Two ways to build the marketing your company needs.
Start with a 30-day sprint. Or bring me in as your fractional CMO. Both build on the same seven foundations.
How we work
I work with fintech founders and CEOs who have outgrown doing marketing themselves. You have built something real. The instinct and effort got you here. Your company has simply reached the point where marketing needs its own structure and its own leadership.
Two ways to start. The sprint is for founders who want to test the relationship. The engagement is for founders ready to hand marketing leadership over to someone else.
Marketing Foundations Sprint
Timeline: 30 days
The starting point for founders who want to test the relationship.
In 30 days, I build the two things every fintech company needs before anything else works: a clear understanding of who your customer is, and a clear story about what you do for them. You walk away with documents your team can use immediately, a plan to test your new message in one focused place, and recommendations on who to hire next.
Market Understanding
What you get:
A clear picture of who your customer actually is: what keeps them up at night, what they have already tried, and what would make them trust a new company
A look at what your competitors are saying and where the open space is in the market
The specific space your company can claim that no one else is filling
What it means for your business: You stop guessing who you are talking to. Every decision gets easier because you know who you are building for.
Message Coherence
What you get:
A core story about your company, written down so it holds up whether you are in the room or not
A simple sentence that explains what you do and why it matters, in language your customers actually use
A compelling "why us" story that connects what you sell to what your customer needs solved
What it means for your business: Everyone tells the same story. Sales, the website, the product. Customers build trust because the story is the same in every room.
Channel Playbook
What you get:
A recommendation on which single marketing channel to focus on first, and why that channel fits your customer
A plan for how to run that channel and test your new message against real people
The numbers that tell you what is working
A list of the roles and people you should hire next
What it means for your business: You stop spreading effort thin across five channels. You focus on the one that will work, with a way to measure it and a plan for growing the team.
The sprint is customized to your business. These are the foundations. What gets built on them is shaped by what your company needs.
Fractional CMO Engagement
Timeline: 3 months minimum
For founders ready to hand marketing leadership over to someone else.
The engagement builds on the two foundations the sprint delivers, knowing your customer and telling a consistent story, and keeps going from there. I take responsibility for the direction of marketing over time. That means I make the decisions, run the people doing the work, and am accountable for the results. The 30-day sprint is included. If you start here, the sprint becomes the first month of a longer partnership.
Trust-Led Foundation Build
What you get:
I redesign the path your customer takes from first hearing about you to buying, so trust is built before you ask them to commit
Your messaging, your positioning, and your numbers all line up with how people actually move through that path
What it means for your business: Customers stop dropping off in the middle. The path feels honest to them, which is why it converts.
Execution Leadership
What you get:
I lead the freelancers, agencies, vendors, and in-house people who do the marketing work, so you can focus on product, technology, and sales
Marketing tactics like ads, content, and email get tested, expanded, and connected to revenue. The work starts compounding instead of resetting every quarter.
What it means for your business: You stop being the bottleneck. Marketing runs. You lead.
Strategy is not what you skip to get to the exciting part. Strategy is what makes the exciting part possible.
The Build Team
Add-on for Engagement and Sprint graduate clients
The people who do the work, led by me.
Strategy without execution stays on paper. The Build Team is the group of specialists I lead who do the actual marketing work against the plan we have built together. Writing, ads, design, website builds, the technical setup behind the scenes. All of it.
I lead the team. You stay focused on what only you can do. The Build Team gets the work done without adding another thing to your calendar.
What the team covers:
Writing for your blog, LinkedIn, and email
Running ads and making them better over time
Design work for campaigns, social posts, and sales materials
Building and updating your website and landing pages
Setting up the tools that track customers, automate follow-ups, and measure what is working
Who it is for:
Clients in an active engagement who need people to actually do the marketing work. Sprint graduates who want help executing the plan without committing to a full engagement yet.
How it works:
Some of the team are people I work with across all my clients. Others I bring in for specific projects based on what the work needs. Either way, I lead them. You do not manage freelancers. You do not brief contractors. The work comes to you when it is ready for your input.
Strategy without execution stays on paper. Foundations need to be put to work.
Built on the same seven foundations
Both the sprint and the engagement work from the same framework, taken from my book The Work That Holds You: knowing your customer, telling a consistent story, running at a sustainable pace, creating real interest, converting honestly, keeping the customers you earn, and building systems that run without the founder.
A Few Practical Questions
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A fractional Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) provides senior-level marketing leadership without the full-time cost. For fintech startups, this means building a growth engine that aligns brand, product, and revenue without waiting six months to hire or onboard a full-time exec. At illumination, we plug in fast, cut through the chaos, and build systems that scale.
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Most founders bring in a fractional CMO after Series A, when investor pressure ramps up, go-to-market starts to stall, or marketing feels like a black box. Others founders find it beneficial to hire a fractional CMO pre-Series A to help with investor business casing. If you're trying to translate complex products into market-ready/investor-ready messaging or prove CAC and LTV metrics, it’s time.
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We solve founder-led marketing chaos. That includes:
unclear messaging that confuses the market
scattered tactics with no funnel
pressure to report on CAC, LTV, and pipeline with no system behind it
internal misalignment between product, sales, and marketing
In short, we partner with you to turn your business into measurable growth quickly.
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A Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) focuses on brand, messaging, and demand generation. A Chief Growth Officer (CGO) is responsible for the full revenue picture including marketing, sales, customer lifecycle, and sometimes even product.
Most early-stage fintechs need both, but don’t have the headcount or budget.
That’s where illumination comes in. We bridge the gap:
We deliver CMO-level strategy like positioning, go-to-market, and team structure
Plus CGO-style focus on growth metrics like CAC, LTV, funnel velocity, and revenue outcomes
You get a unified growth engine without hiring two executives or faking it with freelancers.
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We’re not an agency. We’re senior operators.
No decks for the sake of decks. No junior teams pretending to “own strategy.”
We embed into your team, build clarity fast, and focus on outcomes, not output. If marketing doesn’t move the needle, it’s not on the roadmap.
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Yes, if that team needs leadership, structure, or strategic clarity. Junior marketers and freelancers can execute, but they can’t architect. We create the roadmap, align your team, and make marketing work harder for revenue and investor readiness.
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Absolutely. We build the investor-facing story and back it with metrics like CAC, LTV, conversion paths, and funnel velocity. Whether it’s prepping for Series B or entering new markets, we make sure your growth story holds up in the boardroom.
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We specialize in working with:
Technical B2B fintechs like APIs, infrastructure, or compliance tools
Visionary B2C fintechs like neobanks, investing apps, or lending platforms
Second-time founders building infrastructure or B2B2C fintech platforms
If you’ve outgrown duct tape and need a scalable system, we’re probably a fit.
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We work with progressive credit unions and financial institutions that are ready to modernize their marketing without losing member trust. Typically, that means:
Teams launching new digital offerings or embedded fintech partnerships
Leaders under pressure to show ROI from marketing spend
Organizations stuck between legacy systems and next-gen expectations
Whether you're rebranding, rolling out a new product, or just tired of doing “a bit of everything” with no results, we help build the strategy and systems that actually move the needle.
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Our clients have seen:
100% more conversions on half the spend
50% increase in appointments
230% growth driven by full-funnel marketing
A good fractional CMO doesn't just "do marketing". They turn it into a growth lever your investors will understand.
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Most founders see momentum within 2 to 3 months. We build the right marketing systems, not just flashy campaigns, so the impact compounds. Think systems, not stunts.
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We offer structured engagements, not random acts of marketing. If you need a go-to-market plan, messaging system, or growth engine audit, we’ll scope it and build it right.