Project Details

Client

Vela

Location

Austin, TX, US

Engagement

Brand positioning + GTM planning + Content

Duration

10 weeks (launch phase)

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Startups

Organic Growth & Waitlist Strategy

From pre-launch with no brand to 1,200 waitlist signups in 10 weeks

Client names are fictional. An anonymity clause applies to all engagements on request.

The Situation

Vela, a financial planning tool for independent creative professionals, was eight weeks from launch with a polished product and almost no marketing infrastructure. The founders had deep domain expertise: one had spent a decade as a freelance designer, the other had a background in financial software, but they'd spent the previous year heads-down in product. Their website was a holding page. Their positioning document was six bullet points in a Notion doc. They needed everything: brand voice, messaging framework, website copy, launch content, and a channel strategy in weeks, not months.

What We Did

We ran an intensive two-day positioning workshop remotely, working through Vela's audience, competitive landscape, and the specific emotional and functional jobs their product was doing for creative freelancers. What came out of that was a brand voice built around financial confidence without the condescension. A tone that felt like it was written by someone who'd actually lived the freelancer experience, not a fintech startup trying to sound relatable. From there: a full website copywriting pass, a pre-launch email sequence for waitlist nurturing, a launch content plan across LinkedIn and Instagram, and a paid social strategy for the first 30 days post-launch targeting freelance designer and photographer communities. We also wrote the first eight blog posts before launch, optimized for the search terms their audience was already using to find answers to the financial questions Vela solved.

Two-day remote positioning workshop
Full website copy, pre-launch email waitlist sequence, and launch content plan
Paid social strategy for the first 30 days post-launch
First 8 SEO-optimised blog posts written and published before launch day

Results

Vela launched with a brand that looked two years old, in the best possible way. Over 50 people were waiting before the product went live.

waitlist signups before launch day

34%

email-to-trial conversion at launch

Top 3

Google ranking for 4 target terms within 60 days

The Outcome

Vela launched on time with a brand that looked and sounded like they'd been in market for two years. Their launch week saw the highest single-week trial signup rate the founders had modelled for. Three months post-launch, organic search was their second-largest acquisition channel. The founders have since cited the positioning workshop as the most valuable thing they did in the lead-up to launch.

“

We knew what our product did. We had no idea how to talk about it. Adah came in, ran us through a process that forced us to articulate things we'd been circling for months, and then turned it into copy we were genuinely proud to put our name on. The brand felt real from day one.

— Co-founder, Vela

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