Untapped Solutions

The Art of Targeting the Untargetable Traditional go-to-market playbooks often fail when confronting highly sensitive, guarded, or hyper-specific consumer groups. When standard advertising channels fall short, building a startup requires a shift from standard performance marketing to radical community integration. For companies trying to capture audiences like teenagers or formerly incarcerated individuals, growth is not about viral loops. It is about earning deep, unshakeable trust and turning extreme constraints into a primary competitive edge. Two startups from the TechCrunch Startup Battlefield network demonstrate how to crack these difficult markets. Luna, co-founded by Jas Schembri-Stothart, acts as a digital big sister app for teenage girls navigating adolescence. Meanwhile, Untapped Solutions, founded by Andre Peart, serves as a marketplace and case management platform linking untapped populations—including formerly incarcerated individuals and domestic violence survivors—with corporate employment opportunities. While their end users reside in vastly different worlds, both founders bypassed standard digital marketing to build highly customized, community-first growth engines. Earning Trust Through Lived Experience and Ambassador Networks The Luna Approach: Teen Co-Creators To build a platform that teenagers actually wanted to use, Luna had to overcome a basic structural hurdle: the founders were no longer teenagers. Instead of guessing what would resonate, Jas Schembri-Stothart and her co-founder launched a literal school roadshow across the UK, presenting wireframes directly to students and absorbing blunt feedback. This grew into an organized "ambassador army" split into two distinct factions: product ambassadors who help refine features, and social media ambassadors who create organic, peer-to-peer TikTok content. By letting teenagers drive the narrative, the app achieved viral organic reach that no adult-led campaign could replicate. The Untapped Solutions Approach: Credibility via Shared History For Untapped Solutions, trust is built on personal history. Founder Andre Peart spent six years in New York state prison during his twenties, an experience that directly informs his company's mission. When marketing to individuals re-entering society, having a team with lived experience is the ultimate trust signal. The platform bypasses traditional consumer acquisition by integrating directly with the institutions where these populations already exist, including prisons, hospitals, and shelters. Rather than fighting for individual sign-ups, every organization onboarded brings hundreds of users directly into the ecosystem. Solving the Dual-Audience Puzzle Both startups operate in dual-sided ecosystems where the person utilizing the service is not the one paying for it. For Luna, the users are teenagers, but the paying customers are parents. This forced the team to build two completely isolated marketing funnels. They utilize TikTok for teen engagement, while relying on Meta platforms to reach parents, communicating themes of safety, data privacy, and adolescent support. Similarly, Untapped Solutions must balance the needs of vulnerable job seekers with the business requirements of corporate employers. Andre Peart structures his enterprise pitch around real business value, refusing to position his platform as a charity. To ease employer concerns regarding legal records and transitional hurdles, the platform attaches caseworkers directly to candidate profiles, showing progress and certifications transparently. They win over corporate decision-makers through compelling story-driven email campaigns and case studies highlighting corporate peers already participating in fair-chance hiring. Guerrilla Marketing and Thought Leadership When standard ad networks are too noisy or expensive, alternative distribution channels are vital. Luna embraced guerrilla marketing, famously taking a giant, custom-branded spinning wheel to a Taylor Swift concert in London. Despite being threatened with removal by security, the team interviewed a major influencer on-site, generating viral social content that drove immediate app downloads. Conversely, Untapped Solutions established dominance through educational authority. Instead of paying to attend crowded industry events as general attendees, Andre Peart focused on securing keynote speaking slots. By positioning himself as a leading technical expert in the re-entry space, he established a national re-entry coalition that hosts workshops, ultimately leading to their own dedicated industry conferences. Elevating the Bottom-Up Playbook These strategies prove that the most durable businesses are built by embedding directly into user communities. Whether mobilizing teenagers to run a social media account or building software alongside social workers, success depends on true operational intimacy. Founders who reject generic digital marketing playbooks in favor of deep, boots-on-the-ground engagement can transform their audience-access limitations into an insurmountable competitive moat.