**This is the canonical reference example for the `/marketing-plan` skill.** It's the actual marketing plan produced for Olo, a clinically-validated spatial-audio nervous-system platform. The client and details are real; the plan was generated by walking the methodology in this skill end-to-end.
Use this as the "what good looks like" reference when drafting a new plan. The structure, tone, depth, and operational specificity are the bar to clear.
**Olo's archetype:** Hybrid hardware + software with deep-tech / clinical credibility layer. See `references/client-types.md` for archetype patterns.
**Funding-stage context:** Pre-seed-close (mid-raise on $3M seed). Tier 1 per `references/funding-stage-unlocks.md`. $0 paid budget; organic + lifecycle + ambassador only.
**What was strong about this plan:**
- Strategic frame (Section 2) leaned on the founder's own meditation-vs-regulation framing as the content pillar
- Current state (Section 3) included the 17-section audit rubric scored against existing materials (no formal audit run)
- 90-day roadmap (Section 9) had owner-assigned moves, not just actions
- Ops stack (Section 11) included a concrete operational proof-point (Customer.io MCP used live by non-technical founder on the kickoff call)
- Tactical idea bank (Section 12) cross-referenced all 139 marketing-ideas to AARRR + Olo-specific status, including 23 explicit skips with rationale
---
# Olo — Marketing Plan v1
**Prepared by:** Corey Haines (fCMO)
**For:** Markus, Catarina, and the Olo team
**Date:** 2026-05-27
**Status:** Draft v1 — for team review
Olo has built something rare: a clinically validated, brand-coherent, founder-led product in a category that doesn't yet have a name. The opportunity in the next twelve months is not to invent a marketing engine from scratch — it's to **convert the existing organic gravity into a measurable, repeatable funnel**, then layer paid acquisition on top of that funnel once the seed round closes.
**Three big bets, ranked by leverage:**
1.**Fix the leak before pouring water in.** The Day 1 → Day 35 funnel shape (1.34% → 5.46%) tells us the product converts given time and contact. What it's missing is a working first-session moment (the headphone gate is killing conversion) and a lifecycle layer to deliver the contact. These two pieces — onboarding rebuild and Customer.io flows shipped — are the unlock for everything else.
2.**Compound the moats Olo already has.** Peer-reviewed clinical study, Bryan Johnson PR, 15K live event participants, Markus's founder voice — these are link generators, content pillars, and credibility anchors that most wellness brands would kill for. They're under-leveraged. SEO, content, and App Store optimization translate them into search and discovery surface area.
3.**Build the founder-and-fCMO operating system that lets a 4-person team market like a 20-person one.** This is what makes the plan actually executable at Olo's team size and burn rate — agentic tooling on top of Customer.io, Shopify, App Store, Stripe, GitHub, and the marketing skill library means we ship without hiring.
**What twelve months looks like, plausibly:**
- App goes from beta to GA. Onboarding converts at meaningful lift over today's baseline.
- 4 SEO content pillars staked, with Pillar 1 (Nervous System Regulation) and Pillar 2 (Sleep + Eye Mask) ranking on Tier-1 keywords.
- Full lifecycle live in Customer.io: onboarding, lapsed re-engagement, hardware post-purchase, subscription-center opt-ins.
- Ambassador program live with 15–25 active hosts. First Olo Guides cert pilot run.
- Eye mask wedge selling at scale via Shopify with a clean hardware → app activation path. Blended CAC measured and tracked.
- Paid acquisition firing post-seed-close at $5–10K/mo initial test budget, scaling to $20–50K/mo if unit economics validate.
- Series A narrative writes itself: clinical evidence + activation lift + lifecycle compounding + first B2B install reference cases.
**The 90-day priorities** (which the rest of this doc operationalizes):
1. Kill the headphones gate. Ship the bedrock fix this week.
2. Run the three-variant onboarding test. Find the activation winner.
3. Ship Customer.io Flows 6 (eye mask post-purchase) and 4 (lapsed user) — hold Flow 2 (onboarding) until app UI stabilizes.
4. Rewrite the App Store listing in Olo's brand voice. Highest-leverage non-site asset right now.
5. Stake the SEO foundation: consolidate to `olo.app`, publish Pillar 1 hub + 3 spokes, publish the *Psychophysiology* study landing page.
6. Launch the ambassador program with the ~5 inbound waiting.
Everything else compounds on top of those six.
---
## 2. Strategic frame
This section distills positioning, ICP, and brand voice into what the team needs to keep in mind while executing. Full detail lives in `marketing-os.md`, `icp.md`, and `sound-philosophy.md`.
