Chennai Business Club — A verified-business referral network, built from zero
Chennai's local-services economy runs on word of mouth — but word of mouth has no receipts. Referrals go unrewarded, vendors are unverified, and leads vanish into WhatsApp groups. CBC turns that into a system: a closed circle where verified business owners refer each other, every referral is attributed and credited, and incoming leads are routed to the right vendor by pincode and district. Built end to end by one engineer — marketplace, KYC, routing engine, referral economics, and WhatsApp integration.
What we walked into.
Local vendors in Chennai live on referrals but have no way to prove quality, track who sent whom, or receive the right leads — and open marketplaces drown in spam. The product needed trust (verification), economics (attributed referrals and credits), and routing (the right lead to the right vendor), all usable by non-technical owners on their phones, in a market that lives on WhatsApp.
How we built it.
- 01
Designed a closed, referral-only network — entry by invitation, so every member is vouched for
- 02
Built vendor KYC with GST, PAN, and Udyam/MSME verification, document review, and approval states
- 03
Wrote a pincode- and district-aware lead-routing engine across 19K+ pincodes that offers each lead to the right vendors in buckets
- 04
Implemented referral attribution end to end — codes, visit fingerprinting, conversion tracking, tiered credits, and reward payouts
- 05
Integrated the WhatsApp Cloud API for notifications and lead delivery, where Chennai businesses actually operate
- 06
Shipped tiered plans (pincode → district → state → pan-India), wallet accounting, admin geo-scopes, and a full audit log
What changed for the business.
230+ GST/MSME-verified vendors onboarded in the first six months
130+ signups attributed to member referrals — the network grows itself
42% of routed leads reach accepted or converted, a healthy marketplace close rate
Built and operated by a single engineer: marketplace, KYC, routing, and payments stack
Built with.
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