Built, run, and reported on.
For companies that already know what has to be built. We build the acquisition, activation and retention systems, operate them, and report against numbers agreed before we start. This is the deepest engagement here and the one with the most preconditions.
- Price
- $10,000 per month
- Turnaround
- Three month minimum
- Starts with
- The intake
Who it is for
Companies with real traction that know what needs building and do not have the team to build and run it. Usually that means a founder who has been doing growth alongside four other jobs, or a small marketing team good at execution and short on the systems layer underneath it.
It is not a substitute for a growth hire. It is what you do instead of making that hire before you know what the role is, which is how most companies end up with the wrong person and a year gone.
When it makes sense
When the diagnosis is settled and the constraint is execution rather than knowledge. When there is a plan somebody wrote, possibly us, and nothing has moved on it in two months because everyone is busy. When acquisition needs to be operated weekly rather than reviewed monthly.
It does not make sense as a way of finding out what is wrong. That is far cheaper as a Diagnostic, and starting a retainer to answer a question a document could answer is how three months disappear.
What has to be true before we start
These are checked at intake rather than discovered in month two. If one is missing we will say which, and usually what to do about it first.
- You know which of the three problems you have, and can say why. Usually that means a Diagnostic, ours or somebody's.
- The position is settled. Building acquisition on a position still under debate means building it twice.
- The product can hold the customers a working funnel will bring. If retention is broken at the product level, more of everything makes it worse.
- One person on your side can make a decision inside a week. Not a committee, and not a person who then has to convene one.
- You are prepared for the first month to produce systems and instrumentation rather than a revenue jump.
What we build
Three systems, in the order the money moves through them. They are built to be handed over, documented as they go, so that ending the engagement does not take the knowledge with it.
Acquisition
The channels that fit the buyer, built and run rather than advised on. Copy assembled from the message architecture so every surface makes the same claim. Tracking that attributes honestly, including the parts that are not attributable, because a model that pretends otherwise makes worse decisions than no model.
Activation
The path between signing up and the moment the value is obvious, instrumented so you can see where people stop. Then the sequence, the in product prompts and the first run experience that shorten it. Measured on reaching value, not on completing steps.
Retention
Cohorts segmented by what was knowable on day one, so you can tell acquisition failures from product failures instead of averaging them together. Lifecycle work where there is a reason to return, and an honest note where there is not.
Experiments and priority
Everything queued is ranked by the size of the effect if it works, how confident we are that it will, and how long it takes to find out. Most weeks that ranking says do the boring thing, and most weeks the boring thing is right.
Anything that cannot be measured gets shipped anyway if the argument for it is strong, and is labelled as unmeasured rather than given a number that was never real.
Reporting and decisions
A written note every week. What shipped, what it did, what is next, and what we got wrong. Monthly, a longer review against the numbers agreed at the start of the engagement.
Reports carry the reasoning, not just the figures. A dashboard tells you what happened. It will not tell you what to do on Monday, which is the part you are paying for.
How the months run
First thirty days
The build. Instrumentation first, because without it every later decision is a guess with a chart attached. Then the acquisition and activation systems stood up, the message architecture applied to every surface, and the baseline written down so there is an agreed starting point nobody can relitigate in month three.
Expect systems and clarity this month rather than a revenue jump. Anybody promising otherwise is describing a coincidence.
Months two and three
Operating. The weekly cycle starts: ship, measure, write it up, rank what is next. Retention work begins here, because it needs a cohort that arrived after the changes to be worth reading.
By the end of month three there is enough evidence to say whether this is working, which is why the minimum is three months rather than one.
Ongoing
Month by month after the minimum, cancellable with thirty days notice. The cadence stays the same. The mix shifts as the constraint moves, because the thing limiting growth in month eight is rarely the thing that limited it in month one.
Yours
- One decision maker, reachable in writing, who can approve inside a week.
- Access to the product, the analytics, the billing data and the channels.
- Engineering or design time for changes inside the product, agreed in advance each month.
- Budget for media, tools and anything else bought from third parties. The fee is for the work, not the spend.
Ours
- The strategy, the writing, the building and the running of the systems above.
- A written weekly note: what was shipped, what it did, what is next, and what we got wrong.
- A monthly review of the numbers agreed at the start, with the argument attached rather than a dashboard link.
- Saying so, in writing, when something is not working. This is the part most retainers quietly skip.
What is outside scope
- Brand and visual identity design.
- Engineering inside your product. We specify the change and work with your team, we do not ship your code.
- Sales headcount, sales management, or running your pipeline.
- Media spend, tooling and other third party costs, which are yours directly.
- Guaranteed revenue outcomes. What is committed is the work, the cadence and the honesty about results, not a number.
How success is judged
Two or three numbers, chosen in the first fortnight and written down before there is any result to argue about. Which numbers depends on the constraint. A leak problem is judged on retained cohorts, not on traffic.
No revenue outcome is guaranteed, here or anywhere else on this site. Too much of it sits outside the engagement. What is committed is the work, the cadence, and being told plainly when something is not working.
Why it costs $10,000 a month
It is a senior operator building and running the systems, not a plan handed to somebody junior to execute. Set against a growth hire it is comparable in cost, available immediately, and does not need you to already know what the role should be.
The three month minimum is not a lock in device. It is the shortest period over which the work can be honestly judged, and committing to less would mean optimising for something visible in week three rather than something true.
How to start
Fill in the intake. It takes about ten minutes, and the answers are the first input into the work rather than a form somebody files. You get a reply within two business days, and if this is the wrong engagement for you, that is what the reply will say.
Know what to build and need it run?
That is what the intake is for. It takes about ten minutes, and the answers go straight into the first read of your business.