Fractional CMO for Bitcoin, fintech, and energy companies

The marketing seat takes a quarter to fill. The marketing org does not have to wait.

A fractional CMO who builds the organization and leaves it running. Ninety days: the operating plan and cadence, the channel economics dashboard on your data, the organic-to-revenue engine live, and a hiring plan with finalists screened. At day 90 you hand it to the hire, keep the production layer running under them, or keep me. I'm Billy Boone, CMO at Simple Mining and founder of Manford. I built this once already, on Claude Code, a proprietary second brain, and swarms of agents, and it took a Bitcoin company from about $5M to $15M in marketing-sourced revenue in a year.

$5M → $15M
marketing-sourced revenue in one year at Simple Mining, 2024 to 2025
7k → 30k
email list, webinar funnels first, organic second
9k → 50k
followers on an engine that needs 15 minutes a day of approvals
Inc. 5000 ×2
No. 175 in 2025, No. 391 in 2026, 894% three-year growth
Who this is for

Funded, shipping, and nobody owns marketing yet.

Three signs. You raised in the last year. The founder is an engineer and the product is ahead of the distribution. You posted a Head of Marketing role, or you are about to, and the search will run a quarter or two.

The posting usually says

"Build the marketing organization from the ground up, including its people, processes, technology, measurement systems, agencies, and operating cadence."

What a fractional CMO from Manford does in 90 days

Builds exactly that, and documents it in a Marketing Operating Kit: positioning and segments, channel map, weekly cadence, measurement definitions, tool stack, and the 90-day plan your permanent hire edits instead of writes.

The posting usually says

"Establish clear channel economics, including CAC, LTV, payback periods, cohort performance, incrementality, and return on marketing investment."

What ships

An LTV-to-CAC and return-on-ad-spend dashboard on your data, built with your Data team: cohorts by channel, payback, blended and per-channel CAC, one view the CEO reads. Built once for Simple Mining, rebuilt for you in weeks.

The posting usually says

"Turn the existing audience, brand, content, and organic distribution into measurable customer acquisition and revenue channels."

What ships

The organic-to-revenue engine: every long-form piece becomes 15 to 20 platform-native pieces, every post that performs points at a funnel with the CTA tracked, and reply and quote engines work the accounts your customers already trust.

The posting usually says

"Hire, lead, and develop the marketing team as the function grows."

What ships

A hiring plan for the permanent seat and the first two hires under it, with finalists screened against the system they will inherit. Candidates take the job faster when they can see a running dashboard instead of a blank page.

What stays with your permanent hire

Paid media buying and budget ownership. Lifecycle marketing execution. Product launches and go-to-market leadership. Managing the team day to day. That is the role, it deserves the full salary, and it is easier to fill when the candidate walks into running infrastructure.

How it runs

One operator, a swarm of agents. The second brain is the moat.

Claude Code is the main stack. A proprietary second brain, hundreds of compiled marketing, offer, and Bitcoin sources, grounds every agent. Swarms of agents draft, repurpose, reply, and report. Scheduled routines on Hermes run without anyone at a keyboard. A human approves everything that ships. That is how one fractional CMO does the output of a department.

The math

Sequencing, not either/or.

$246k to $273k

What a Head of Marketing at a Bitcoin or fintech company posts at, plus equity, plus the quarter or two it takes to close. Every month of that search is a month the audience is not converting.

90 days

Signal Audit first ($1,500, credited). Full Install $20,000. Managed from $10,000 a month for all engines. First engine live within 7 days of voice capture or the install is free. At day 90 the hire inherits everything, or the engagement continues.

Questions

Asked on every first call.

Question

How is this different from an agency?

Answer

An agency runs campaigns for you and keeps the machine. Manford builds the machine inside your company, documents it, and hands it over. Brain, voice profile, dashboard, hook library, audit log: you keep all of it.

Question

Why Bitcoin, fintech, and energy only?

Answer

Because the second brain is built on those niches and the founder runs marketing inside one. The customers, the creators, the compliance edges, and the counter-positions are known. A generalist fractional CMO starts from zero on all four.

Question

Can you take the seat if it works?

Answer

That is one of the three exits at day 90, and it is decided then, with real information on both sides.

45 minutes. I'll show you how I would improve your channels, plus what week one would look like.

Start with the Signal Audit: one hour, the second brain runs on your business, and you leave with the setup, what is working, the counter-position, and the build plan. You keep the alpha either way.

Book a Signal Audit
$1,500, credited toward any build within 30 days.