Prime Signal has managed over ₹84 crore in ad spend across 260 brands and 22 cities. Its founders argue the Indian growth agency model is broken — and that the fix is refusing to take a retainer without a roadmap.

There is a particular conversation that repeats itself in Indian small-business boardrooms, and Manpreet Singh has heard it several hundred times.

A founder has been spending on advertising for two years. The dashboard is full. Impressions are up. The agency sends a monthly deck with a lot of green arrows. And yet nobody in the room can answer the only question the promoter actually cares about: did any of this make us money?

“Most Indian SMBs are not under-marketed,” says Singh, co-founder of Prime Signal, the Noida-headquartered growth firm. “They are over-serviced and under-diagnosed. Someone sold them nine channels before anyone bothered to look at their unit economics.”

Prime Signal, which operates out of Sector 121 in Noida and has been in the market since 2016, has built its entire commercial proposition around that complaint. The firm describes itself as a “full-stack growth partner” — marketing, finance, operations and brand run as a single system rather than as separate vendor relationships. By its own published figures, it has managed more than ₹84 crore in advertising spend, generated over 8 lakh leads, and served 260 brands across 22 Indian cities and ten industries. It carries an average client rating of 4.8 out of 5.

The refusal that became a business model

The most unusual thing about Prime Signal is not what it sells. It is what it declines to sell.

“No retainer without a roadmap” is written into the firm’s operating principles, and co-founder Abhinav Prakash treats it as non-negotiable. Before any campaign goes live, the firm runs what it calls a diagnosis: an audit of every channel, a review of the client’s numbers, and direct interviews with the client’s own customers.

“An agency that starts spending your money in week one has told you something important about itself,” Prakash says. “It has told you the media budget is its product. Ours isn’t. Our product is the decision about where the money should go — and sometimes that decision is that you should spend less.”

Prakash’s insistence on this sequencing is not accidental. His background is in finance and compliance rather than creative, and Prime Signal is one of the few Indian growth firms that runs a compliance-and-finance service line alongside performance marketing. The logic is that a business with broken margins does not have a marketing problem, and pouring paid media on top of it accelerates the loss rather than the growth.

The engagement itself runs on a four-step, ninety-day structure the firm calls Diagnose, Design, Deploy, Compound. The design step happens in a single working session with the client’s leadership, and both sides sign the resulting plan. First results are contracted to appear within thirty days. The final phase is explicitly about making the agency less necessary — systemising what worked and training the client’s internal team to run it.

“We are trying to build something the client can eventually operate without us,” Singh says. “That is a strange thing for an agency to say out loud. It is also the only version of this business I am interested in running.”

Nine signals, one system

Prime Signal organises its work into nine service lines it refers to as signals: lead generation, performance marketing, discovery marketing covering SEO, AEO and GEO, content marketing, retention marketing, conversion rate optimisation, authority marketing, proximity or local marketing, and compliance and finance.

The breadth is deliberate and, the founders concede, commercially inconvenient. It is easier to sell one thing well than nine things together.

“The reason we do it anyway is attribution,” Prakash says. “If your ads are with one vendor, your email with another and your website with a third, nobody owns the number. Everybody owns a slice of the number. That is how a company can spend for three years and never find out what worked.”

The client roster reflects the range. On the consumer side the firm has worked with nutrition and wellness brands including GoodMonk and Wellbeing Nutrition, and with fashion and lifestyle labels such as RDKLU, Deepa Gurnani and fine jewellery house Renu Oberoi. In pet nutrition it counts Pawpeye, the vet-formulated dog and cat food brand. Its industrial and B2B work includes Ester Industries and manufacturing clients such as Vijay Plastics, where the challenge is less about brand awareness and more about generating qualified enquiries in a narrow buyer universe.

The results the firm publishes are stated in the client’s own operating terms rather than in agency metrics. A Delhi streetwear label moved from 420 to 1,950 monthly orders across five months. A Bengaluru food and beverage brand took monthly D2C revenue from ₹4 lakh to ₹22 lakh while lifting return on ad spend from 2.1x to 5.3x. A Delhi dermatology clinic went from 45 to 210 monthly bookings as cost per lead fell from ₹1,850 to ₹620. A Coimbatore CNC manufacturer went from 11 to 64 inbound calls a week.

