Notes on marketing strategy.
Field notes on growth, positioning, and building marketing teams that ship. Written for founder-led businesses that are done with random acts of marketing.
How much does a fractional CMO cost in Australia?
Pricing tiers, what actually drives cost, and how to compare an engagement against agencies and full-time hires.
When to hire a CMO, and why revenue is the wrong trigger.
The readiness test, the real Australian numbers, and the payroll tax threshold most hiring advice gets wrong.
Why marketing agencies don't seem to work (for you).
The agency is usually competent. What failed is that nobody wrote down what success meant before the first invoice.
What should a $5M business spend on marketing? Nobody can tell you.
There is no Australian survey behind the percentage everyone quotes. Build the number from unit economics instead.
You don't need a strategy before you hire an agency (you need a brief).
An agency can only act on what you can articulate. Most of what they need, you can write yourself in an afternoon.
Fractional CMO vs marketing agency: which is right for you?
When to hire leadership, when to hire execution, and why the honest answer is often both, in the right order.
Hiring a Head of Growth? Read this first.
Four things most early-stage founders get wrong when hiring their first growth lead.
The hardest soft skill for high-performing teams.
Communication gets the headlines. It's not the skill that separates the great teams from the rest.
Shiny object syndrome killing your startup? Three frameworks.
When every new tool and channel feels like the breakthrough, teams stop shipping. Three ways to recalibrate.
What does it take to crush it in Web3?
Lessons from two weeks interviewing the makers and marketers pioneering crypto and NFTs.
Want to talk through your marketing?
Every engagement starts with a Strategy Sprint. A focused three-week engagement where we audit your business, define your positioning, prioritise your channels, and deliver a clear roadmap.