### What Olo is, in one sentence
A nervous system intelligence platform — clinically validated spatial audio + AI reflection companion (Ona) + hardware + venue installations + practitioner network. *"We start with sound. We expand to every sense. We end with cities."*
### The category we're claiming (and defending)
Olo doesn't fit the meditation app category, the focus audio category, or the sleep tech category. The brand makes a stronger claim: **bottom-up nervous system regulation through spatial audio**, with clinical evidence as proof and somatic credibility as defense.
The category-defining frame, per Markus (2026-05-19): **Meditation is top-down. Olo is bottom-up.** Meditation uses the mind to command the body — mental kung fu that fails the very people most likely to need help, because the prefrontal cortex is offline when stressed. Olo enters through the brainstem, before the thinking mind. The body responds before it has to try. (Full content-pillar treatment in `meditation-vs-regulation.md`.)
This is the single most important strategic message. It belongs in App Store copy, onboarding, lifecycle email, SEO content, ambassador talking points, and the seed deck.
### Who we're for (D2C ICP, distilled)
Overstimulated high-achieving professionals, 25–45, urban (Bay Area, NYC, London, Berlin, Austin). Tech workers, founders, creators, academics, designers, consultants. Often neurodivergent (ADHD, HSP, gifted). Sophisticated wellness buyers — already invested heavily in their inner life.
**Their stated problem:***"I can't shut my brain off. I've tried meditation apps. They don't work."*
**Their real problem:** Overstimulation, not under-motivation. Their gift (quick thinking) became a curse. They need permission to stop optimizing — including their rest.
**What they're actually buying:** the *feeling* of stability, sensory indulgence, beautiful rituals, effortless effectiveness, a luxurious shortcut to the genius they can't access in chaos.
### The business model logic (per seed deck)
**B2B seeds the market. D2C harvests.** A venue install puts Olo in front of ~20K people/year at ~$17K cost → 5% convert to subs → ~$430K/year per venue. Six compound channels (referral, Guides, content, home hosting, PR, community) make CAC approach zero by Year 3. Year 5: 75% of new subs come from near-zero-cost channels.
**fCMO scope per kickoff: D2C-led.** Markus owns B2B sales through events/network/founder credibility. The fCMO leverage is on the app/hardware D2C side. This plan reflects that split — B2B is acknowledged as the harvest engine but not treated as primary work surface.
### Brand voice (the non-negotiable)
Per Marketing OS:
- **Tone.** Authoritative yet accessible. Intimate yet professional. Revolutionary yet grounded. Authority comes from lived experience, not explanation.
- **Speak from the body, not the mind.** Every sentence restores somatic safety and orientation. Language opens space rather than closing meaning.
- **NO vocabulary:** Zen, chill, vibes, "high-vibe," spiritual bypass, meditation clichés, didactic/explainer language, "let me explain why this works."
- **Core method: Initiatory Reflection.** Writing's purpose isn't to explain or convince — it's to shift the reader's internal state. The result should be *"something in me moved,"* not *"I understand this concept."*
- **CTA rule:** Never pressure. "We do not remind. We invite."
This rule constrains every piece of copy across every AARRR stage. When in doubt: rewrite from the body.
---
## 3. Current state
This is what we're starting from — team, budget, what's already in motion, what's stuck, scored against the CF Marketing Audit 17-section rubric.
### Team composition (marketing surface area)
| Person | Role | Marketing surface area |
|---|---|---|
| **Markus** | Co-founder, CEO | Owns: personal LinkedIn, live events, B2B sales, founder narrative, investor relations, brand voice authorship |
**No dedicated marketing hire yet.** First hire likely post-seed close (Q3 2026 candidate): a lifecycle + content marketing manager who owns Customer.io, SEO content production, and ambassador operations day-to-day.
### Marketing budget (current)
- **Paid acquisition:** $0. Confirmed by Markus, 2026-05-20: *"D2C UA so far: My personal LinkedIn posts, live Olo events, organic word of mouth, and organic app store discovery."* No paid layer.
- **PR:** No paid PR. Organic Bryan Johnson tailwind, Mark Pincus + OpenAI angel network.
**Implication:** The 90-day plan must produce gains without any paid lever pulled. Everything in the next 12 weeks is organic, lifecycle, or product-level. Paid is a Q2–Q3 unlock.
