Andrew Capland

Coach for heads of growth | PLG advisor | former growth @ Postscript, Wistia, HubSpot

I help heads of growth have more influence and impact with 1:1 coaching -  and I help early-stage SaaS teams scale as a product-led growth advisor.

After coaching more than 50 clients, it's become clear... Most Growth Teams face the same struggles:

You’re not always sure which lever to pull to drive meaningful impact.

You don’t have a repeatable operating system, so there's no structured process for prioritizing experiments, aligning across teams, or scaling execution

You're spending too much time convincing instead of executing. You're constantly selling ideas internally, securing resources, and fighting for buy-in.

Your role feels misunderstood because your boss has never done your job, and leadership sees the numbers but doesn’t always recognize the full impact of growth.

You’re ready for the next level but don’t have a clear roadmap to get there.

I'm Andrew

I’m the former growth lead at two high-volume PLG businesses: Director of Growth at Wistia, and Head of Growth at Postscript.

I’ve been where you are.

I’ve built and scaled growth teams from scratch, run hundreds of experiments, and made every mistake in the book. I know what "good" looks like, and I know how overwhelming it can feel without mentorship from someone who's done your job.

Now, I take everything I've learned to help other growth leaders increase their impact and influence.

☎️ Book a call to work with me ☎️
https://deliveringvalue.co/get-started

Founder

Delivering Value offers coaching & advising for product-led growth teams.

Because scaling a product-led business is hard. It's a really effective go-to market model, when done right. But, it’s still relatively new and most companies don’t have someone with extensive PLG experience. 

That means you spend a lot of time and money making mistakes trying to figure it out. Or, you feel overwhelmed by all the content out there, trying to teach yourself.

That’s were the idea of Delivering Value was born. To help early-stage tech companies save time by avoiding common mistakes, learn proven frameworks & methods instead of trying to figure it out themselves, & ultimately grow faster.

Services include:
* 1:1 coaching for heads of growth
* PLG advising for SaaS teams
* Digital products for the growth community

I specialize in helping clients who work at small to mid-sized SaaS companies (usually starting around $8-$10 million in ARR), not tech unicorns. If that sounds like you, send me a message!

Mike Rome

- Cut my teeth in management consulting
- Left for tech & startups in 2012
- Been scaling growth-stage cos. since

ACCOMPLISHMENTS:

- Helped many scale to 8-figs, incl. $50M+
- Acquired millions of paying customers
- Led growth for Top 100 Inc 5000 brand
- Built & led growth teams of 15+
- Managed 8-fig budgets with clear ROI
- Advised startups raising combined $250M+
- C-Suite for two 100+ person cos. (CMO, CGO)
- Taught at top MBAs (Kellogg) & accelerators (Techstars)

HOW I CAN HELP:

- Growth & Marketing Audits
- Ads Management
- Creative & Conversion Advisory

EMAIL:

- mike@moonwater.co

Fractional CMO & CGO, Startup Advisor

moonwater is a growth studio to help top tech companies scale. Companies hire me as a Fractional CMO or CGO, or Growth Advisor.

Google: Fire your entire account rep team.
Their reputation w top agencies is awful.

These emails need to stop:
- Fear-mongering subject lines
- Generic, unhelpful advice
- From people who’ve never run ads

If we don’t warn clients, it sets off fire drills.

Client: “We lost 71% of impressions??”

Us: “We don’t chase impressions. We chase profit.”

Client: “Right. Makes sense.”

In 15+ years, I’ve met with 15+ reps.
Only one said something useful.

We’re students of the game.
We don’t know it all.
But we protect our time.

So we decline meetings.
We invite recommendations by email.
Instead, we get multiple follow-ups with no substance.

Save the headcount.
Invest it in making the product better instead.

Don't do many of these, but 15.5K followers feels like the right time.

My story:
-Cut my teeth in mgmt consulting
-Left for tech & startups in 2012
-Been scaling high-growth brands since
(Bootstrapped, PE, and VC)
-Teach about marketing & growth
(Techstars, Northwestern Kellogg)

Today:
I help $5M-$100M brands turn ad spend into profit.
Our agency is the opposite of most:
-No junior employees
-No lengthy contracts
-Always flat-fee
-Profit-focus

Love the work. But trying to put it in more of a box these days.

Have three young boys and a badass wife.

