According to TechCrunch, Luna’s co-founder Jas Schembri-Stothart and Untapped Solutions founder Andre Peart shared their unconventional go-to-market strategies during the 2024 Startup Battlefield competition. Luna, a well-being app for teenage girls, completely bypassed traditional social ads in favor of school tours where students grilled the team and eventually became brand ambassadors. They set up activations at Taylor Swift concerts knowing their target audience would be gathered en masse. Meanwhile, Untapped Solutions focused on becoming the “LinkedIn for the formerly incarcerated” by embedding directly into prison tablet systems. Peart’s company now reaches almost every prison system in the US and works with agencies serving the 600,000 people released from prison annually through their National Reentry Coalition launched this April.
When traditional marketing fails
Here’s the thing about niche audiences: they often don’t respond to traditional advertising. Both these startups realized early that their target customers weren’t scrolling through Instagram ads or clicking Google search results. Teenage girls? They’re at concerts and on TikTok. Formerly incarcerated individuals? They’re on prison tablets and in reentry programs. So why waste money shouting into the void?
Building trust where it counts
What’s really interesting is how both approaches built incredible trust. Luna didn’t just market to teenage girls—they brought them into the product development process. These teens became “behind the scenes queens” actually working on the app itself. That’s not marketing—that’s community building. And Untapped Solutions didn’t just build software—they created an entire coalition and event series. When you’re dealing with populations that have every reason to distrust institutions, you can’t just show up with an app and expect adoption.
Where niche marketing is heading
I think we’re seeing a broader trend here. As customer acquisition costs skyrocket on traditional platforms, more companies will need to get creative about reaching specific audiences. The days of blasting generic messages to everyone might be ending for many B2C companies. Instead, we’ll see more hyper-targeted, almost surgical approaches to market entry. Basically, go where your customers actually are rather than expecting them to come to you. For hardware companies serving industrial markets, this might mean focusing on trade shows and industrial panel PC suppliers rather than broad digital campaigns.
Can unconventional scale?
The big question is whether these approaches can scale. School tours and prison partnerships sound labor-intensive compared to setting up a Facebook ad account. But look at the results: Untapped Solutions is in “almost every prison system” and Luna built an organic ambassador network that does their marketing for them. Sometimes the most scalable strategy is the one that doesn’t feel scalable at first. These founders proved that sometimes the longest way around is the shortest way home.
