Making Experiential Marketing Scalable
How MOHARA helped a former Diageo activation manager turn a common industry headache into a funded, scalable startup.
Client Background
Experience This is an experiential marketing platform founded by Michelle Golding, a former activation manager at Diageo who saw first-hand how fragmented brand activation could be.
Managing events through manual pitches, agency coordination, and venue logistics was slow and costly. Michelle set out to create a digital platform that would streamline every part of the process and make experiential marketing scalable.
MOHARA joined early as a build partner, helping to transform that vision into a high-performing product ready for both brand and consumer audiences.
The Challenge
Experiential marketing was growing fast, but execution lagged behind. Diageo's activation teams struggled with:
- Repetitive, manual venue outreach.
- Complex logistics involving multiple stakeholders (brands, venues, suppliers, agencies).
- Limited data visibility for measuring campaign performance.
The goal was to replace fragmented spreadsheets and email chains with a single platform that gave brand managers, bar owners, and agencies a shared, frictionless way to work.
Objectives
The project set out to:
- Create a platform that simplifies branded event management for both B2B (brands and venues) and B2C (consumers).
- Automate manual coordination processes to save time and maximise ROI.
- Build a scalable, data-driven system with strong performance even under complex, multi-factor scheduling.
- Prepare the platform for future international expansion beyond the UK.
The Solution
MOHARA worked with Michelle from concept to launch, combining product strategy, user validation, and full-stack development.
Approach and delivery:
Problem Definition
Mapped pain points across brands, venues, and delivery partners.
User Workshops
Conducted real-world validation sessions to shape functionality.
Product Mapping
Designed the complete user flow and architecture, identifying scalability requirements early (e.g. availability calculations and inventory logic).
Technical Strategy
Selected a stack built for growth and modularity.
Agile MVP Build
Delivered a working product through lean sprints with ongoing stakeholder feedback.
Tech stack highlights:
Frontend
VueJS with Apollo client
Backend
NodeJS with Apollo Express serving a GraphQL API
Database
MongoDB hosted on Atlas
Architecture
Microservices on AWS (EC2, CloudFront, S3)
Integrations
Stripe for payments, SendGrid for notifications, Jenkins for CI/CD
Results
Experience This launched successfully and quickly gained traction:
Diageo team members
Brands onboarded
Venues registered
- Supported multiple agencies and staffing providers for coordinated campaign delivery.
- Secured follow-on funding to expand internationally and enhance the consumer marketplace.
- Targeting 20,000 venues for future expansion.
The platform now serves as the foundation for scalable, data-driven experiential marketing, streamlining how brands connect with audiences through live experiences.
Why MOHARA
Experience This needed a product partner capable of guiding a non-technical founder from idea to live platform without losing pace or quality. MOHARA provided full-cycle support, product strategy, UX, and engineering, anchored in startup execution speed and enterprise-grade reliability.
By balancing technical depth with practical delivery, MOHARA helped turn a niche operational pain point into a scalable SaaS business used by one of the world's largest beverage companies.