Family-first all the way 👊

Thanks for being here 🙏

Portrait of the author - outside with a mountain landscape in the background.

Quit moving the damn goal posts.
 
Had dinner with a good friend.
He told me about his good friend –
 
Just sold a company for $400M.
 
Wild. Really impressive.
But it reminded me –
 
How comparison is the thief of joy.
Every time.
 
When I left management consulting,
I would’ve killed for where I landed five years later.
 
When I stayed in tech,
I would’ve killed to know I’d be CMO by 30.
 
When I left to start my own thing,
I would’ve killed for the outcome so far.
 
And yet…I rarely stop.
I rarely celebrate.
I just move goal posts.
 
This isn’t anti-ambition.
And it’s not a brag.
 
It’s just easy to forget…
how good this already is.
 
A reminder.
For me.
Maybe for you too.

Taught at Northwestern Kellogg this week.
Six lessons on business and marketing.
 
On Business
 
1. Expectations run everything.
Business is just problems.
Expect them.
Then get good at solving them.
 
2. Bias for action wins.
Stop planning. Stop debating.
Go talk to customers.
Never stop.
 
3. The problem matters most.
Forget brand. Forget polish.
Forget even great marketing.
Find a problem so painful
customers forgive the rest.
 
On Marketing
 
4. Simplicity wins.
Speed beats complexity.
Fewer campaigns and targeting.
A lean tech stack.
Learning dies in bloated systems.
 
5. Creative is the lever.
Creative is the targeting.
If it doesn’t communicate value instantly,
nothing else matters.
 
6. Ads are for learning first.
Early ads are research.
Small bets. Clear hypotheses.
Measure how fast you’re getting smarter.
Revenue follows clarity.
 
Thanks Rick Desai + Northwestern University - Kellogg School of Management for having me.

Photo inside the main, expansive lobby of Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management.

Most “Fractional CMOs” aren’t actually CMOs.
 
They’ve never sat in the seat.
Never owned the number.
Never felt the pressure when growth stalled.
 
And at the $5M–$50M stage, you can’t afford to find out the hard way.
 
At this level, every marketing dollar counts.
You need someone who’s:
- Scaled brands through your revenue range
- Built teams, not just “advised” them
- Owned P&L when the board asked tough questions
 
Before I went fractional, I’d been:
- CMO of a $50M+ brand
- CGO of another 8-figure company
 
Not saying I was the best.
Plenty more accomplished than me.
 
But I did the job.
At this scale.
With my neck on the line.
 
That’s what “fractional” should mean.
 
Real CMOs go fractional because burnout is real and the upside is better. But that’s not most.
 
Your next growth stage is too important to gamble on someone who’s never been there.

We walked away from $100K+ in fees.
 
A brand reached out.
$25M in revenue.
$500K/month in ad spend.
 
On paper? A dream client.
 
One problem:
35% gross margin.
 
Most agencies would’ve taken it.
 
Here’s what would’ve happened:
 
They burn $500K “testing.”
We hit platform benchmarks.
Everyone points to ROAS.
 
And the brand is still underwater.
 
At 35% GM, ads aren’t a growth lever.
They’re a knife fight.
 
No room to test.
No room to learn.
No room to compound.
 
So we passed.
 
The brands scaling ads profitably need more from their P&L.
 
i.e., More oxygen to experiment, absorb volatility, and actually turn performance into profit.
 
Most agencies optimize for the retainer they make. We optimize for the profit you keep.
 
If your agency hasn’t asked about gross margin, they’re selling execution--not outcomes.

Talked to two agency founders recently.
 
Both elite. High demand. A+ reputations. Scaling fast.
 
Both said the same thing:
 
“I want this sold by yesterday.”
 
That stuck with me.
 
This is the cost of big.
 
At a certain size, founders stop doing the work that made them great. And stop doing the work that made them happy.
 
Days fill up with:
- Managing people.
- Reviewing work you didn’t touch.
- Fixing problems you didn’t create.
- Selling work you can’t fully give yourself to--because now you’re running the business, not doing it.
 
The agency still “works.”
But you don’t want to be there.
 
So the goal shifts.
Not to better work.
Just to an exit.
 
--
 
Moonwater was built in reaction to that.
 
We want work we actually like.
Work that sharpens judgment.
Work where we know the numbers, the ads, and the people.
 
That’s why we stay small.
 
