You got your first customers by hand. Now you can’t do it again without you in the room.
Every one of them closed because you were on the call, or you wrote the post, or you knew someone. That isn’t a growth engine. That’s you, and you don’t scale.
I’m not an agency you brief. I’m part of your team, accountable for your revenue number. The work is AI-enhanced end to end, which is why one embedded operator now covers ground that used to need four people.
They look like different problems. They’re the same one.
Underneath every item on this list sits a single question, and most founders spend a year answering the wrong version of it.
- You are the only person who can actually sell it.
- Growth stops the week you stop personally doing it.
- Your ads work until you turn them off.
- Nobody describes the product the same way twice.
- You hired an agency. Got deliverables. Nothing moved.
- You hired a marketer. They asked you for the strategy.
- You’re losing to a worse product that describes itself better.
- An investor asked about GTM and you improvised.
What a fractional CMO actually is
It gets talked about a lot and understood properly a lot less often, so it’s worth being plain about it.
A fractional CMO does the strategic and leadership work of a full Chief Marketing Officer: positioning, go-to-market strategy, planning and budgets, hiring and mentoring the team, managing agencies, reporting to the board, without the full-time cost or the full-time commitment. Typically four to twenty hours a week, embedded in the business rather than advising from outside it.
The most common misunderstanding is that a marketing leader has to be physically present, running a team through an eight-hour day. But a CMO’s actual value is in deciding: what the strategy is, who the customer is, what gets built, who gets hired. That’s judgment work. It doesn’t need a desk, and at your stage it doesn’t need forty hours.
Why not just hire, or use an agency?
| Full-time CMO | Agency | Fractional | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Time to onboard | 2 to 4 months, plus notice period | 2 to 4 weeks | 1 to 2 weeks |
| Cost | $10K to $24K a month, all-in | Priced per deliverable | A fraction of a full-time hire |
| Who does the work | Them, full-time | A junior, after a senior pitched you | The person you met |
| Can say "it’s the product" | Eventually, once they feel safe | No, their revenue needs marketing work to exist | Yes, immediately |
| Range of experience | One company’s lens at a time | Broad, but shallow on your business | Cross-industry, cross-model |
| Built to | Stay | Renew | Hand over and leave |
| If it isn’t working | Notice period, ESOP, severance | Contract term | You stop |
Why now, specifically
There’s a window between "the founder does marketing" and "we have a marketing team," and it’s where most startups lose a year. It looks like this: you can’t attract a senior marketer, because there’s no function to lead and no budget to lead it with. So you hire a junior one, and they arrive expecting a strategy to execute, which is the exact thing you don’t have. Now you’re paying someone to wait for you, and you’re still the marketing department.
Somebody has to make the strategy before anybody can execute it. That’s a different job from executing, it needs someone who has done it before, and it does not need to be a full-time hire.
Not sure which of the three problems you have?
That’s exactly what the call is for. Twenty minutes, and you’ll leave with a straight answer whether or not we work together.
Book the callMarketing enhanced with AI
A phrase everyone uses now. Here’s exactly what it means, and what it doesn’t.
AI is genuinely the reason this model works at your budget. Research that used to take a fortnight takes two days. Competitive teardowns, customer interview synthesis, ICP modelling, creative variants, attribution analysis: all of it compresses. One embedded operator with a proper AI workflow now covers ground that used to need a team of four, which is precisely why you can afford senior marketing leadership at your stage when five years ago you couldn’t.
Here’s the part that’s actually rare: attribution and cohort analysis in Python, not a vendor dashboard. When a channel’s reported ROAS doesn’t match what the bank account says, I pull the raw data and find out why myself, the same day, instead of trusting whichever platform benefits most from the story it’s telling you.