### What's already done (acknowledge, then build on)
| Asset | Status | Marketing leverage |
|---|---|---|
| Peer-reviewed *Psychophysiology* study (2025) | Published | Anchor of clinical authority. Most undermarketed asset Olo owns. |
| Bryan Johnson eye mask endorsement | Live, generating Shopify sales | Press hook. Underused for landing-page social proof. |
| Mark Pincus + OpenAI angel investment | Closed | Investor PR opportunity. "Why I invested" Substack/Medium pieces. |
| 15K+ live event participants over a decade | Real | Email list potential, ambassador pool, testimonial bank, B2B reference. |
| Olo eye mask (5K in stock) | Selling | The wedge product. Hardware → app activation path. |
| Onboarding rebuild (3-variant test plan) | Strategy doc done | Eng scoping + headphone-gate removal |
| SEO 90-day plan + keyword research | Done | Awaiting domain consolidation decision + content production start |
### What's stuck (and needs to unstick this quarter)
| Issue | Cost of inaction | Action |
|---|---|---|
| Headphones hard-gate in onboarding | Confirmed conversion drop post-launch | Kill this week (bedrock fix) |
| 4 domains unconsolidated (olo.app, olo.space, olo.audio, olo.center) | SEO authority fragmenting, transactional email confusion | Consolidate to `olo.app` per SEO data |
| App Store listing copy not in brand voice | Highest-traffic Olo surface; off-brand experience for arriving users | Rewrite in voice (Pillar 1) |
| Domain consolidation requires 301 plan + email sender migration | Risk of traffic loss if mishandled | Plan in weeks 1–2, execute weeks 3–4 |
| `olo-promo` repo hasn't shipped since March 2026 | Marketing site is stale | Confirm whether it's live; rewrite or replace |
| 29% monthly App Store churn vs. 38% 12-month retention claim | Metric definition mismatch confusing the team | Reconcile with Shariq + Customer.io data |
| Ona post-session reflection scope unknown | Blocks Variant B and Variant C onboarding tests | Resolve with Shariq |
### Audit rubric snapshot (17-section, lens from `audit-marketing`)
Scored 0–5. This isn't a full audit — it's what we'd score Olo today using the rubric as a current-state lens. The full audit can be run via `/audit-marketing olo.app` if Markus wants a formal artifact.
| # | Section | Score | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Positioning | **4** | Clear, original category claim. The bottom-up frame is the strongest piece. Needs broader external articulation. |
| 2 | Customer research | **4** | Deep founder-led research, decade of live participants. Could be more systematically captured. |
| 3 | Homepage | **2** | `olo-promo` hasn't shipped since March. Off-brand voice in places. |
| 4 | Sales / product pages | **2** | Eye mask page exists on Shopify but isn't optimized for SEO or sales narrative. No app-product landing page in brand voice. |
| 5 | Conversion pages | **2** | `/partner` exists on `olo.app`. No `/science`, `/eye-mask`, `/ambassadors`, `/guides` pages live. |
| 6 | Competitor comparison | **1** | Nothing exists. Big SEO + sales opportunity (own "Olo vs. Calm/Headspace/Brain.fm/Endel" SERPs). |
| 7 | Resources / content | **1** | Sound Philosophy not yet public. *Psychophysiology* study not yet on a dedicated page. No blog. |
| 13 | CRO | **2** | App Store conversion rate trackable but no A/B history. Headphones gate is the obvious first test removal. |
| 14 | GTM / launches | **2** | App in throttled beta. Major launches (eye mask, Ona public) haven't had structured GTM. |
| 15 | Ads | **0** | No paid layer. Reflects the current organic strategy — not a weakness, but the budget unlock means this will move. |
| 16 | SEO | **1** | Current state: 7 organic visits/mo. Plan exists; execution not yet started. |
| 17 | Internationalization | **1** | Finland HQ + global ICP, but EN-only and US-centric copy. Defer until Q4+. |
**Total: 36 / 85 (42%).** The shape matters more than the score: high in Positioning + Messaging + Customer research, low in Conversion pages + Email lifecycle + SEO + Resources + Ads. That's the gap this plan closes.
---
## 4. Acquisition
> *"How do strangers become aware of Olo?"*
### Current state
100% organic. Four real channels: Markus's personal LinkedIn, live Olo events, organic word of mouth, organic App Store discovery. Plus passive PR drag from Bryan Johnson + clinical study.
This is good news, not bad. Every dollar of revenue earned to date has been earned without paid acquisition. The bar to exceed it isn't high; the upside on top of an organic base is significant.
### The plan
**Channel 1 — SEO (primary 90-day investment).**
The full 90-day plan lives in `seo/plan.md`. Summary: consolidate to `olo.app`, target three asymmetric clusters (nervous-system regulation KD 14–32, weighted/blackout sleep mask KD 6–30, WELL + social-wellness-club B2B KD 5–34), publish 4 content pillars. 90-day target: 500–1,500 organic visits/mo, 80+ ranking keywords. 12-month target: 10,000/mo, 1,000+ keywords.
