Wednesday evening, 7:22 PM. The CFO just sent the Q3 burn breakdown. Marketing is 18% of total spend. Pipeline contribution from marketing is 11%.
The math does not work. The budget is large enough to expect compounding. The output is not compounding.
By 7:31 the head of marketing opens the channel report. Two channels are doing the work. Four are background noise on the budget line.
By 7:48 the founder pings. Cut by 30%. By when.
The cut is not the answer. The clarity test the cut would force is the answer.
Cost discipline is not a budget cut. It is a clarity test the budget can pass.
Series-A Redwood City operators carry a particular shape of marketing waste. The team scaled the spend before the channel mix was proven. By the time the burn comes under review, half the budget is locked into commitments that should never have been signed.
The fix is the diagnostic that names which two channels are actually working and what the other four were supposed to be doing.
A Paid Media Architecture Audit handles channel-level diagnosis. A Strategy Diagnostic handles the broader question. Both fixed-scope. Both ship in under two weeks.
Usually yes. Series A teams need the strategic spine document before they need channel-level audits. If paid media is the only confirmed leak, the $2,500 audit is the lower-cost entry.
Range, not number. Growth-stage B2B usually sits at 7 to 12 percent. 18% is high if the channels are not compounding. The diagnostic identifies which third of the spend is producing the pipeline.
Retainers spread accountability over months. Fixed-scope concentrates it. The diagnostic produces a document the team owns. A retainer can follow if the work earns it.
No. Enterprise buyers read Mid-Peninsula as Bay Area operating altitude. The address is bonus signal, not a credibility risk. It is geography, not gravity.
The strategic spine document. What every channel is supposed to prove.
Read the service →Channel mix, spend logic, and unit-economics discipline.
Read the service →Pipeline architecture and conversion logic for funded SaaS teams.
Read the service →Anonymized case template. Industry, stage, scope, 90-day result framing. To be filled in Bite 5.
Anonymized case template. Industry, stage, scope, 90-day result framing. To be filled in Bite 5.
Anonymized case template. Industry, stage, scope, 90-day result framing. To be filled in Bite 5.
Run the clarity test before you sign the cut.
Start with the Strategy Diagnostic · $5,000 → Read the diagnostic page first