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Growth partner for startups

Growth for startups, and the tech that carries it.

We define your story with you, cut it into the versions a channel needs, run one paid channel (Google, Meta, LinkedIn or YouTube), and read the signal every week: the qualified conversations the story earned, against what was spent. $2,500 a month. Ninety-day initial engagement, then month to month. Media paid by you. When the system needs technology under it, we build that too, in accounts you own.

Start a conversationGrowth Partner, $2,500 a month
Based in Austin, TexasAlso working in New York and San Franciscoand remotely across the US

From story to acquisition.

The process, in order. Define the story, cut the versions, pick the channel, read the signal, build what it needs.

Define the storyWhat was wrong, who it is for, why you. One version everyone at the company says the same way.
Craft the versionsThe same story cut for a cold ad, a page you own, a sales call, a founder post. Each one tested on its own.
Choose the platforms and channelsOne paid channel to start, in the places the customer already is. Judged on cost per qualified conversation.
Read the signalOne question, every week: did the story earn a qualified conversation? That is the number. Not what the ad clicked.
Build what it needsAI integration, tech integration and data: a model that answers from your records, one home for each fact, permissions that follow the source.

Storytelling

What’s your story?

Could a customer tell it for you?

Try it. Ask one of them why they picked you, in a sentence or two. If they start listing features, you don’t have a story yet.

Patagonia has one. In September 2022 Yvon Chouinard, who started the company in 1973 to make climbing gear, gave it away. His family put the voting shares in a trust and the other 98 percent in a nonprofit. The letter on the website said Earth is now our only shareholder. Every dollar the business does not need goes to fighting the climate crisis, about $100 million a year. Customers tell that one for them.

Yours doesn’t have to be that big. It has to be true, and short enough that a customer can say it to their business partner over lunch and get it right.

We ask for it in the first week, before anything else gets built.

Brands that tell a story

The engagement most companies start with

One fee. One story. One paid channel.

Growth Partner takes one story to one paid channel: Google, Meta, LinkedIn or YouTube, chosen by where your buyer already is. We define the story with you in week one, cut the versions, run the channel, read the signal every week, and ship one experiment a week with a written decision. $2,500 a month. You pay the platforms directly.

Growth Partner

$2,500/month

Ninety-day initial engagement, then month to month. No setup fee, no percentage of spend. Media is paid by you, directly to the platforms. Everything stays in your name.

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What the fee covers

  • The story: interviews with your customers and the founder, one version written in week one
  • The versions: the story cut for the channel, for the pages you own, for the sales call
  • One paid channel, run by us: audiences, the offer, the creative
  • The signal, read every week: qualified conversations the story earned, against spend
  • One shipped experiment a week with a decision; a weekly note, a monthly report, a working session

What you pay the platforms

A few thousanda month, to start

Enough to produce a readable signal in ninety days. Crowded categories need more. We say what we think the number is on the first call, before you commit.

After ninety days

Continue, add a channel, change, or stop.

Decided at the day-ninety meeting and at every monthly meeting after it. If the answer is stop, you keep the accounts and the log, which were yours throughout.

How the ninety days run

Every engagement runs the five steps above, from the story to the signal, and is run by the two co-founders: Quentin Torres, founder of Velani, and Mason Gray, founder of Colder Marketing. The process, week by week

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Startups, and the companies that have outgrown the label.About $1 million in revenue, or paying customers and a price on a path to it inside a year. A buyer you can describe. A person who acts on a lead inside the week.

Industries

  • Startups and tech software, AI and developer tools; buyers who read the docs first
  • Consumer brands signups, activation, first paid action, by cohort
  • Professional services the lead is a booked consultation with the right firm
  • Healthcare practices and health companies; the lead is a booked visit or demo
  • B2B software sales-led or product-led; pipeline with the source attached
  • And others past $1M a product people pay for, a buyer you can describe, someone who acts on a lead this week

Startups are the companies we are built around. The same work fits a bootstrapped company, a team that no longer calls itself a startup, and a vertical software company selling into one industry, when the revenue line and the buyer are already real.

The four-part test

Established companies

Not a startup? Same work.

The same story-to-acquisition process runs for established companies, family businesses, regional firms, and agencies with one channel that stalled. What changes is pace and the starting point. You have customers to interview and a history to mine, so the story comes faster and the first channel is usually obvious.

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Where growth breaks down

Three ways a good product stalls.

A story nobody tells the same way

The founder says one thing, the sales deck says another, the ads say a third. Customers hear three companies.

A page nobody tested

Traffic lands on the homepage, reads three headlines, and leaves. The ad and the page were never one experiment.

A channel nobody chose

Spend spread across four platforms, none big enough to learn from. Nobody reads the signal weekly, so every month ends with a guess.

Services

Growth, and the tech that carries it.

Growth Partner produces the signal the rest is judged against. The three technical services divide one offer: a model inside a workflow, the records underneath it, and the care of that system after it is live. Each is scoped on its own.

Growth

From story to acquisition on one paid channel: the story defined and cut into versions, the channel chosen (Google, Meta, LinkedIn or YouTube), the signal read every week. Judged on qualified conversations and paid customers rather than on the ad account. Run as Growth Partner.

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AI integration

A model put to work inside one existing workflow. It answers from your records with the source attached, calls a short list of tools, and stops where a person has to decide. Built in accounts you own, with the tests that show when it is wrong.

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Tech integration and data

The records under the model. One home for each fact, an explicit corpus with explicit exclusions, an index that keeps the permission of the source and lives in your account, and a knowledge graph only when the question is about relationships.

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Technical support

After the system is in use, someone has to notice when the model changes, the index goes quiet, or a tool reaches further than it should. A retainer for the behavior of a named system, measured by its evaluation set and its data rule.

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All four services, and how they are priced

Questions

Questions? Asked before most engagements.

What do you actually do?

We define your story with you, cut it into versions, run one paid channel (Google, Meta, LinkedIn or YouTube), and read the signal every week: the qualified conversations the story earned, against spend. Every month the platform’s count sits beside the conversations that actually happened. That is Growth Partner: $2,500 a month, ninety-day initial engagement then month to month, media paid by you. When the system needs technology under it, we build that too, in accounts you own.

Do we have to buy all four services?

No. Each is scoped on its own. Most companies start with Growth Partner, because it produces the signal the other work is judged against. The technical services are sold on their own when the workflow is already named.

Who do you work with?

Startups are the companies we are built around. The same work fits a bootstrapped company, a team that no longer calls itself a startup, and a vertical software company selling into one industry, when the revenue line and the buyer are already real. The test is on the services page.

Why are there no client logos on this site?

Because most agency proof is a percentage with no denominator, and your category is not another client’s category. The proof we work toward is the monthly report on your own account: qualified conversations, pipeline with the source attached, the platform’s count beside the real one, and the experiments that failed next to the ones that worked. The firm page lists what it contains.

Where are the questions about the fee and the media budget?

On the Growth Partner page, with the fee table.

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Growth you can measure. Systems you own.

Tell us what you sell and who buys it. We reply within one business day with a time to talk.

Start a conversationGrowth Partner, $2,500 a month
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