**Channel 2 — App Store optimization (highest-leverage non-site asset).**
The App Store listing is currently the most-visited Olo URL by Apple's algorithm. Fixing the copy is higher-leverage this quarter than fixing the marketing site. Rewrite in brand voice. Add the meditation-vs-regulation framing. Lead with the clinical anchor. Test screenshot variations.
**Channel 3 — Markus's LinkedIn (productize the channel).**
Today it's ad-hoc founder posting. The next move is structured: a 2–3x/week cadence, post categories that map to the content pillars (nervous system, sound science, founder journey, clinical evidence, behind-the-scenes), trackable links via Dub, follower → email subscriber → app install funnel measured. This is Markus's voice — the channel only works if he's the one writing. fCMO + Typefully scheduling makes the cadence sustainable.
**Channel 4 — PR amplification.**
Bryan Johnson tailwind is real but underused on owned surfaces. Add a `/notable-users` or `/in-the-press` page. Pitch the *Psychophysiology* study to 5 outlets (wellness press: Well+Good, MindBodyGreen; tech-adjacent: Wired with Johnson hook; mainstream: Outside, Forbes Wellness). HARO/Help-A-B2B-Writer responses citing Olo's data. Investor PR moments ("Why I invested in Olo" Substack pieces from Mark Pincus and OpenAI angels — push for these with backlinks).
**Channel 5 — Event-to-app instrumentation.**
Live events are the highest-converting ICP exposure Olo has (15K+ participants, decade of trust). They're un-instrumented. Add: per-event QR code → app install + email capture, post-event lifecycle (Customer.io Flow 7?), event ROI tracking. Goal: turn an event from a one-night conversion moment into a 30-day funnel.
5K masks in stock. Shopify storefront exists but isn't optimized. Improvements: SEO-optimize the product page (target "weighted sleep mask," "blackout sleep mask," "silk sleep mask"), add reviews via Judge.me (per kickoff decision), 30-day return policy (US-market expectation, per kickoff), build the listicle ("Olo vs. Manta vs. Nodpod vs. Lumon"). Consider Amazon listing as a v2 distribution play.
**Channel 7 — B2B venue installs (kept lean per kickoff).**
Markus owns this. Marketing supports with: case studies after each install, `/partner` page rewrite in voice (already exists on olo.app), Pillar 4 content ("The Missing Sound Feature in WELL"), reciprocal links from partner venues baked into contracts.
Held until seed funding lands. Initial test budget: $5–10K/mo split across Apple Search Ads (highest-intent for App Store), Meta (Instagram + Facebook for eye mask), LinkedIn (B2B venue buyers). Don't fire until: (a) onboarding bedrock fix is shipped, (b) Flow 6 is live, (c) at least one Pillar landing page is in voice. Paid amplifies what already works — premature paid amplifies what's broken.
### 90-day acquisition moves
- Weeks 1–2: Domain consolidation decision + 301 plan. App Store listing rewrite first pass.
- Weeks 9–12: Pillar 4 (WELL/B2B) cornerstone published. Sound Philosophy goes public at `/research/sound-philosophy`. First PR push: pitch study + Bryan Johnson hook to 5 outlets.
### 12-month acquisition outlook
- Q1 (Months 1–3): Foundation. SEO pillars staked. App Store rewrite shipped. LinkedIn cadence stable. PR push launched.
- Q2 (Months 4–6, post-seed close): Paid acquisition pilot at $5–10K/mo. SEO compounding — Pillar 1 ranking. First B2B install reference case live.
- Q3 (Months 7–9): Paid scales to $20–30K/mo if unit economics hold. All four pillars producing. App GA — new GTM moment.
- Q4 (Months 10–12): Compound channels live. 50+ pieces of pillar content. First Olo Guides program pilot creating local SEO + earned media.
> *"Once someone tries Olo, do they have an experience that converts?"*
### Current state
Day 1 → paid: **1.34%**. Day 7 → paid: **3.73%**. Day 35 → paid: **5.46%**. *The funnel shape is the signal.* The ~4× lift over 35 days means the product converts given time and contact — both of which the current onboarding undermines and the lifecycle layer doesn't yet provide.
Caveats: app is in throttled beta. Metrics are noisy. Don't optimize against absolutes; optimize against funnel *shape* and *cohort comparison*.
### The plan
**Move 1 — Kill the headphones hard-gate (bedrock fix, this week).**
Confirmed conversion drop after the gate shipped. The fix isn't better copy on the gate — it's removing the gate. Replace with passive headphone detection + soft single-line nudge. No regret change. Full reasoning in `onboarding-recommendation.md`.
**Move 2 — Run the three-variant onboarding test.**
Three variants, each a pure expression of one belief about what drives activation in this ICP:
- **Variant 2 — Seen First.** Multi-step diagnostic → AI-generated "we see you" summary → personalized session. Tests whether being accurately named is the conversion event.
