Fractional CMO for a Fintech startup in the payments space.
Launch and fundraising narrative
The founding moment
Digitzs was born on a whiteboard in San Francisco. In that room, former executives from Visa, Apple, and PayPal mapped out a solution to a problem every SaaS platform CEO knows: payments are a pain. Before writing a single line of code, the founding team interviewed 300 platform CEOs to validate the idea.
By the time I came in, the product was real, the founding team was serious, and the advisors were exceptional. Laura Wagner as CEO and Founder. Ben Way, futurist and investor, as a key collaborator. David Jaques, former CFO of PayPal, in an advisory role. Kevin Harrington of Shark Tank as an early investor. Additional advisors from Apple and Visa.
This wasn't a startup searching for credibility. It was a credible team that needed a marketing and capital formation system built fast enough to match their ambition and runway.
CASE STUDY SNAPSHOT
Company: Digitzs
Sector: Fintech / Payments
Engagement: CMO / Go-to-market strategy / Launch and growth strategy
Business stage: Early-stage fintech preparing for traction and capital growth
Challenge: Digitzs needed a clearer go-to-market strategy, stronger positioning, and a more credible growth narrative to support market traction, sales growth, and investor confidence in a competitive payments category.
Work led: Go-to-market strategy, brand positioning, messaging, digital and traditional marketing direction, field marketing, sales enablement, campaign strategy, and investor-facing growth narrative support.
Outcome: Supported stronger market traction, and a $3.5M initial capital raise.
Relevant service: Launch, Traction & Capital Readiness Strategy
The situation
Digitzs was entering a crowded payments market with zero brand equity and a tight runway. The challenge wasn't the product or the team. It was speed and visibility.
They needed to earn trust with enterprise buyers and investors simultaneously, convert trade show presence into pipeline and investor demand, and coordinate launch, PR, and funding narrative as one system rather than disconnected tactics.
A fractional CMO wasn't a nice-to-have. It was the only way to build and run that system without a full marketing team.
What I owned
I came in as the CMO, working directly alongside the Founder and CEO, Laura Wagner. Partnering with a PR firm, events company, and external agency, all aligned to the same launch and capital narrative.
Category launch moment.
Declared the market moment at TRANSACT 16, the payments industry's major conference. Built a trade show program and livestreamed launch panel to extend reach beyond the room. Shifted messaging from features to outcomes, what Digitzs meant for platform CEOs, not what it did technically.
Credibility and messaging system.
Built the brand framework, ICPs, and buyer journeys. Aligned website content to enterprise decision criteria with clearer CTAs and proof points. Extended thought leadership through the "Platforms Rock" vlog with Ben Way, giving investors and buyers a window into the thinking behind the platform.
Launch to capital engine.
Synchronized the capital narrative via the Crowdfunder crowdfinancing campaign. Built the investor-facing funnel: press coverage to proof points to traction to raise. Booked 50+ qualified investor calls during the campaign. Closed 37 pre-qualified investors and surpassed the original fundraising goal.
The system
Visibility
PR · events · content
Proof
Credibility · traction
The insight that drove everything was simple but rarely executed: PR and marketing aren't separate from capital formation. They are capital formation tools when used correctly.
Every press placement built proof. Every proof point fed investor confidence. Every investor call was booked because the narrative was tight and the credibility was visible before the conversation started.
Visibility led to proof. Proof led to conversion. Conversion led to capital.
Conversion
Investor calls · demos
Capital
$2M+ raised
#1
CNBC Crowdfinance Index
The outcomes
$2M+
Raised during the engagement, primarily through Crowdfunder
50+
Qualified investor calls booked during the 2 month campaign
Results are client-reported. Capital raised includes crowdfinancing campaign and engagement period totals.
37
Pre-qualified investors closed, surpassing the original goal
What this engagement demonstrates
Digitzs is an example of what happens when marketing, PR, and capital narrative are treated as one integrated system rather than parallel workstreams. The press coverage wasn't vanity. The trade show presence wasn't a box to check. Each element fed the next in a deliberate sequence designed to convert visibility into investor confidence and investor confidence into a raise.
A founding team this strong deserved a marketing system built to match. That's what the fractional CMO role made possible.
Working through a similar inflection point
I join founder-led companies to close the gap between what you say, what you sell, and what customers need, so you can invest in growth with certainty.
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