You're not bad at marketing.
You're just doing it alone in a sea of AI tools.
The founder-led businesses Solio works with aren't bad at marketing. They're just stitching together Claude chats, freelancers, and LinkedIn playbooks on top of running an actual business.
Solio is the senior growth partner you hire to stop guessing and start scaling.
You don't need another agency. You need someone in the trenches with you.
You've probably either hired an agency, burned $20K+/month for 9 months, and walked away with junior execution, a 50-slide deck, and no real understanding of your own marketing — or you're stitching together 10 different AI tools and ending up with marketing plays that blend in with your competition. There's a better way.
Typical Agency
Solio
What actually happens after you sign with Solio
After working with 100+ startups (from Series A mental healthcare platforms to wedding venues to pro sports leagues) one truth keeps showing up: diagnosing growth follows the same process. But the levers you pull to fix it should look different for every business.
Book a strategy call
Product + Audience Research
Revenue Audit
Growth Plan
Experiment
Iterate & Scale
Flexible partnership models. Built around your stage, not ours.
Growth Sprint
Growth Partnership
Fractional Marketing Lead + Growth Team
Lean + Hands-on
Tailored to Stage
AI Leverage Done Right
Channel-Agnostic
Reports Worth Reading
Why founder-led businesses trust Solio
Clear experiments, lean execution, no noise. Just decisions you can defend to your board, your co-founder, and yourself.
Book a strategy callWe've seen this movie 100+ times.
Every business is different. The playbook for diagnosing growth isn't.
I spent a decade inside marketing agencies. I ran teams. I closed multi-million dollar contracts. I integrated acquisitions. I scaled one agency from 7 people to 35 and took it through an exit. I was the person founders called when they needed results, fast.
And in my last year in corporate as a general manager closing seven-figure deals and running a team, I realized something that changed everything: I was helping agencies sell founders something I knew wasn't working. Six-week onboardings. Junior execution behind senior pitches. Locked SOWs written before anyone understood the business. Founders signing $20K/month retainers and walking away nine months later with nothing they actually owned.
I left because I couldn't keep selling it.
Solio is what I wish every founder I ever worked with had access to: one senior operator, running real experiments, using AI to move faster than any agency can — and genuinely invested in whether your business grows.
No decks. No junior handoffs. No contracts designed to protect margins instead of your revenue. If you're a founder who's great at your craft and done guessing at marketing, let's talk.
– Kristin
Lessons learned in startup marketing
Check out some of our recent content.
Questions founders ask
Who is Solio best for?
Founder-led businesses with some traction and a real product or service, but no reliable growth engine. Most of our clients are either seed-to-Series A startups or established businesses (often in home services, specialty retail, or service businesses) with outdated marketing systems. If you're the expert in your craft and marketing is the bottleneck, we'll get along.
What is fractional marketing?
Fractional marketing means you hire senior marketing talent part-time instead of paying $250K+ for a full-time CMO. You get strategy and execution from someone who's already scaled companies — without the overhead or the ramp time.
Benefits:
- Lower cost than hiring a full-time team
- Flexible and scalable support
- Senior expertise without the overhead
- Clear focus on results, not vanity metrics
How fast can we start?
Usually within 1-2 weeks. Traditional agencies spend months on onboarding and paperwork. At Solio, we keep things lean: a short kickoff, quick access to your tools, and we're testing campaigns almost immediately.
If you already have tracking and ad accounts set up, we can launch tests within days. If not, we'll build the foundation first so every dollar is tracked.
What does working together look like?
Working with Solio is simple. We start with a short kickoff to get aligned on your goals, channels, and tracking setup. From there:
- Quick Ramp-Up
- We get access to your tools and data, then start testing campaigns within the first couple of weeks. No three-month onboarding or endless decks.
- Weekly Check-Ins
- You’ll get clear updates every week. What we tested, what worked, what didn’t, and what we’re doing next. No vanity metrics or long reports you never read.
- Hands-On Execution
- We handle strategy and execution across media, content, creative, and analytics. You stay focused on running the business, not managing a bloated team.
- Fast Iteration
- We test, learn, and adjust quickly so you see traction without waiting months. When something works, we double down and scale.
- Founder-Friendly Partnership
- You can expect direct communication, honest feedback, and flexibility. We keep things lean, transparent, and focused on results.
Bottom line: working with Solio feels more like adding a growth partner to your team than hiring an outside agency.
Do you replace an in-house marketer?
Not exactly. We don’t aim to replace an in-house marketer, we fill the gap until you’re ready for one, or we work alongside them if you already have someone on your team.
- If you don’t have a marketer yet: we act as your growth team, testing channels, building traction, and putting the right systems in place. Once you’re ready to hire in-house, we help with the handoff so you don’t lose momentum.
- If you already have a marketer: we plug in as senior-level support, giving them strategy, execution help, and extra firepower so they’re not trying to do it all alone.
Bottom line: we’re not a replacement, we’re a partner. Solio gives you seasoned growth leadership without the overhead, and when the time comes, we help you build the right in-house team.
How do you leverage AI?
This is where Solio is genuinely different. We don't bolt AI onto old workflows — we've rebuilt delivery around it. AI handles research, creative iteration, reporting, and data analysis behind the scenes so our team can spend more time on strategy and the decisions that actually move the needle. The result: senior-operator quality at a pace no traditional agency can match.
What you avoid: stitching together 12 AI tools, paying monthly subscriptions, and still doing most of the mental lift yourself.
What KPIs do you focus on?
Revenue. Full stop. We'll report on leading indicators (CAC, conversion rate, ROAS, pipeline velocity), but the goal is always making you more money — not hitting vanity metrics that look good in a deck.