- **Variant 3 — Felt First.** Audio starts on app open. ~15 words on screen. The session IS the onboarding. Tests whether the product can carry it cold.
Test sequence (sequential, ~7 weeks to a winner): bedrock baseline → V3 vs. baseline → winner vs. V1 → winner vs. V2. Full system in `onboarding-recommendation.md`.
**Move 3 — App Store listing rewrite.**
Highest-leverage non-site asset. Rewrite in brand voice. Lead with meditation-vs-regulation. Screenshot variations to test. This is also an Acquisition move (organic discovery) but it lives here because it's the threshold to the trial.
**Move 4 — Customer.io Flow 2 (held until UI stable).**
The 8-email / 14-day onboarding sequence is drafted and on-brand. Holding the ship because the emails reference in-app screens that will change during the onboarding rebuild. Once a winning onboarding variant ships, Flow 2 gets a copy refresh against the final UI and goes live.
**Move 5 — Paywall + pricing review (cross-cuts to Revenue).**
What's the current trial structure? Length, paywall trigger, intro pricing? When the funnel shape is "lift over 35 days," extending trial may convert better than aggressively gating earlier. To be audited in Q1.
- Weeks 2–3: Variant 3 (Felt First) prototyped, instrumented, shipped to a test cohort.
- Weeks 4–5: Read Variant 3 vs. baseline. Decide ship/iterate. Begin Variant 1 build.
- Weeks 6–7: Variant 1 (Trust First) live.
- Weeks 8–9: Read V1 vs. winner. Begin Variant 2 build.
- Weeks 10–11: Variant 2 (Seen First) live.
- Week 12: Final read. Winning variant scheduled for permanent ship. Flow 2 unblocked.
### 12-month activation outlook
- Q1: Winning variant identified and shipped.
- Q2: Flow 2 ships. Paywall A/B tests start.
- Q3: GA launch — onboarding re-validated at higher traffic. Cohort segmentation by acquisition source (Shopify/eye-mask vs. direct vs. ambassador vs. paid) starts to drive variant forks.
- Q4: Onboarding is no longer the bottleneck. Focus moves to Activation → Retention transition (sessions 2–7).
- **MCPs / APIs:** App Store Connect (manual + `dev-browser` for screenshot automation), GitHub MCP (`olo` app repo for onboarding code), Figma / Pencil MCP (for onboarding screen design), Customer.io MCP (for any in-app/email coordination), GA4 MCP (activation events)
---
## 6. Retention
> *"Once someone converts, do they stay — and deepen?"*
### Current state
**Headline metric (per seed deck): 38% 12-month retention** — nearly double the category average (~20%). This is the strongest single retention signal in the deck and one of the most undermarketed claims Olo owns.
**App Store snapshot, 2026-05-16:** 145 paid, 42 churned (~29% monthly churn). Definition mismatch with the 38% claim — to reconcile. Possibly: 38% is annual cohort retention (people who paid month 1 and still pay month 12), 29% is gross monthly churn (people who paid this month who didn't pay next month). Both can be true. Need to clarify which metric is reported externally and which is the actual product health signal.
### The plan
**Move 1 — Ship Flow 6 first (Eye Mask Post-Purchase).**
Per kickoff decision and the onboarding-recommendation doc: this is the ship-ready flow. Hardware-anchored, doesn't reference in-app screens, can ship today. Wires the hardware → app activation path (eye mask buyers should get a free 6-month Premium trial — formalize this as part of the flow).
**Move 2 — Ship Flow 4 second (Lapsed User Re-engagement).**
Five emails over 38 days. Language is universal — doesn't depend on app UI state. Ship after Flow 6 is live.
**Move 3 — Hold Flow 2 (Onboarding).**
Eight emails over 14 days. Holds until app UI stabilizes post-onboarding-rebuild. Don't ship copy that will need rewriting in 8 weeks.
**Move 4 — Customer.io subscription center with opt-in topics.**
Per kickoff decision. Topics: events, app updates, somatics & nervous system, eye mask promotions. Users self-segment. Improves deliverability (lower complaint rates) and gives lifecycle a richer segmentation surface.
**Move 5 — Ona post-session reflection (when scoped).**
Most powerful retention move medium-term. After a session, Ona asks *"What did you notice?"* Optional preset chips + free text. Two payoffs: (a) gives Ona priors for personalization on session 2+, (b) reflection responses become a content + segmentation goldmine for the team. Scope question for Shariq — does Ona currently support this, or is it new build?
