with a narrative, messaging, 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 learned. 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.
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.