Some weeks are hard.
Some calls don’t go our way.
Some decisions miss.
 
But that struggle is often the price of good work--for us and for the brands we work with.
 
If the endgame is escaping what you built, something broke along the way.
 
We’re here because we still want to do the work.

15 years in marketing taught me this.
There are two kinds of agencies –
 
Some talk about strategy.
Others do the work.
 
The ones talking:
- Sell vision and frameworks
- Hide behind fluff and meeting bloat
- Optimize for optics over outcomes
- Drift from the numbers over time
 
The ones doing:
- Stay close to the ads, funnels, and data
- Do the hard parts themselves
- Make tradeoffs in real time
- Build. Ship. Learn. Repeat.
 
One wants attention.
The other wants to do the work –
because they’re hell-bent on growth,
for themselves and for the brand.
 
Choose wisely.

Our team has something most agencies don’t.
 
Every person has bet on themselves.
 
We’re small--three people. On purpose.
 
Because in a services business, people are the product. Everything else is secondary.
 
When I was building this team, I kept coming back to one question:
 
What actually separates good teams from great ones?
 
You can teach marketing.
You can teach ads.
You can teach growth strategy.
 
You can’t teach the intangibles.
 
Self-belief. Ownership. Caring when no one’s watching.
 
I’ve never said this publicly. It’ll never show up in a client update.
 
But most of what makes great teams great happens quietly--off Slack, off decks, off calls.
 
People who bet on themselves?
 
They’re the ones who’ll bet on your business too.
 
It’s the strongest leading indicator I’ve found.

The author walks on a snowy path. The picture is front-facing, so you don't see the author. Just the road.

Beware the Ecom Data Mafia.
Simple math beats fancy dashboards.
Every time.
 
At $5–50M in revenue, your problem isn’t lack of data. It’s too much of it.
 
You don’t need:
• $$$/yr attribution tools
• Dashboards with 40 metrics
• Weekly debates about “true ROAS”
 
They don’t create clarity.
They create hesitation.
 
Save the money.
Cut the fat from the stack.
Run the business on first principles:
 
Gross Profit = Net Sales – COGS
Contr. Profit = Gross Profit – MKTG
Net Profit = Cont. Profit – FIXED
 
Then make decisions:
 
If CP > Fixed, you can scale
If NP improves, you should scale
If NP drops, slow down
 
One more rule most miss:
 
Even if CP > Fixed, hunt waste
(Bloated tools, redundant SaaS, etc.)
 
You’re gunning to max scale at 15% Net Profit.
 
That’s it.
No models. No guesswork. No theater.

Good agencies are using AI.
But many are still missing the point.
 
Most are treating it like a speed tool.
Write faster. Ship faster. Do more.
 
That’s fine.
But it’s not the real shift.
 
AI doesn’t reward people who can type prompts.
It rewards people who can think clearly.
 
When you build with AI, you don’t think like a developer.
You think like a leader.
 
You stop obsessing over files and functions.
You focus on outcomes.
 
You give clear direction.
You cut aggressively.
You edit relentlessly.
 
The best agency leaders were never just “doers.”
They were editors.
 
They knew what to ask for.
What to cut.
What actually mattered.
 
If you can prioritize well and give sharp direction,
you can now build things that used to require a full team.
 
Execution just got cheap.
But judgment didn’t.
 
That’s the part most people are missing.

Somewhere along the way, brands and agencies lost the art of strategy.
 
We traded an ironclad plan for:
- Putting out fires
- Constant reactiveness
- Chaotic ops
- Duct-taped process
 
I’m not anti-speed.
Bias for action is one of our values.
 
But action without strategy is like flooring it with no map. Lots of motion. Very little progress.
 
Beyond retainers, we do one-month audits for brands.
 
The output: a crystal-clear 3–6 month roadmap.
- What to do
- What not to do
- And in what order
 
No fluff. No “everything matters.”
 
They’re not cheap--$12.5K–$15K.
I’ve tried hard to productize them.
To lower the price, go for scale.
 
But here’s what I’ve learned:
You can’t shortcut a world-class plan.
 
The kind of plan that helps a team do less.
So they can do better work.
The work of their life.
 
AI helps. Diagnostics help. Process helps.
But the hard part is still by hand.
And there’s always a struggle to make it great.
 
But great is the bar. And great things take time.

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The Battle

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