Where I use it
- Market, competitor and category research at speed, verified before it reaches a decision
- Synthesising customer interviews and support tickets into real ICP patterns
- Generating and testing creative and messaging variants at volume, so the market picks the winner rather than my taste
- Attribution, cohort and funnel analysis, with Python where a spreadsheet gives up
- Internal tooling and dashboards a company your size would never budget for
- First drafts of everything, so the time goes into judgment instead of a blank page
Where I don’t
- Your positioning. A model can summarise a market, it cannot decide what you should stand for
- Published content that goes out unread. You can tell, and so can your buyers
- Anything needing taste, or knowing which of two defensible options is right for you specifically
- Customer conversations. I run those myself, because the useful part is what people won’t put in writing
- Replacing the thinking. AI removes grunt work to make room for judgment, not to replace it
Three ways in
They differ on two things only: how long, and who does the marketing.
| How long | Who does the marketing | The question it answers | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Diagnostic | Two weeks, once | Nobody yet, we’re diagnosing | "What’s actually wrong?" |
| Fractional CMO | Ongoing, 2 to 3 days a week | Me, and the team I build | "Will you run it?" |
| Strategic Direction | Ongoing, a few hours a month | Your team, or your agency | "Are we making the right calls?" |
The First 10 Diagnostic
A bounded piece of work that answers one question: is your problem the message, the channel, or the product? Here’s the method, not just the promise:
- 1. Founder interview. Your version of the story, before I look at anything public-facing
- 2. Customer interviews. Three to five calls, so the read is built on what buyers actually said
- 3. Site and funnel teardown. Positioning audited against the one sentence, and the evidence behind it
- 4. Channel verdict. Kill, keep or test each channel, judged against real numbers
- 5. The 90-day plan. ICP and GTM sequence, written so you could run it without me
Fractional CMO
I own the marketing function end to end, the way a CMO would, except part-time, embedded in your team, and with an explicit plan to make myself unnecessary.
- Positioning, messaging, website, sales narrative, pitch narrative
- Channel strategy and the first real tests, with stated kill criteria
- Content engine, SEO architecture, founder-led distribution
- Analytics, attribution, budget, and a board pack that survives the meeting
- Weekly founder sync, monthly board-ready update
Building your team is part of this, not an extra
I’ve built a marketing team from zero to ten people before, and it’s the part of this job I’d argue matters most. I write the hiring plan, the job specs and the scorecards, sit in the interviews, onboard whoever you hire, and manage them until they don’t need managing. The goal is a function that runs without me, which means the team is the deliverable, not a side effect.
Strategic Direction
You already have people doing marketing: an agency, a freelancer, a junior hire. What’s missing is someone senior on your side of the table telling them what to do and judging whether it worked.
If you already have an agency
Most agencies aren’t bad. They’re just unmanaged. Nobody senior is briefing them, so they optimise for what’s easy to measure and report it convincingly. I become the client-side brain: I set the strategy they execute against, write the briefs, review the work, question the numbers, and tell you honestly whether to renew them. You keep your agency. You just stop being the only person who can direct it.
- Monthly strategy call, plus async access when a decision can’t wait
- Direction and briefs for your agency, freelancers or in-house marketer
- Review of the work and the numbers, including the ones reported flatteringly
- Review of marketing hires before you make them
- Investor and board narrative, especially around a raise
Fees depend on scope and hours, and I’d rather quote them once I understand what you actually need than post a number that’s wrong for you. You’ll get a straight figure on the first call, with no proposal theatre.
What I am, and what I’m not
Worth reading before you write to me. It’ll save us both a call.
What I am
- Part of your team. In your Slack, in your standups, on the org chart if that helps. Not a vendor you brief and chase
- Accountable to a revenue number, not a deliverables list
- An operator who has run a function solo, built another from zero to ten people, and done this fractionally for 20+ startups
- Someone who builds your team: the plan, the specs, the interviews, the onboarding, the managing
- The senior person on your side of the table when you brief an agency or judge its work
- AI-enhanced end to end, which is how one person covers what used to take four
- Someone who will tell you it’s your product, if it’s your product
What I’m not
- An agency. No account manager, no status deck, no production floor, nobody junior quietly doing the work you were sold
- Paid by deliverable volume, which is the incentive that makes agencies busy rather than useful
- Your execution team. I won’t run your ads, write your posts or design your creative. I’ll find and manage the people who do it well
- A career CMO from a large company applying enterprise playbooks to a twelve-person startup
- An ecommerce operations person. Catalogue, listings, marketplaces and logistics is a different job
- A fit for Series B and beyond with a marketing lead in place, except on scoped projects
- Available to more than two or three clients at once. When I’m full, I’ll say I’m full
The work
Seven years, four industries. Mostly spent building functions rather than running campaigns inside them.
to present
Quantitative finance education by iRage, training algo and quant traders globally. A long, considered, entirely trust-driven purchase, sold to the most analytical audience you could pick.
