SELECTED WORK / BARTA MARKETPLACE
Building a marketplace’s acquisition engine before launch.
For an early-stage cosplay and creator marketplace, growth started with a practical challenge: give the right people a reason to join, then help them take the next step.
MY ROLE
Growth & Content Lead
PERIOD
March–August 2026
MY CONTRIBUTION
Go-to-market planning, acquisition, community, funnel design, and experimentation
REPORTED PROJECT OUTCOMES
390+
Reported waitlist registrations
130
Founding users onboarded
130
Sellers and creators in the founding Discord community
01 / CHALLENGE
Create the first useful momentum
Barta was preparing to launch a marketplace for cosplay and creator communities. Before there was a mature acquisition engine to optimise, there had to be a clear reason for prospective users to pay attention and a workable journey into the product.
As Growth & Content Lead, I led go-to-market and acquisition initiatives across Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Discord. The challenge was to connect early interest with registration and onboarding, rather than treating reach as the finish line.
02 / STRATEGY
Translate the proposition for each audience
The marketplace value proposition needed to make sense in the language of its prospective creators, sellers, and wider audience. I developed audience-specific messaging and calls to action, matching the invitation to the next step people could reasonably take.
The waitlist provided a bridge between social discovery and launch. Community activity created another way to understand questions, maintain contact, and support the founding cohort.
03 / EXECUTION
Build the path from attention to action
I designed the acquisition journey from social discovery to the waitlist, registration, and onboarding. Organic content and paid campaigns worked towards those specific steps, with Meta and TikTok used for paid acquisition.
Execution included audience targeting, budget management, creative testing, waitlist development, and creator and seller onboarding. I also built and managed the founding Discord community.
04 / OUTCOME
Use feedback to shape the next decision
The work included testing hooks, creative formats, and calls to action. Channel data and community feedback informed weekly growth decisions, while recurring reporting tracked reach, traffic, registrations, and onboarding.
This gave the team a structured way to see where interest was progressing and where the journey needed attention. No specific experiment lift or acquisition-cost figure is published here because the supporting breakdown is not available.
05 / EVIDENCE & ATTRIBUTION
What the launch work produced
The reported outcomes were more than 390 waitlist registrations and 130 founding users onboarded. The founding Discord community included 130 sellers and creators.
These describe a first cohort and an acquisition process. The user and community counts may overlap; they are not presented as separate audiences that can be added together.
06 / REFLECTION
Onboarding is a beginning
These results are self-reported in my CV and project materials, and supporting analytics screenshots are not available. Onboarding does not establish retained usage, transactions, revenue, or product activation.
The case study demonstrates zero-to-one go-to-market work and acquisition experimentation. It does not claim marketplace liquidity, a proven retention loop, or a measured return on advertising spend.
07 / APPROACH
Why this distinction matters
An early marketplace needs more than attention. It needs a route that helps the right people understand the offer and take a meaningful next step.
Measuring those steps separately keeps the growth conversation honest: a registration, an onboarded user, and a retained customer answer different questions.
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A CONVERSATION CAN CHANGE WHAT COMES NEXT
What could
we grow next?
I’m always interested in conversations with ambitious teams building products and looking for smarter ways to grow.