“Nobody takes impressions to their board,” Singh says. “They take orders, bookings and margin. So those are the only numbers we agree to be measured on.”

The 10,000 number

The firm’s stated mission is to help 10,000 businesses achieve what it calls sustainable, scalable growth by 2030 — a figure that is roughly forty times its current client count and which the founders acknowledge cannot be reached by adding headcount.

“You cannot service 10,000 companies the way we service 260,” Prakash says. “The only route is productising the diagnosis — making the first ninety days repeatable enough that it works without either of us in the room. That is the actual engineering problem in front of us.”

Prime Signal currently serves clients across 22 Indian cities and in four markets beyond India: the UAE, the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia.

Whether the firm reaches its 2030 target is an open question. But its founders have picked an uncomfortable position to defend in a sector that rarely volunteers one — that the honest answer to a growth brief is sometimes that the client is not ready to grow yet.

“We lose deals over that,” Singh says. “We would rather lose the deal than the client.”

Website https://share.google/6ZawWS7cV70NZgFJ4

Founders Linkedin Bios:

Manpreet Singh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/manpreet-singh-project-manager/

Abhinav Prakash: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caabhinav-prakash/

Prime Signal is headquartered at Sector 121, Noida, Uttar Pradesh. More at primesignal.in.

BHUBANESWAR — A spice and dry-fruit brand rooted in Odisha, Dakloni Masala, is positioning itself around purity and traditional sourcing as it competes in India’s increasingly crowded packaged-spice market, according to the company and its parent, Green Chocy Private Limited.

The brand traces its roots to 1983, according to company materials, and says it has focused since then on bringing “the purity of organic spices and authentic traditional flavours” to Indian kitchens. Its current range spans turmeric powder, red chilli and Kashmiri red chilli powder, garam masala, garlic and onion powder, and a dry-fruits line covering cashews, almonds, walnuts, pistachios and raisins.

Dakloni operates under Green Chocy Private Limited, which holds FSSAI license number 12026999000110 and is based in Bomikhal, Rasulgarh, in Khorda district, Odisha. The company describes its approach as “100% Pure, Natural & Premium Quality,” a claim it backs with references to “strict quality checks before packaging” and sourcing “carefully selected” from trusted farmers and suppliers, according to its website.

A Fragmented, Fast-Growing Category

India’s packaged-spice sector has drawn a wave of regional and direct-to-consumer entrants in recent years, alongside established national players, as consumers increasingly shop for spices online rather than through neighborhood grocers. Industry analysts who track the space say purity and traceability claims have become a common differentiator for newer brands, though such claims are typically self-reported rather than independently audited unless tied to a specific third-party certification beyond baseline food-safety licensing.

Dakloni’s FSSAI registration is a standard requirement for any food business operating in India and confirms basic regulatory compliance rather than certifying “organic” status specifically; the company has not indicated it holds a separate organic-certification mark, and this report could not independently verify the “organic” language used in its own marketing material.

An Odisha Identity

The brand markets itself explicitly around its Odisha base, a positioning that distinguishes it from larger national spice brands headquartered elsewhere. Company materials link its Dakloni Masala spice range to the region’s culinary heritage, though the company has not published details of specific farms or supply chains involved.

Dakloni also markets a grocery and makhana range alongside its core spice and dry-fruit lines, positioning itself as a broader everyday-essentials brand rather than a single-category spice house.

What Comes Next

The company has not disclosed retail distribution figures, revenue, or store count, and operates primarily as a direct-to-consumer brand through its own websites and social media channels. Whether its purity-focused positioning translates into meaningful market share against established national spice brands remains to be seen.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does Dakloni Masala sell?

The brand’s core lines are turmeric powder, red chilli and Kashmiri red chilli powder, garam masala, garlic and onion powder, and a dry-fruits range including cashews, almonds, walnuts, pistachios and raisins, alongside makhana and grocery staples.

Who owns Dakloni Masala?