- Drove content-led growth contributing $60K+ in revenue in a year, over 10% of total annual revenue
- Built the brand system, messaging frameworks and tone of voice that turn complex quant and AI concepts into clear language, driving a 2x increase in organic leads
- Own brand strategy and narrative across social, email, YouTube, webinars and partner networks
- Own the full brand calendar; manage agency relationships and media vendors
to Jun 2024
Acting Head
of Marketing
Mixed-reality headsets for defence, enterprise and skilling. No marketing function existed when I arrived. I built one: the strategy, the systems, the budget discipline, and the ten people who ran it.
- Built a 10-person team from scratch across brand, content, performance and social. Set strategy, hired and mentored every member
- Managed the full $96K to $120K annual budget across events, brand and paid media, delivering 2x ROAS
- Doubled engagement and inbound requests within the first year
- Partnered across product, tech, sales and CX so messaging and launches moved in lockstep
to Jan 2023
Solo function
Location intelligence and alternative data sold to banks, NBFCs, insurers and government. Long cycles, regulated buyers, and a genuinely difficult thing to explain. I ran the entire brand function alone, which is the closest thing on this page to what a First 10 client is buying.
- Owned the full GTM strategy and positioning: narrative, messaging framework, brand identity, tone of voice
- Built the B2B pipeline from scratch on a $12K budget, targeting BFSI enterprise buyers
- Built brand authority through SEO-backed thought leadership, earned PR and omnichannel campaigns
to Jul 2022
Fractional
This exact job, across more than twenty D2C and B2B startups, before it had a name on it. Helping founders move from zero to one: identity, positioning, narrative, tone of voice, and a GTM plan they could actually run.
- 10x ROAS for a D2C beauty client
- Held 5x ROAS for Gynoveda while web revenue grew 70%, which is the hard part, since ROAS usually collapses the moment you scale
- YARA FarmWeather: 1M+ installs at 74% lower cost per install and 54% lower CPC, 4.5★ on the Play Store
- 27% of total Facebook sales for BLK India
- Built complete brand systems from zero: identity, messaging, content strategy, performance playbooks
to Dec 2020
Where I learned what agencies actually do, and why founders end up dissatisfied with them. Useful context now that part of my job is managing them on your behalf.
- Advised 25+ SMBs through the Meta Partner Onboarding Program
- Ran digital advertising for YARA, HCL and Pearson: briefs, creative, targeting and optimisation
- Pearson’s London Business School Executive Programme: 2.5x registrations, 45% more qualified leads, 10 new countries
- Built PROHED’s own social presence from zero
How I actually work
The operating philosophy, such as it is: trial and error. Build things, test them fast, learn faster, keep going. The approach doesn’t change by category. Understand the market and the user first, build the brand narrative second, then distribute it in a way that creates both awareness and revenue. I work best when the scope is broad, the brief is ambitious and the bar is high.
Some of the sharper numbers sit behind NDAs and I won’t quote them here. Happy to talk through them on a call. Fuller detail on the campaign work at workwithmohit.com/pow.
Eight case studies, written to be argued with
Each one follows the same shape: the situation, the constraint that actually mattered, what was done, what moved and why the combination of numbers means something, and an honest note on the limits of the work.
Book the twenty minutes
No deck, no pitch. I read what you send before we speak.
You send this form
Sixty seconds. The last field matters most, so be specific rather than polite.
I do the homework
I read your site, your funnel and whatever you’re running before we talk. No discovery call spent on basics.
