The team designed
to be deleted
Every engagement here is built to end. Not as a gimmick — as the alignment mechanism that makes everything else honest.
The belief
Most marketing engagements are designed to renew. The agency's business model needs the retainer to continue, so the work quietly optimizes for continued dependence: strategy that stays in someone else's head, systems that live in someone else's accounts, reporting that proves activity rather than progress. Nobody is lying. The incentive just points the wrong way, and incentives win.
I sell the opposite: a marketing function your company can eventually run without me. Six months, a defined transfer, and a decision at the end. If I've done the job, the most profitable thing you can do at month six is take the keys — and the most profitable thing I can do is be the person you recommend to the next hardware founder.
What "designed to be deleted" means concretely
- Documented systems. Every workflow is written down the week it's built — not reconstructed from memory in a handoff panic. If a process only exists in my head, it doesn't exist.
- A hire-ready job spec. You get the written definition of the role that replaces me: responsibilities, comp benchmark, first-90-days plan. The engagement's output includes its own successor.
- A team that can run it. Whether the track was Lead, Build or Run, month six ends with named humans who own named systems.
- A defined exit. A 30-day handoff plan and an honest recommendation: renew, extend, or run it yourselves. All three answers are on the table, out loud.
The arc of the engagement
00
Review
Thirty minutes, free. I arrive with three observations about your market. Qualification both directions.
01
Teardown
Twelve audit areas, one prioritized roadmap with owners and effort estimates. Separately sellable.
02
Build
Foundations fixed, systems stood up, instrumentation live — documented as it's built.
03
Run
Execution at full pace, reported monthly against pipeline instead of activity.
04
Transfer
Systems documentation, successor job spec, a 30-day handoff, an honest recommendation.
What I measure
- Pipeline created and influenced — the number the board cares about
- Progress against the roadmap — did what we said would happen, happen
- System health — is the instrumentation still telling the truth
- Transfer readiness — could your team run this today, honestly scored
What I ask of you
- An internal owner — someone who will hold the function after me
- Access to sales data; positioning gets built from evidence, not vibes
- A decision-maker in the monthly review
- A real answer at month six — renewal by default is the failure mode
When the transfer doesn't happen
Honesty requires this paragraph. Sometimes month six arrives and the function isn't ready to run alone: the hire fell through, the market shifted, the founder's attention went to a fundraise. When that happens we say so plainly and either extend with a specific gap list, or switch tracks — Run holding the line until Build can finish the job. What doesn't happen is the quiet slide into a permanent retainer. Every extension has a written reason and a new end date, because the moment "deleted" becomes negotiable, this whole page becomes marketing copy. It isn't.
Bring me your hardest go-to-market problem
Thirty minutes. I'll come with three observations about your market already prepared. No deck.