Fractional CMO for startups that need strategy and execution.

Story Mode embeds a fractional CMO directly into your team. Senior marketing judgment, a go-to-market plan your team can actually run, and the operating discipline to keep it running — led by one operator with 20 years of hands-on experience.
20yr
In growth marketing
100+
Clients led personally
$20M+
Raised & earned
Trusted by founders at
GroundfloorRaiinmakerBlockonomicsBitrefillDSCVRTradeZeroStep3

What this looks like in practice.

BlockonomicsChief Marketing Officer, Oct 2017 – Jun 2023
The real customer was invisible under the old positioning.

A permissionless Bitcoin payment gateway, effectively a founder and a product with no marketing function and no recurring revenue. It had positioned itself against BitPay — putting a bootstrapped team into a head-on fight it could not fund, while describing a customer segment that already had plenty of options.

  • Repositioned around merchants locked out of conventional banking rails, concentrated in South America and Africa, where permissionless is the only workable option rather than a preference
  • Rebuilt messaging, content, and business development outreach around that segment
  • Built and managed a cross-functional team across content, email, SEO, influencer, and paid
  • Ran sustained funnel optimisation against the new positioning
Conversion 0.5% → 3%; from no recurring revenue to five figures monthly, primarily organic
The brand had not kept pace with the protocol's scale.

A decentralised cross-chain liquidity protocol with a large, vocal, highly technical community and significant assets under management. It had grown quickly on engineering credibility with no corresponding marketing function. Ownership was distributed with nobody accountable, agency relationships were unmanaged, and live reputational exposure was affecting confidence among users and partners.

  • Led a full brand refresh, including positioning and visual identity
  • Restructured how marketing was organised, establishing clear ownership across functions that had overlapped
  • Sourced, hired, and managed external agencies against defined scopes
  • Directed crisis communications through a sustained period of public scrutiny
A coherent brand, defined marketing accountability, and a communications posture able to handle scrutiny rather than react to it

What they said.

Deep knowledge in marketing with a deep passion about crypto. Always quick to produce results.

Sergej KotliarCEO, Bitrefill

Helped kickstart our marketing strategy from concept to new product launch.

Nick CasaresHead of Product, Step3

Brings creativity and enthusiasm — helping with submissions, promotions, and content delivery.

Ajay KishoreFounder, Stareable Festival NYC

You’ve been here before.

1
Your founder is playing CMO, and it’s eating their roadmap alive.
2
You’re running disconnected tactics with no strategy tying them together.
3
You’ve hired agencies and freelancers — but nobody owns the outcome.
4
Channels are running without clear pipeline impact or attribution.
5
You’ve tried AI tools, but without direction they produce more output and no more traction.

Story Mode fixes the leadership gap. Not with more tools — with the right operator.

What a fractional CMO should own.

A fractional CMO who only advises is an expensive consultant. The scope below is what senior marketing leadership should actually be accountable for — two to three days a week, embedded in your team.

01
Positioning & GTM strategy

ICP definition, narrative architecture, and a go-to-market plan tied to revenue outcomes rather than activity.

02
Channel prioritization

Deciding which channels earn investment and which get cut, based on your economics rather than what worked somewhere else.

03
Team & contractor direction

Your marketers, designers, and agency partners get a senior lead who sets priorities, runs the standup, and removes blockers.

04
Execution rhythm

A weekly operating cadence with clear ownership, so work ships on a schedule instead of in bursts around the founder’s availability.

05
Pipeline reporting

A KPI model and operator-level reporting that tells you what to double down on and what to kill — defensible in a board meeting.

06
AI-enabled marketing systems

Workflows for research, reporting, and content operations built around real operating needs, so a lean team covers more ground.

Fractional CMO vs a full-time hire.

The question is rarely whether you need senior marketing leadership. It is whether you need it five days a week, permanently, before the role has been defined by someone who has done it.

Fractional CMOFull-time CMO
CostMonthly retainer, no equity or benefitsSix-figure salary, equity, benefits, severance
Stage fitSeed to Series B, and established SMBsSeries B onward, once the function is defined
Time to startDaysThree to six month search, plus notice period
Hiring riskMonth to month — a bad fit costs weeksA mis-hire costs a year and the runway behind it
AvailabilityTwo to three days a weekFull time
Operating depthStrategy plus hands-on executionStrategy, plus a team to delegate execution to
Cost
Fractional CMOMonthly retainer, no equity or benefits
Full-time CMOSix-figure salary, equity, benefits, severance
Stage fit
Fractional CMOSeed to Series B, and established SMBs
Full-time CMOSeries B onward, once the function is defined
Time to start
Fractional CMODays
Full-time CMOThree to six month search, plus notice period
Hiring risk
Fractional CMOMonth to month — a bad fit costs weeks
Full-time CMOA mis-hire costs a year and the runway behind it
Availability
Fractional CMOTwo to three days a week
Full-time CMOFull time
Operating depth
Fractional CMOStrategy plus hands-on execution
Full-time CMOStrategy, plus a team to delegate execution to

Fractional CMO vs a marketing agency.

Agencies are good at producing work. They are structurally unable to decide what work should exist — that requires sitting inside the business.