**Move 6 — Hardware → app activation flow.**
The eye-mask-buyer-becomes-Premium-subscriber path is hinted in the seed deck (blended CAC via hardware) but isn't visible in the App Store dashboard. Audit the existing flow: does an eye mask Shopify purchase actually deliver a free Premium code? How is it redeemed? What's the conversion rate? This is foundational to the "B2C wedge" thesis.
**Move 7 — Reconcile the retention metric.**
What's the actual definition of "38% 12-month retention"? Cohort? Plan type (monthly vs. annual)? Survives this even if the answer is uncomfortable — the team and investors need to be talking about the same metric.
**Move 8 — Annual plan as default (cross-cuts to Revenue).**
Industry pattern: defaulting to annual reduces churn anxiety and improves LTV. To test in Q2.
### 90-day retention moves
- Weeks 1–2: Flow 6 (eye mask post-purchase) ships. Address fixes from kickoff review (study link line break, CAN-SPAM footer, founder face-bubble signature, Judge.me reviews).
- Weeks 3–4: Flow 4 (lapsed user re-engagement) ships.
- Weeks 5–6: Customer.io subscription center built and live.
- Weeks 7–8: Hardware → app activation flow audited and documented. Fix any leaks.
- **MCPs / APIs:** **Customer.io MCP** (validated on kickoff — non-technical team can ship flows), Shopify (eye mask buyers as event source), Stripe MCP (subscription state, churn cohort pulls), GA4 MCP (session events, retention curves)
---
## 7. Referral
> *"Do retained users bring more users — and at what cost?"*
### Current state
~5 inbound ambassadors waiting (per kickoff). Dub.co set up. No formal program yet. WOM happens naturally per Markus's UA breakdown.
This is one of the strongest leading indicators in the business: 5 unaffiliated people have raised their hand asking to bring Olo to their network *before any program exists*. That signal doesn't show up in apps with weaker product-market fit.
### The plan
**Move 1 — Launch the ambassador program with the 5 inbound.**
Tier 1 of the program. Per-ambassador landing pages (e.g., `olo.app/with/sarah`). Dub.co tracks attribution. Commission structure to determine (per kickoff, $/sub or rev-share TBD). Soft-launch with the 5 — treat as pilot cohort, gather feedback, refine before opening applications.
**Move 2 — Build the share-after-shift moment.**
The Ona post-session reflection (see Retention) is the natural moment to surface a share prompt. After a user reports a felt shift, offer: *"Want to share Olo with someone who needs this?"* Single-line, never pushy. Most powerful WOM mechanism: gift-a-month flow where the recipient gets a discounted or free intro.
**Move 3 — Founder amplification (Markus + Catarina as ambassador-zero).**
Markus mentioning the fCMO engagement in fundraise pitches (permission granted). Reciprocal mentions in fCMO-side content. Catarina's clinical network → practitioner ambassador pool.
**Move 4 — Olo Guides cert pilot (long-term, Q3+).**
The Guides program is the Phase-2 referral compound (per seed deck). 500–1,000 Guides across 50+ cities by Y3–5. First cert pilot: 3–5 hosts who run live sessions, get a rev-share + co-marketing. Builds local SEO + earned media + ambassador-of-ambassadors flywheel. Hold until paid + lifecycle are firing — Guides is a multi-quarter build.
**Move 5 — Eye mask gifting flow.**
Hardware referral is rare and powerful. *"Send a friend an Olo eye mask. They get the mask + a free 3-month Premium. You get a credit toward your next thing."* Holiday/gifting peak windows are the test.
**Revenue to date: ~$500K on ~$250K raised.** Capital-efficient. Hardware + B2B + app subs all contributing.
**MRR (App Store snapshot): $592.** Beta-throttled, not steady-state. The implied ~$4/sub/mo against $30/mo list suggests heavy annual plan adoption (which compresses monthly revenue but improves LTV) or significant promotional pricing — to reconcile with Markus.
### The plan
**Move 1 — Pricing audit.**
What's actually being charged today? List price, common plan mix, intro pricing, churn-recovery offers? The $4/sub/mo implied math doesn't tell a clean story — need ground truth before recommending changes.
**Move 2 — Annual plan as default (test).**
Industry pattern, cross-references to Retention. Test in Q2.
**Move 3 — Hardware → app bundling formalized.**
Per Andre Hurd / Daybreakers framing in the seed deck: blended CAC via hardware → app subscription is the play. Today an eye mask buyer gets... what, exactly? Free Premium? Trial code? Audit + formalize. The eye mask is the wedge; the app is the LTV.
The current page underperforms what it could. Add: SEO targeting ("weighted sleep mask," "blackout sleep mask"), Judge.me reviews (kickoff decision), 30-day return policy (kickoff decision), upsell flow into Premium app.
