My operating model, and the teams I have run it with.
NowShopify apps startup (part-time)
Teams led18 at K2U and 18 at Phatse
Largest team60 across 7 ships
PartnersAbout 8 external experts
BasedGurugram, India
My operating model
I run operations the same way in every team I have led: a clear plan, named owners, visible status, and procedures for anything that repeats.
1Plan with owners and dates
2Make status visible
3Review weekly
4Write the procedure
5Automate the repeat work
Plan and track
Every piece of work has an owner, a date and a status in Jira, on kanban boards, with agile or waterfall chosen to fit the project.
People and partners
I lead in-house teams and external experts together, including their contracts, payments and invoices.
Budgets
I deliver within approved budgets and prepare post-launch projections for new products.
Service levels
I set and run service levels, such as a 24-hour response promise to premium learners, including the queue behind it.
Procedures and onboarding
I write down how the team works, so new people are productive in about a week, not three.
Automation
Anything that repeats on a schedule gets a template or a tool, so people spend time on judgement.
yourtoken.io: Shopify apps, 2026
Scope: a fast-growing startup building Shopify apps used by 400+ D2C brands, part-time since July 2026.
Moved internal communication to Slack, kept WhatsApp for clients, and ended lost reports and messy handovers.
Worked with the developers to build a central dashboard: daily work logs, open tickets, sales progress and each person’s open items, linked to GitHub and Slack.
Defined KPIs for the team and success metrics for every plugin, so progress is visible without chasing.
K2U: learning products, 2022 to 2026
Scope: a 57-course portfolio for individual learners in the US and UK, a team of 18 (15 content and 3 project managers) and about 8 external experts.
Owned every course from planning through launch to maintenance, about 45 launched by me, within approved budgets.
Managed the external experts: who builds what, their contracts, revenue share and invoices.
Delegated release-note reviews and course projects to the content team and project managers, reviewed the work, and pushed updates live myself.
Talked with learners and B2B clients to understand their needs and feed them into the roadmap.
Ran a 24-hour SLA on premium learner questions, including response time, resolution time and the waiting queue.
Cut onboarding from about 3 weeks to about 1 with new procedures.
Designed the release-notes workflow (update cycles from 80-90 days to 30-45) and the revenue-sharing tool (about 1 hour to 15 minutes per expert per month).
Tested new Salesforce apps in dev and UAT environments and flagged bugs before release.
When the team shrank from 18 to 5 after the acquisition, kept delivery going through automation.
Phatse: marketplace and D2C, 2019 to 2023
Scope: a company I founded, a team of 18 across engineering, sales and marketing, and a network of party vendors and organisers.
Built the vendor network and the booking operation behind it.
Ran acquisition, referral and email campaigns (Google Ads, Mailchimp, Sendinblue).
Launched and ran the Shopify brand Boxyt: catalogue, discounts, loyalty, payments and customer emails.
Carnival UK: hospitality operations, 2010 to 2017
Scope: a 60-person dining team across a 7-ship fleet.
Managed Marco Pierre White’s onboard restaurant, with an NPS above 80 on more than 85% of cruises.
Ran event logistics, including venues, hotels and facilities.
Trained new joiners in safety, hygiene, order handling and guest service.
Tools
Jira, Asana, Trello, Google Workspace, Slack, Salesforce, Metorik, Shopify, WooCommerce, Mailchimp, Sendinblue (Brevo), Razorpay, Mixpanel, Google Analytics, WordPress and LearnDash.
What people can expect from me
Nothing slips silently. If a date is at risk, I flag it early with a plan.
If it repeats, it gets written down. Then it gets automated.
Status is visible. Nobody should have to ask me where things stand.
Decisions are written. What we chose, why, and what would change our mind.
Skills and tools used
Operating modelTeam leadershipVendor and expert managementSLAsSOPs and onboardingBudgetsAutomationJira
Sandeep Tomar