Founders don't need a 'strategy deck'. They need an operator in the room.
Most strategy engagements deliver a 60-slide deck and a $50K invoice. Ours deliver a senior operator embedded with your team, quarterly workshops tied to your P&L, and decisions that can be measured by Q+1.
What we run.
- 01Fractional CMO — Light: 1 day/week, async-first ($12K/mo)
- 02Fractional CMO — Full: 2 days/week, leadership team integration ($25K/mo)
- 03Quarterly Growth Workshops: 2-day strategic review ($15K/quarter)
Full surface area below ↓
Why founders end up here.
Before any agency starts "optimising," we audit. Here's what we typically find — and what we fix.
Hired-and-departed marketing leaders
Three CMOs in four years. Each rebuilt the strategy from scratch. The team is exhausted, the channel mix is incoherent, and the founder is back to running marketing in the spare hours of the week.
Board pressure on EBITDA
PE-backed or pre-IPO. CFO wants paid efficiency, CEO wants growth, board wants both. The marketing team optimises one and gets blamed for the other. The trade-off needs to live in someone senior's head.
Pre-fundraise or pre-M&A diligence
Series-B or strategic buyer is asking 'can this scale?' The marketing answer needs to be defensible against a sophisticated diligence process. Most internal teams have never been through it.
Channel mix at the ceiling
Paid scaled to its limit. Lifecycle squeezed. SEO years away. The next leg of growth requires a strategic re-allocation — partnerships, owned media, brand campaigns — that the in-house team isn't structured to drive.
First marketing hire decision
Founder running marketing. First hire is a $130K+ commitment. Title is unclear (CMO? VP? Head of growth?). Profile is unclear. Risk is high. We've made this hire on owned brands and helped 20+ founders make theirs.
How we engage.
Every platform listed below is run by a senior operator who has shipped on it for years — not a junior account manager learning on your spend.
How we operate.
Four steps, repeated quarterly. The rigour is the product.
Embedded, not slide-decked
We're in your Slack, in your weekly stand-ups, in the operator chairs. Strategy is delivered as decisions, not documents. Documents follow when they're useful.
P&L-tied decisions
Every major decision linked to a P&L line. Channel-mix shifts modelled. Hiring decisions tied to revenue thresholds. Brand investment defended against payback math.
Quarterly cadence
OKRs set per quarter. Reviewed at quarter-end with the leadership team. Resets driven by data, not by calendar habit.
Knowledge transfer built-in
Every engagement designed so it can end. Playbooks documented. Decisions logged. The next CMO inherits a coherent operation, not a black box.
Concrete deliverables. Nothing vague.
Every line below is something you can hold, read, or measure against. No 'strategy decks as deliverables'.
- 01Quarterly OKRs + measurement plan
- 02Channel-mix model tied to P&L
- 03Hiring scorecards (CMO, VP Growth, Head of Performance, etc.)
- 04Board-ready quarterly growth narrative
- 05M&A / fundraise diligence pack (when relevant)
- 06Decision log + playbook documentation
Anonymised. Real numbers.
We don't parade logos. We parade math. Brand names disclosed only with written permission.
12-month fractional CMO → $42M run-rate, 18% paid efficiency lift
- Channel mix re-allocated against MMM read-out
- First Head of Performance hired Q3 (still in seat)
- Series-C raise closed on marketing diligence pack we built
Pre-IPO diligence engagement
- MMM + LTV cohort analysis built for diligence pack
- Board narrative tied to vertical-SaaS specific benchmarks
- PE buyer signed at premium valuation
The questions buyers actually ask.
Are you replacing my CMO?
Generally no. Fractional CMO engagements happen when there is no CMO, or when the CMO needs an outside operating partner to think with. We're additive, not substitutive — except in interim CMO scenarios, which we'll scope explicitly.
How long is a typical engagement?
6 months minimum on fractional. Quarterly workshops are quarterly. M&A / fundraise diligence is 4–8 weeks. We do not do month-to-month strategy retainers — strategy needs continuity.
Do you bring full execution capability?
If you want execution layered in (paid, SEO, lifecycle, etc.), yes — we'll spin up the relevant practice. If you only want the senior brain, we engage as fractional only and partner with your existing execution.
What about first marketing hire?
Common engagement. We build the scorecard, source candidates from our network, sit on interview panels, and help structure compensation. Engagement length: 8–14 weeks typically.
Two ways in.
Both low-risk.
Book a $5K audit
Two weeks. We forensically tear down your strategy stack. You get the brief, the action board, and a 90-day plan — even if we never work together. Refundable if you don't act on a single recommendation.
- 12–25 page brief (xlsx + pdf)
- Loom walkthrough
- Prioritised action board
- 30-day implementation review
30-min call.
No slides.
Share your screen. Walk us through the dashboard. We'll surface 3 quick wins on the call — yours to run, even if you never engage us. No pitch, no slides, no "next steps deck".
- 30 minutes max
- We watch your screen, not the other way
- 3 specific findings + suggested fixes
- Zero follow-up sequences