**Move 5 — Consider Amazon listing for eye mask.**
Amazon takes margin but is its own discovery engine. Test as v2 distribution if Shopify volume validates.
**Move 6 — B2B install case studies + sales material.**
Markus owns B2B sales but marketing supports with: post-install case studies (EHA as the flagship), `/partner` page rewrite in voice, Pillar 4 SEO content. Each B2B install is a ~$430K/year recurring + reference-case multiplier.
**Move 7 — Data licensing (long-term, flag for ops stack).**
Per seed deck Y10–15 value pool: $100–160M/yr. Not immediate revenue. Belongs in the 24-month strategic agenda. Flag here so we don't lose sight.
### 90-day revenue moves
- Weeks 1–2: Pricing audit. Reconcile implied vs. listed MRR.
- Q2: Annual plan default test live. Eye mask Shopify producing measurable lift.
- Q3: B2B install case studies (1–2) published. GA launch + new pricing tier consideration (e.g., a higher-tier Ona-heavy plan?).
- Q4: Pricing optimized via test results. Hardware → app blended CAC tracked and reported. First numbers on the data-licensing thesis (still very early).
- App GA launched with new GTM moment (PR + ad creative refresh + Pillar 3 spatial-audio-science content cycle)
- First Olo Guides cert pilot (3–5 hosts)
- All four pillars producing weekly content
- Eye mask gifting flow live for holiday peak
- New marketing hire onboarded
**KPI targets:** Paid + organic blended CAC stabilizing. App GA conversion +50% from beta baseline. Guides pilot validates rev-share + co-marketing model.
### Q4 — Months 10–12 (Mar–May 2027)
**Funding state:** Pre–Series A. Paid scaling continues. Series A pitch in motion.
**Focus:** Compound. Position for Series A.
**Outcomes by end of Q4:**
- Compound channels (organic + ambassador + Guides + lifecycle) producing 50%+ of new subs
- 50+ ambassadors, 5–10 Guides
- 4 SEO pillars + 30+ pieces of content live
- Paid scaling to $50–150K/mo if validated
- Series A narrative: clinical evidence + activation lift + lifecycle compounding + B2B reference case pipeline
**KPI targets:** D2C ARR run-rate trajectory clear. Blended LTV/CAC > 3. Founder narrative + data + reference cases ready for Series A.
---
## 11. Marketing operations stack
This is what makes the plan executable at Olo's team size. A 4-person founder team + fCMO + agentic tooling can ship the output of a 15–20-person traditional marketing org — because the marketing skill library and MCP integrations do the orchestration.
### The thesis
Every move in the AARRR breakdown above maps to (a) one or more marketing skills that operationalize the work, and (b) one or more MCP/API integrations that let it execute without a dedicated headcount per channel.
The fCMO's job is to:
1. Define the strategy and sequencing (this doc)
2. Run the skills against the right context at the right time
3. Maintain the shared context (`olo-context`) and tooling so Markus + Catarina + future hires can plug in
4. Hand off operational work to humans (or future hires) only where the cost of agentic execution > human execution
Per kickoff call: *"Built live on call — abandoned-cart flow drafted using Customer.io's Claude MCP. Validated that non-technical team can use the skill pattern independently."*
This is the operational proof that the stack works. Markus, who is not a developer, drafted a working lifecycle flow with Claude + Customer.io MCP in real time on a kickoff call. The same pattern applies to: Flow 4 ship (lapsed user re-engagement), subscription center build, win-back campaign, eye mask gifting flow, ambassador lifecycle. The fCMO's role becomes orchestration + brand-voice QA, not hand-cranking each email.
### Capability unlocks by funding stage
| Stage | Headcount | Tooling | Channels live |
|---|---|---|---|
| **Pre-seed-close (now)** | fCMO + founder team | All current tooling + Corey's marketing skill library + MCP layer | Organic only (SEO, content, App Store, LinkedIn, events, WOM, ambassador) |
| **Seed close (~Q3 2026)** | + first marketing hire (lifecycle/content) by end of Q3 | + paid ad accounts (Apple Search Ads, Meta, LinkedIn) | + paid acquisition pilot $5–10K/mo |
| **Seed deployment (Q3–Q4 2026)** | + designer (potentially fractional) | + analytics expansion (Mixpanel or Amplitude if needed) | + paid scaling $20–50K/mo, + Guides cert pilot |
The marketing skill library scales these stages. Every channel added doesn't require a 1:1 headcount increase because each skill encodes the workflow.
---
## 12. Tactical idea bank — 139-idea cross-reference
The `marketing-ideas` skill catalogs 139 proven marketing tactics. Sections 4–8 (AARRR) prescribe what we're *doing*. This section maps the full universe of what's *possible* — every idea cross-referenced to the AARRR stage it primarily serves, with Olo applicability and timing.
