From Seed to Series A through 24% monthly growth

Client: FORMEL Skin

Tags: D2C, interim CMO, performance marketing, senior leadership, series a, investment rounds

Formel Skin and the need for a Senior Marketer perspective

When Formel Skin — a German D2C skincare brand — reached out to me after securing their seed round, they were at a stage that I've seen many start-ups be in: having hit a wall in their growth but still not ready to hire a full-time senior marketing position.

Formel Skin was working towards their Series A, but their results weren't strong enough to convince investors — nor did they allow them to hire for a full-time CMO position.

How I led a 24% monthly sales growth for Formel Skin

I joined Formel Skin part-time for a year — until they got to the point they were ready for Series A.

Here's what that role entailed — and what you should expect from an Interim Senior Marketer as a start-up looking to secure funding:

• Leading Media Planning: together with the team, we worked on creating the marketing strategy and selecting the channels and methods that made the most sense for them, and how to manage them — including paid media, influencer marketing, and search.
• Building the Marketing Team to Scale: to get Formel Skin ready to "fly on their own" in the long-run, I worked on both using my network to hire for performance marketing (including ex-Meta employees), as well as learning & development — training the team on how to manage channels, balance creativity and data-focus; and have a strategic understanding and perspective in their approach
• Marketing x Product Collaboration: because Marketing can not work as a solo department, I worked with Product to create an efficient funnel and increase CVR
• Creating data-first decision-making processes: to make sure Formel Skin were able to make the right decisions without needing to dive into complex marketing platforms, I created a BI dashboard with the metrics that really mattered for strategic planning

After 1 year of my part-time intervention, Formel Skin had achieved a steady growth of 24% per month, allowing them to get a €30 million Series A funding.

And as my farewell gift to them, I hired my full-time replacement!