We talk for 20 minutes
You get my read: message, channel or product. If I can’t help, I’ll say so and we’re done in fifteen.
Sent. Let’s book your call.
Your enquiry is saved. Choose a time on the next screen so we can talk it through.
Choose a time with Mohit →Objections, answered
The ones that come up on every first call.
Why isn’t there pricing on this page?
Because the honest answer depends on what you need, and a number posted without scope is a number that’s wrong for most people who read it. You’ll get a straight figure on the first call, and it won’t arrive wrapped in a proposal three days later.
Why is the first call free?
Twenty minutes is roughly what it takes me to work out whether I’d be useful to you. I’d rather find that out before either of us commits to anything, and the call is the most honest demonstration of the work I can give you.
Is the AI thing just going to mean generic content?
It’s the right worry, because that is what a lot of "AI-powered marketing" turns out to be. Here’s the line I hold: AI does research, synthesis, analysis, variant generation and first drafts. It doesn’t decide your positioning, it doesn’t publish unread, and it doesn’t talk to your customers. What it buys you is speed on the grunt work, which leaves more room for the judgment, not less. On the first call I’ll show you the difference rather than argue about it.
How is this different from just hiring an agency?
An agency is a vendor you brief, chase and review. I’m part of your team: in your Slack, in your standups, on the org chart if that helps, and accountable to a revenue number rather than a deliverables list. Agencies are paid by volume of output, which is the incentive that makes them busy rather than useful, and the senior person who pitched you is rarely the person doing your work. Here there’s one person and it’s the one you met.
What’s the difference between the Diagnostic and Strategic Direction?
The Diagnostic is a project: two weeks, once, and it ends with a document telling you what’s wrong. Strategic Direction is a relationship: a few hours every month, ongoing, where I help you make the calls as they come up. One finds the problem, the other keeps you from making expensive mistakes while you fix it. Plenty of people do the Diagnostic and then move onto Strategic Direction, but neither requires the other.
We already have an agency. Does that rule us out?
The opposite. It’s one of the situations where I’m most useful. Most agencies aren’t bad, they’re unmanaged: nobody senior briefs them, so they optimise for what’s easy to measure and report it convincingly. Strategic Direction exists for exactly this. I set the strategy, write the briefs, review the output and question the numbers, and tell you honestly whether to keep them. You don’t have to fire anyone to work with me.
Can you help us hire and build the marketing team?
Yes, and it’s the part of the job I’d argue matters most. I’ve taken a marketing team from zero to ten people. I write the hiring plan and the job specs, build the scorecard, sit in the interviews, onboard whoever you hire and manage them until they don’t need it. The goal is always a function that runs without me, which makes the team the deliverable rather than a side effect.
You work across B2B, B2C and D2C. Isn’t that too broad?
Fair question. The diagnosis is model-agnostic. Whether it’s the message, the channel or the product is the same question everywhere. The prescription isn’t: B2B is comprehension and sales narrative, B2C is motivation and retention, D2C is differentiation and margin. I’ve built the function in all three, which is mostly useful because I can tell when your problem genuinely is model-specific and when you’ve just convinced yourself it is. If your situation needs a specialist I’m not, I’ll say so.
We’re pre-seed. Are we too early?
Possibly, and I’ll tell you. Pre-seed companies are usually better served by the Diagnostic plus an advisory arrangement than by a retainer. You need the strategy, not a part-time employee. Sometimes the right answer is to spend that money on the product instead, and I’d rather say that than take the work.
What happens at the end of an engagement?
You get the documented function: positioning, messaging, channel playbooks, the reporting your board sees, plus a hiring spec for whoever runs it next, and help with the search if you want it. Most engagements run four to six months. Several clients keep me on as an advisor afterwards.
Is this going to turn into a sales sequence?
No. One follow-up after the call, and only if there’s something concrete to follow up on. That’s the entire system.
Still reading?
Then something on this page landed. Twenty minutes, and you’ll know whether it’s your message, your channels or your product.
Book the call