This is the exhaustive menu. The plan above is the curated path. When we move to Q2 / Q3 / Series A and unlock new capacity, this is the inventory we pull from.
**Status legend:**
- **Now (Q1)** — already in the 90-day plan OR can run alongside it without new capacity
| 132 | Price Localization | Q4+ | Adjust pricing for local purchasing power once international |
| 86 | Lifetime Deals | Skip | Brand-conflict — see Acquisition skip list |
### 12.6 Cross-cutting / brand foundation ideas
| # | Idea | Status | Olo note |
|---|---|---|---|
| 139 | Customer Language | Now | Ona reflection responses + 7 Ds language = the source-of-truth for customer language across all copy |
| 114 | Moneyball Marketing | Ongoing | Find undervalued channels at every stage — methodology, not a single tactic |
### Idea-bank summary
- **88 ideas applicable to Acquisition** (the dominant stage at Olo's current stage — makes sense, Olo's product converts well; the bottleneck is the top of funnel)
- **7 ideas to Activation, 8 to Retention** (smaller because these stages are about depth, not breadth — execute the right few well rather than running a wide tactic menu)
- **5 ideas to Referral** (program-driven, not tactic-driven)
- **3 ideas to Revenue** (most revenue work is pricing strategy, not tactical tricks)
- **2 cross-cutting**
- **23 ideas skipped for brand / business-model fit** — Olo's category positioning constrains what's available
**What this proves:** the plan is roughly 30% of the available tactical surface area, not 100%. That's appropriate at this stage and budget. As capacity unlocks across Q2 → Q3 → Series A, the cross-reference becomes the inventory we pull from to scale activity without losing strategic coherence.
---
## 13. Measurement, RACI, open decisions, appendix
### Measurement — the metrics that matter
**North star (proposed):**
**Blended-LTV-to-blended-CAC ratio per acquired user**, where:
- Blended LTV combines app subscription revenue + hardware revenue (eye mask + speakers) + any cross-sells, per cohort
- Blended CAC combines paid spend + content production cost + ambassador commissions + lifecycle tool spend, per cohort
This captures the business model: the eye mask wedge isn't free if it costs $X to make, and the app sub isn't expensive to acquire if a Bryan-Johnson-style PR moment is paying for itself.
If a single metric is preferred for team-level focus, fall back to: **monthly new D2C subscribers from non-paid channels.** This isolates the compound channels the long-game strategy depends on.
| Strategic plan (this doc) | Corey | Markus | Catarina, Emily | Team |
| Brand voice | Markus + Catarina | Markus + Catarina | Corey | Team |
| App + onboarding implementation | Shariq | Markus | Corey | Team |
| Lifecycle flows (Customer.io) | Corey | Markus | Catarina (copy QA) | Team |
| SEO content | Corey | Corey | Catarina, Markus | Team |
| App Store copy | Corey | Markus | Catarina | Team |
| Markus's LinkedIn cadence | Markus | Markus | Corey (orchestration) | Team |
| Events | Markus + Catarina | Markus | Corey (instrumentation only) | Team |
| Ambassador program | Corey | Corey | Markus | Team |
| B2B sales | Markus | Markus | Corey (case studies) | Team |
| Pricing | Markus | Markus | Corey | Catarina |
| Investor narrative | Markus | Markus | Corey, Catarina | Team |
| Olo Guides program (Q3+) | TBD (likely future hire) | Markus + Catarina | Corey | Team |
| Future marketing hire (Q3) | Corey | Markus | Catarina | Team |
### Open decisions blocking the plan
Most blocking, ranked by impact:
1.**Canonical domain.** SEO data + this plan recommend `olo.app`. Needs exec sign-off + 301 execution plan. *Blocks: domain consolidation, SEO foundation, email sender migration.*
2.**Retention metric definition.** Reconcile 38% 12-month retention claim vs. 29% monthly App Store churn. *Blocks: clean dashboards, investor narrative coherence, lifecycle test reads.*
3.**Ona post-session reflection scope.** Does Ona currently support this, or is it new build? *Blocks: Onboarding Variants 1 and 2 (which depend on Ona reflection moment), retention compound moves.*
4.**App UI stability timeline.** When does the headphone-gate-removal + onboarding-rebuild allow Flow 2 to ship without rework risk? *Blocks: Flow 2, full lifecycle, paid acquisition timing.*
5.**GA launch timeline.** When does the throttled beta become GA? *Blocks: paid acquisition scale, Q3 GTM planning.*
7.**First marketing hire scope.** Lifecycle + content owner, or something else? When does the JD get written? *Blocks: Q3 capacity plan, succession of fCMO operational work.*
