From zero sales to a
demand engine you can scale
For new DTC brands in new categories. We find the message that sells, harvest the demand that already exists, and only then turn on paid social. You scale on signal, not hope.
A cold start is a different problem.
It needs a different playbook.
Most agency programs assume you already have sales data to optimize. Cold-start brands don't, and pretending otherwise burns budget fast.
Sales are near zero
You launched, shipped samples, gave product away — and the order count still rounds to nothing.
Your pitch converts. Your ads don't.
One-on-one, people buy after five minutes with you. On the website and in the feed, that energy disappears.
Nobody is searching for your category yet
It's a new product type. You have to educate before you can sell, and most first visitors leave confused.
The last agency shipped AI slop
Lots of AI-generated statics, little variety, no video plan — on a fat flat retainer that paid them whether you sold or not.
$100/day on Meta taught you nothing
A handful of conversions a week is noise, not signal. You couldn't tell winners from losers, so nothing scaled.
The calendar is working against you
Seasonal product, off-season launch. You need to learn now so you're ready to scale when demand comes back.
Why "just run Meta" fails at zero
Meta's algorithm learns from conversions. Give it too few and it never learns who your buyer is. It keeps spending anyway.
About $10K/month before Meta's numbers mean anything. At $100/day you get one or two results per ad set per week. That's too sparse to call winners, so you end up reshuffling until the budget runs out.
Our answer: harvest before you create. Prove the message where demand already exists, then buy attention.
Five phases. Each one earns the next.
Every phase produces a decision, not just a report. We move budget forward only when the previous phase has shown us where it should go.
Message Distillation
We turn the founder pitch that already works into words a stranger understands in five seconds.
- ✓ Mine reviews, DMs, and sales-call recordings for customer-voice language
- ✓ Rewrite the homepage and PDP around "what is it" and "why should I care"
- ✓ Competitor teardown on the Finsi platform: what's landing and what isn't
- ✓ Angle map: every audience, pain point, and hook worth testing
Google-First Demand Harvest
Search only spends when someone is already looking. So we buy signal cheaply before buying attention expensively.
- ✓ Search campaigns on ingredient, problem, and adjacent-use keywords
- ✓ Keyword and angle testing to find the phrases that actually convert
- ✓ Plain-language blog content, tested on real readers before it ships
- ✓ Affiliate and editorial placements for organic reach
Founder & Creator Content Engine
The most convincing person for your product is usually you. We build the system that puts that on camera.
- ✓ Founder story videos, built from your best-performing organic posts
- ✓ Record sales calls and cut them into podcast-style Q&A ads
- ✓ Repurpose your UGC and photo library into 15-second edits
- ✓ Creators beyond the obvious niche: athletes, travel, parents, longevity, comedy
Narrow Meta Experiments
Instead of going broad on a thin budget, we run tight, time-boxed tests where your buyers are most concentrated.
- ✓ Geo-targeted tests in your strongest markets
- ✓ Interest-led audience tests (e.g. surfers, frequent travelers, post-procedure skin)
- ✓ 1–2 week sprints with a fixed, agreed budget and a clear read-out
- ✓ Only winning angles from Google and organic make it into paid social
Commit & Scale
With proven messaging, audiences, and creative, we put real budget behind Meta, and every dollar has a reason.
- ✓ Meta at a budget that exits the learning phase ($250–300/day)
- ✓ Weekly creative cadence driven by the angle map
- ✓ Retention flows so first orders become repeat customers
- ✓ Contribution-margin reporting so scale stays profitable
AI behind the scenes.
Real people on screen.
In health and wellness, an ad that looks AI-made makes the product look fake too. So we use AI where it compounds and keep it out of the frame.
- Creative briefs & hook ideation
- Synthesizing reviews & customer feedback
- Competitor & keyword research
- Angle mapping across audiences
- Founder story & podcast-style ads
- Real footage + product, cut to 15s
- Re-hooked UGC from your library
- Creator content outside your niche
Aligned incentives. No fat retainer.
If you're starting from zero, a big flat fee only makes sense for the agency. We get paid a share of revenue, with a modest floor.
$1,000/mo minimum: you pay whichever is higher. Ad spend is paid by you, directly to the platforms.
- ✓ Message & positioning sprint
- ✓ Website clarity recommendations
- ✓ Competitor analysis on the Finsi platform
- ✓ Google Ads setup & management
- ✓ Customer-voice blog content
- ✓ Affiliate & creator sourcing playbook
- ✓ Founder-video scripting & editing
- ✓ UGC library repurposing
- ✓ Geo & audience Meta experiments
- ✓ Weekly read-out: what we learned, what's next
Good fit if…
- You're pre-traction or just launched, with real conviction in the product
- Your category needs education before people will buy
- You can get on camera, or you have creators and UGC to work with
- You'd rather pay for results than for hours
Not a fit if…
- You need guaranteed sales at $100/day on Meta next week
- You want 100% AI-generated ads for a health or wellness product
- You aren't willing to change the website or the messaging
Cold start FAQ
Why not just start with Meta? That's where DTC brands grow.
Eventually, yes. But Meta spends whatever budget you give it, and below roughly 50 conversions a week it can't learn who your buyer is. For a brand with zero sales history, that's an expensive way to find out your message isn't landing. Google only spends when someone searches, so it's a cheaper way to learn which angles convert first.
We launched in the off-season. Should we wait?
Use the slow months as a test-and-learn season. Paid social is at its most expensive and least forgiving then, but search, content, creators, and wholesale still move. When peak season starts, you scale messaging you've already proven instead of guessing.
Do you use AI?
Heavily, behind the scenes: creative briefs, synthesizing customer feedback, competitor research, keyword mining. For the ads themselves, especially in health and wellness, AI-generated visuals tend to read as fake, and the product gets judged the same way. Our default is real footage, founder video, and product shots edited into short videos.
We already have photo shoots and UGC. Can you use them?
Yes. An existing library of creator videos and professional photography is a head start. We re-cut it, re-hook it, and test it before commissioning anything new.
How does the revenue share work?
You pay 10% of revenue, with a $1,000 monthly minimum. Whichever is higher is your fee for the month. Ad spend is paid directly by you to the platforms. We'll agree on attribution rules together in writing before we start.
Your product should be flying off the shelves.
Bring us your pitch, your reviews, and whatever assets you have. On the audit call we'll show you which angle to test first, which channel to start on, and what it will cost to find out.
Book Your Cold Start Audit