Fractional CMOAgency
Who sets strategyYou do, together, from inside the businessYou do — the agency executes your brief
Who writes the briefThe fractional CMOSomeone on your side has to
AccountabilityOwns the pipeline numberOwns the deliverable and the timeline
Team integrationIn your standups, Slack, and leadership meetingsScheduled calls and status reports
Managing other vendorsDirects your existing agencies and contractorsIs one of the vendors
Best used forOwning the functionScaling execution once the function exists
Who sets strategy
Fractional CMOYou do, together, from inside the business
AgencyYou do — the agency executes your brief
Who writes the brief
Fractional CMOThe fractional CMO
AgencySomeone on your side has to
Accountability
Fractional CMOOwns the pipeline number
AgencyOwns the deliverable and the timeline
Team integration
Fractional CMOIn your standups, Slack, and leadership meetings
AgencyScheduled calls and status reports
Managing other vendors
Fractional CMODirects your existing agencies and contractors
AgencyIs one of the vendors
Best used for
Fractional CMOOwning the function
AgencyScaling execution once the function exists

Selected operating experience.

Marketing leadership is easy to claim and harder to operate. These are roles held, not clients advised.

  • Chief Marketing OfficerBlockonomics · 2017–2023
  • Chief Marketing Officer (Fractional)Raiinmaker · 2024
  • Head of MarketingDSCVR · 2023–2024
  • Fractional CMOGroundfloor
  • Growth MarketerBitrefill · 2018
  • Digital Marketing ManagerGotstyle · 2009–2016

Plus growth and marketing work with TradeZero, Step3, Haven Workspace, Myosin, and Stareable Festival NYC. Reggie is also building an education track around marketing, AI, and GTM strategy through university and professional training work.

The first 90 days.

Week 1–2
Understand the business

The founder, the market, the product, the current funnel, and the constraints nobody writes down. Understand what is true before deciding what to do.

Founder interviewsFunnel auditChannel history
Week 3–4
Find the leverage

Not every marketing problem deserves equal attention. Identify the few moves most likely to shift traction — and name the ones worth ignoring.

Positioning gapsChannel prioritiesTeam capacity
Month 2
Build the operating plan

Campaign roadmap, content direction, KPI model, ownership map, and the weekly rhythm that keeps it moving.

Roadmap liveKPI modelExecution cadence
Month 3
Run it and adjust

Measure, iterate, and compound what works. Growth becomes a repeatable operating cadence rather than a series of guesses.

Performance reviewOptimization cyclesPlaybook handoff

How we work together.

Fractional CMO

Embedded marketing leadership on a monthly retainer. Reggie joins your team as CMO — setting strategy, directing execution, and owning the growth outcomes.

Two to three days a week embedded
Positioning and GTM roadmap
Team and contractor direction
Campaign planning and execution
Weekly reporting and KPI model
Optional: AI-enabled workflows
Slack and async communication
Month-to-month, no lock-in

Scoped as a monthly retainer against what the company actually needs — advisory, embedded leadership, or deeper execution support. Not a team stat: Reggie has personally led every one of these engagements across 20 years.

Questions.

What does a fractional CMO actually do?
A fractional CMO provides the same leadership as a full-time Chief Marketing Officer — positioning, GTM strategy, channel prioritization, team direction, budget guidance, and accountability for pipeline — on a part-time retained basis. The distinction that matters is ownership: a fractional CMO owns the number, not just the deliverables.
What should a fractional CMO own?
Positioning, go-to-market strategy, channel prioritization, messaging, campaign planning, contractor and agency direction, pipeline reporting, the execution rhythm, and the marketing operating system underneath all of it. If an engagement only produces advice and a deck, the scope was set wrong.
How is a fractional CMO different from a marketing agency?
An agency executes against a brief that someone else has to write. A fractional CMO writes the brief, sits in your leadership meetings, and manages the agencies you already have. Agencies work alongside your team. A fractional CMO works inside it.
How is a fractional CMO different from a full-time CMO?
Same seniority of judgment, a fraction of the cost, and no equity, benefits, or severance. The trade is availability: you get two to three days a week rather than five. For most companies between Seed and Series B, that is enough to own the function — and it removes the risk of a six-figure hire made before the role is properly defined.
Is this advisory, or hands-on execution?
Both, and the balance shifts with stage. Early on it is heavier on diagnosis and positioning. Once priorities are set, it moves to execution planning, contractor direction, campaign management, and reporting. Story Mode is not an advisory practice that hands over a strategy and leaves.
What does a fractional CMO cost?
Most serious fractional marketing leadership engagements are structured as monthly retainers. The right scope depends on whether the company needs advisory, embedded leadership, or deeper execution support — and on how much of the function already exists. Book a call and the scope gets quoted against what you actually need, rather than a package.
What happens in the first 90 days?
Weeks one and two are diagnosis: positioning, funnel, channels, team capacity, and the constraints nobody writes down. Weeks three and four identify the few moves most likely to shift traction. From month two onward the work is building the operating plan and running it — campaign roadmap, KPI model, ownership map, and a weekly execution rhythm your team keeps after the engagement ends.
Who should hire a fractional CMO?
Companies that need senior marketing direction but are not ready for a full-time executive. It fits best from Seed to Series B, and with established SMBs where the founder has been carrying marketing alongside everything else. If you have traction and no one senior owning how it compounds, that is the gap this fills.

Let's develop
your story.

One 30-minute call. No pitch decks. A practical conversation about where marketing is stuck and whether embedded leadership makes sense.

Book a Call
hello@storymode.co· Niagara-on-the-Lake, ON · Remote-first worldwide