The brand operates under Green Chocy Private Limited, an FSSAI-licensed food business based in Khorda district, Odisha.

Visit- dakloni.in

Visit- dakloni.com

Facebook- Dakloni Masala

Instagram- @daklonimasala

Association strengthens national leadership with Rishi Deepak Budhadev as National President and Suresh Nair as Acting Vice President

India, August 2026: In a notable beginning for a newly established industry association, the Professional Travel Agents and Hotels Association (PTAHA) has crossed the 100-member mark within just 27 days, signalling strong early support from professionals across India’s travel, tourism and hospitality sector.

Alongside this milestone, PTAHA has announced a strengthened national leadership structure with the appointment of Mr. Rishi Deepak Budhadev as National President and Mr. Suresh Nair as Acting Vice President.

The rapid growth comes at a time when travel agents, tour operators, hotels, DMCs and other tourism businesses are increasingly seeking stronger professional networks, business opportunities, knowledge-sharing platforms and collective industry engagement.

A Fast Start for a New Industry Platform

PTAHA was established as a Section 8 not-for-profit organisation with the objective of bringing different segments of the travel and hospitality industry onto a common professional platform.

Reaching more than 100 members in 27 days has given the association a strong foundation for its national expansion plans. PTAHA sees the milestone as an endorsement of its member-focused approach and its objective of creating practical value for tourism professionals.

Rather than functioning only as a networking body, PTAHA aims to provide members with opportunities for business promotion, industry interaction, education, networking and participation in major tourism events.

The association is also working towards creating greater engagement between its members and tourism boards, destinations, hotels, trade fair organisers and other stakeholders.

Rishi Deepak Budhadev to Lead National Expansion

As part of the association’s next phase, Mr. Rishi Deepak Budhadev has been appointed National President of PTAHA.

His responsibilities will include guiding the organisation’s national growth, strengthening its regional presence and developing initiatives that deliver greater value to members.

Under his leadership, PTAHA plans to expand its network through regional chapters and increase its participation across India’s travel trade ecosystem.

The association also intends to use major tourism trade fairs and industry platforms to provide its members with greater visibility and opportunities to promote their businesses.

Suresh Nair Joins National Leadership

PTAHA has appointed Mr. Suresh Nair as Acting Vice President, adding further depth to its national leadership team.

Mr. Nair will support the association in member engagement, organisational development and expansion of its professional network. His role will also involve working closely with the national leadership to strengthen PTAHA’s presence among travel and hospitality professionals in different parts of the country.

From Membership to Industry Community

PTAHA’s leadership believes that the association’s growth should ultimately be measured by the value it creates for its members.

Its initiatives include trade-fair participation, branding and promotional opportunities, networking, webinars, educational programmes, FAM and educational trips, member marketing initiatives and industry interactions.

The association is also focused on creating opportunities where members can promote their businesses while building relationships with fellow professionals and potential business partners.

The 100+ membership milestone therefore represents more than a numerical achievement. For PTAHA, it marks the beginning of a wider professional community that aims to work collectively for the growth of India’s tourism industry.

Leadership Message

Mr. Rishi Deepak Budhadev, National President, PTAHA, expressed his appreciation to the association’s members and supporters for placing their trust in the organisation within such a short period.

He said the achievement belongs to the entire PTAHA family and that the association’s immediate priority will be to convert this early momentum into meaningful opportunities, stronger industry relationships and long-term benefits for its members.

With its membership crossing 100 in just 27 days and its national leadership now strengthened, PTAHA is preparing for a broader phase of expansion across India.

The association aims to build a professional community where travel agents, hotels and tourism businesses can connect, collaborate, promote and grow together, while contributing collectively to a stronger and more organised Indian tourism industry.

About PTAHA

Professional Travel Agents and Hotels Association (PTAHA) is a Section 8 not-for-profit organisation representing professionals from India’s travel, tourism and hospitality sector.

PTAHA works towards professional networking, business promotion, education, industry engagement, trade-fair participation and creating growth opportunities for its members.

Website: www.ptaha.org.in

Email: ptahaindia@gmail.com

Contact: +91 78078 75757