Wednesday afternoon, 2:34 PM. The Series C is two quarters out. The current marketing function was bolted together during Series B growth and nothing connects: three vendors, two attribution models, four campaign tools, no coherent strategy. The board wants a plan. The team wants a rebuild.
Built for Series B-C operator ($20M–$100M ARR) where the marketing function is structurally broken and a partial fix is not enough. Applies to Founders, CMOs entering broken functions, board operating partners, PE platform CMOs post-acquisition, and similar buyers needing a complete reset.
Full Marketing-Function Rebuild is a Bay Area Layer 2 engagement product priced at $1,000,000–$3,000,000 project. Format: 9–15 months milestone-billed. Deliverable: Diagnostic phase + strategy phase + execution-system build + team-and-vendor stack rebuild + handoff. Built for Series B-C operator ($20M–$100M ARR) where the marketing function is structurally broken and a partial fix is not enough. Routes through ICP funnels, problem pages, and referrals; reached when the buyer has matched their state to the tier. Each engagement is fixed-scope at the start and cannot drift mid-engagement.
A Series B B2B SaaS in Mountain View entered SF-8 at Q4 of 2024. Marketing was 22% of total spend, contributing 14% of pipeline. Twelve months later: 14% of total spend, 41% of pipeline. The Series C closed in Q1 2026 at the planned valuation. Marketing function is now operated by an in-house CMO hired through SF-8 succession planning.
SF-8 builds the function the in-house CMO inherits. The rebuild produces the strategy, the execution system, the attribution architecture, the campaign infrastructure, and the team-and-vendor briefs. The in-house CMO arrives in month 13-15 with a working function to operate, not a broken one to fix. The cost is comparable to 12-18 months of CMO comp plus the agency or vendor stack the rebuild replaces.
Marketing function rebuild compounds across all four axes. Quarter 1 is diagnostic. Quarter 2 is strategy lock. Quarters 3-4 are execution-system build. Final 90 days are team and vendor transition. Compressing below 9 months produces partial rebuilds; expanding past 15 months loses commitment momentum. The window is calibrated to the Series B-C operating cycle.
Senior strategist plus a small embedded build team (typically 2-3 strategists) for the duration. Same senior leadership end-to-end. No delegation to junior staff. The team that diagnoses the function is the team that rebuilds it.
Five phases. Each phase has defined deliverables and a milestone bill. Pause between phases is permitted with 30 days notice if the engagement requires alignment with a board cycle or fundraise milestone. Cancellation post-Phase-1 is rare; the diagnostic typically produces commitment to the full rebuild.
Yes. The succession plan in Phase 5 sometimes includes 6-month SF-5 Fractional CMO bridge for boards that prefer to hire in-house CMO with a fractional bridge. This is contracted separately at SF-5 pricing.
Two paths. Path A: existing CMO is the strategic owner of the rebuild and SF-8 is the senior strategic partner. Path B: existing CMO is transitioning out and SF-8 manages the transition while building the function the next CMO inherits. Both paths happen; the path is locked in Phase 1.
Master Services Agreement plus phase-by-phase Statement of Work. Standard mutual-NDA, IP-ownership-by-client, indemnification, termination, and confidentiality terms. Procurement typically takes 4-6 weeks at Series B-C operators. We accommodate standard procurement processes; we do not accommodate procurement requests for hourly rate cards (the engagement is fixed-scope, not hourly).
Full Marketing-Function Rebuild · $1,000,000–$3,000,000 project · 9–15 months milestone-billed. Bay Area engagement, fixed-scope at intake.
Scope an SF-8 Rebuild → See all eight SF tiers