Case studies

Disclaimer. Specific client identifiers have been redacted under NDA. The case studies below are composites — based on real engagements and outcomes, but with company names, exact figures, and identifying details abstracted or aggregated across similar engagements. Numbers are illustrative of what we typically deliver, not extrapolated marketing claims.

DevTools SaaS · $1.4M → $3.1M ARR in 12 months

The situation. Bootstrapped DevTools company, three years post-launch, plateaued at $1.4M ARR. Founder had been writing one technical post a month for two years; traffic was growing but pipeline contribution was flat at ~8% of new MRR. Most pipeline came from word-of-mouth and Hacker News.

What we did. Foundation sprint followed by Engine sprint (180 days total). Re-validated ICP — the company had been targeting “developers” generically; we narrowed to “senior platform engineers at 50–500-person companies running their own infrastructure.” Rebuilt content architecture around three pillar topics, each with eight supporting pieces. Implemented schema.org markup, llms.txt, robots.txt allowance for AI bots. Set up branded search lift attribution via GSC.

Outcome at 12 months. Organic pipeline contribution grew from 8% to 31% of new MRR. Cost per qualified opportunity dropped 62%. ARR doubled to $3.1M, of which Acme’s contribution to net-new attributable to organic was approximately $850K. Founder retained ability to ship pillar pieces in 90 minutes of focused time, down from 8–10 hours.

HR-tech SaaS · Tripled demo bookings in 4 months

The situation. $3.2M ARR HR-tech serving the 100–1000 employee market. PMF in place, but lead generation entirely paid-driven via Google + LinkedIn. CAC payback was 14 months and slowly climbing. Founder wanted to break the dependency on paid acquisition before raising Series B.

What we did. Engine sprint focused on AI search optimization. The category had specific, repeated queries that ChatGPT and Perplexity were answering with mostly outdated information from incumbents. We built 12 pillar pieces directly answering those queries, with structured data, expert quotation patterns, and statistical density that AI search engines reward. Established a weekly Slack ritual where the head of customer support flagged real customer questions; we converted them to FAQ schema and content.

Outcome at 4 months. AI search citations across ChatGPT and Perplexity grew from sporadic to consistent top-3 placement for 14 priority queries. Demo bookings from organic tripled. Branded search (proxy for AI-influenced discovery) grew 41%. Paid budget held flat, but blended CAC dropped 28%.

B2B SaaS · Repositioning from “productivity” to “async-first remote”

The situation. $680K ARR B2B SaaS positioned as a generic “productivity tool.” Crowded category, average deal sizes shrinking ($380 ACV), churn 7% monthly. Founder suspected positioning was the root cause but didn’t have a structured way to test it.

What we did. Repositioning sprint. Interviewed 11 of their best-fit customers and surfaced a consistent pattern — these were all distributed teams with strong async-first cultures, often remote-by-default since founding. Built repositioning artifacts around “infrastructure for async-first remote teams.” Rebuilt the homepage, sales deck, pricing page, and onboarding flow around the new category.

Outcome at 6 months. Average ACV doubled to $760. Win rate against the largest incumbent in the new category went from 12% to 38%. Churn dropped to 3.2% monthly. ARR reached $1.4M without an increase in spend.

Fintech infrastructure · From flatline to category narrative

The situation. $2.8M ARR fintech infrastructure provider serving mid-market neobanks. Growth had flatlined for nine months despite a great product. Pricing competitive with incumbents, but the company kept losing to a larger competitor in the final deal stage because the deal champions inside customers couldn’t articulate the strategic case to procurement.

What we did. Founder advisory + Engine sprint. Helped the founder author the category-defining piece for “vertical-native fintech infrastructure” — a 9,000-word essay that became the citable reference in the category. Ghostwrote four supporting pieces. Set up analyst outreach to ensure the essay got into the relevant Gartner / Forrester briefings.

Outcome at 9 months. Pipeline value grew 2.4x. The essay was referenced in three industry analyst notes. Win rate against the larger competitor grew from 19% to 47% — because the deal champion now had a clear narrative to take into procurement conversations.

Internal-tools SaaS · Founder-led content engine

The situation. $1.1M ARR internal-tools SaaS, single founder, deep technical credibility, terrible distribution. Founder had been blogging sporadically — quality was excellent but inconsistent, and there was no infrastructure connecting writing to pipeline.

What we did. Foundation sprint + Founder Advisory. Worked with the founder to define his “essay slot” — every other Tuesday, 8am, 90-minute deep work block, non-negotiable. We built the surrounding infrastructure: research briefs prepared in advance, editorial review afterward, distribution playbook including LinkedIn, the company newsletter, and select community placements.

Outcome at 6 months. Cadence held — 13 essays published. Organic traffic grew 4.2x. More importantly: 18 inbound sales conversations came from specific essays, 6 closed, contributing $310K to ARR. The founder kept the rhythm going after the engagement ended.

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