In India, the festive season rarely arrives as one neat moment. It gathers slowly. A supplier asks for numbers earlier than expected. The agency wants the Diwali brief. Corporate-gifting enquiries begin appearing on WhatsApp. Then orders pick up, and the planning window quietly disappears.
For founders running small teams, this period can be exciting and unforgiving in equal measure. There is more demand, but not necessarily more time or more people. When it gets too much, usually, the first thought that comes in is, “There has to be a better way.”
There is a better way. ChatGPT has a new function ChatGPT Work designed for long, detailed, multi-step work and deliverables, can ease that festive-season load, so the team stays focused on the business.
Begin with last year, not a blank spreadsheet
Most businesses already have the beginnings of this year’s festive plan. They are simply scattered across last year’s order sheets, campaign reports, customer messages, vendor emails and memories of what went wrong. It can bring that history together. It can identify when demand began rising, which products moved fastest, where deliveries slowed and which offers looked exciting but did little for the business. From there, it can prepare a week-by-week view of what needs to happen before the rush: packaging orders, creative deadlines, marketplace updates and more.
A founder could ask: “Review last year’s festive sales, campaign performance, returns and customer feedback. Show me what worked, what caused avoidable pressure and what we should do differently this year. Turn it into a practical six-week plan.”
Let the orders grow without allowing the confusion to grow with them
A strong sales week can still become a difficult business week if stock, payments and dispatches are being tracked in different places. Then function can help maintain one daily picture. For a D2C brand, that may mean spotting a gift box selling faster than expected. For a cloud kitchen, it may mean seeing where ingredient availability and festive-menu demand are beginning to diverge. For a gifting company, it could mean separating regular orders from customised corporate requests before they become mixed up.
Keep customer communication warm when the volume stops feeling manageable
Festive-season customer service has its own rhythm. “Will this reach before Diwali?”, “Can you deliver to my parents’ pin code?”, “Can we add our company logo?”, “I need a GST invoice.”, “The payment has gone through, but the order still says pending.”
These questions arrive through email, Instagram, marketplaces and, inevitably, WhatsApp. When the volume rises, even a thoughtful team can begin sounding hurried or inconsistent.
It can review previous conversations, group the recurring questions and prepare a response bank. It can also separate routine enquiries from the ones that deserve immediate attention: a damaged order, a bulk customer waiting for confirmation or a gift that may miss an important date. The aim is not to automate warmth. It is to give the team enough breathing room to preserve it.
Give the founder fewer reasons to become the company’s search engine
In a small company, people often go to the founder because the founder remembers the context. “Which price did the vendor finally agree to?”, “Did the influencer approve the revised date?”, “What discount was promised to the corporate buyer?”, “Has the packaging artwork been signed off?”
The app can find these answers across the material the team already uses and prepare a short daily view of decisions, delays and open questions. The founder remains involved where judgement matters, without becoming the route through which every piece of information must pass. That may be the most meaningful use of the product for a small team: reducing the number of jobs that tend to land on the founder’s desk.
Keep a quiet eye on the market
Founders do not need another heap of unread news. Ask the app feature to watch a tightly defined set of signals and turn them into a useful weekly view, depending on the festive moment.
A founder could ask: “Every Monday, review notable competitor announcements, customer conversations, relevant media coverage and changes in our category. Tell me what changed, why it matters to us and the three questions the leadership team should discuss.”
The festive season will always carry some unpredictability. That is part of running a business in a country where celebrations, commerce and family life overlap. Yet, growth should not have to feel like an annual test of how much pressure a small team can absorb but rather, a welcome challenge that proves your success.
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