Fractional CMO
Senior growth leadership without a £150k full-time hire.
Senior growth leadership for post-PMF startups that need clearer GTM, better acquisition decisions, and more predictable pipeline.
Is this you?
How we work
What WSS brings
What you bring
Living work in Notion or Google Docs: decision rules, dashboard links, experiment backlog, and weekly scale/stop/fix notes — not a one-off slide deck. Example structures are walkthrough-ready on the diagnostic call when helpful.
By the time we leave, the system runs without us: weekly meeting, dashboard, decision log, and a clear hire profile if you're ready for a full-time CMO.
First 30 days
Funnel data, positioning, channels, team rhythm, and what's been tried. Plain-English view of where pipeline breaks.
Reset priorities around the binding constraint — positioning, acquisition, conversion, reporting, or ownership.
Channel hierarchy, reporting rhythm, campaign priorities — documented so the team can execute.
Weekly growth meeting format, owners, and decision log so momentum doesn't depend on the founder alone.
Common mistakes
Hiring a full-time CMO before the system exists
They inherit unstructured activity, lack the context to diagnose it fast, and often leave within 18 months before building the operating cadence the role needs.
Adding another agency layer
More execution without decision ownership just creates more activity for the founder to review — the bottleneck is identical, just more expensive.
Promoting the best internal marketer to head of growth
Head of Paid or Content rarely translates to senior growth judgement at this stage. The capability gap shows up fast when board pressure or fundraising hits.
In their words
"We had agencies running four channels and I was still reviewing every campaign brief. Within eight weeks we had a weekly meeting that produced actual decisions instead of updates."
"The pipeline dashboard alone was worth the engagement. For the first time the board meeting was about commercial decisions, not slide recaps."
Related reading
FAQ
Founder-led companies post-PMF, typically £1M-£10M ARR, where growth has plateaued and the founder is still the growth department. Best fit when there is real traction and an internal execution owner, but no senior growth leader yet.
A working operating system. By month three you have a weekly growth meeting that produces decisions, a dashboard the team actually reads, an experiment backlog with owners, and a clear line between activity and commercial outcome. Plus board-level reporting your investors will recognise.
Three-month minimum. Most teams stay 6–9 months. The first 30 days are diagnosis and priority reset, days 31-90 are build and transfer.
From £8k/mo for 1 day per week. £12k/mo for ~2 days per week (Fractional CMO Plus, deeper operating support and agency management).
An execution owner inside the team (the founder is acceptable for the first 30 days), read access to analytics / CRM / ad accounts, and one 60-minute growth meeting slot per week. We supply senior judgement; you supply context and execution.
Clean handover. By the end you have the operating cadence documented, dashboards owned by an internal team member, a roadmap for the next 90 days, and a hire profile if you are ready to bring in a full-time CMO. We can stay on a smaller advisory retainer if helpful.
Still not sure?
5 minutes. See whether the current constraint is positioning, acquisition, conversion, reporting, or team ownership. Prefer email first? Contact.
Take the Growth Bottleneck Scorecard →Decision point
20 minutes. We'll decide whether this is the right shape of help, what the first 30 days should focus on, and what should not be touched yet.
