BYME – Hyperlocal Marketplace for Local Grocery Stores

BYME was a hyperlocal grocery delivery platform created immediately after the COVID lockdown when small local shopkeepers were losing business to ecommerce giants. Instead of building "just another delivery app", we built a relationship-first hyperlocal marketplace — designed to preserve local businesses, neighbourhood trust, and the traditional "Anna, add this to my monthly bill" culture.

During the lockdown, local street shops faced a sudden drop in walk-in customers, heavy competition from big online retailers, zero digital presence, and no tools for credit, customer recognition, or personalised service. We saw entire livelihoods being wiped out — not because of product quality, but because these businesses were offline. This inspired us to build BYME.

BYME gave customers a way to discover and order from nearby grocery stores, while maintaining the personal connection they always had. The platform included neighbourhood store discovery based on location, direct ordering from a known shopkeeper, instant notifications for store owners, customer recognition by name, and a digital credit system replicating the traditional monthly bill model. Store owners had tools to manage inventory, pricing, order queues, and customer engagement. Subscription-based replenishments handled repeated daily needs automatically. This was before Zepto existed — years before hyperlocal quick-commerce became mainstream.

Co-founder across product, engineering, and growth. As Product Manager, defined product vision, UX flows, features, and customer journeys. As Backend Developer, built database schema, APIs, order flow logic, inventory management, and notifications. Led on-ground activation with shopkeepers — QR codes, flyers, WhatsApp marketing, and direct feedback loops. Handled business strategy including store onboarding, pricing structure, delivery operations, and the credit-book model. Involved in every phase from concept to launch to growth.

Rapid onboarding of neighbourhood stores. High customer retention driven by trust in familiar local shops. Strong word-of-mouth in the community. Hundreds of orders delivered in the initial months. Proved that hyperlocal commerce with real relationships could exist digitally — and that the model was viable before the category had a name.