Embedded Files
Introducing The Culture Spectrum: Lessons Learned from Building a $3.5M Startup
You don't have a strategy problem. You have a clarity problem.
Most founders at your stage can articulate the vision. The gap is the distance between that vision and what the team actually executes on Monday morning. That's where I work.
I partner with founders and creative leadership teams at culture-driven companies across entertainment, media, music, edtech, to install the strategic clarity and operating infrastructure that turns ambition into measurable momentum. Not as an outside opinion. As a trusted partner inside the work.
Advisory · Ongoing Retainer
The Strategic Partner
For founders who need a senior strategic mind embedded in the organization, without the full-time hire.
I serve as your Fractional Chief Strategy Officer: shaping long-term direction, pressure-testing decisions, aligning your leadership team around a single operating plan, and staying in the room long enough to make sure it actually works. This is a retainer relationship built around your organization's priorities and pace, rather than a project with a handoff date.
One day per week. Fully embedded. Built for leaders who want a trusted strategic partner, not a periodic outside opinion.
What's included:
Monthly strategic direction sessions with your leadership team
OKR design, prioritization, and operating cadence
Async advisory access between sessions
Real-time input on high-stakes decisions as they arise
Investment: $5,000/month Minimum 6-month engagement. Limited to 3 clients at a time.
Fractional Consulting · Project-Based
90 Day Strategic Reset
For organizations at a specific inflection point: scaling without alignment, growing without direction, or preparing for a major transition ––you need focused intervention with a defined outcome.
Over 90 days, I diagnose what's actually broken, build the strategic framework to fix it, install the operating infrastructure to sustain it, and hand it off to your team fully equipped to run it. You walk away with a functioning strategic operating system, not a deck.
What's included:
Full strategic diagnostic: what's working, what isn't, and why
Detailed vision + 12-month strategic roadmap
OKR framework designed for your team and installed
Operating cadence: meeting rhythms, decision rights, reporting structure
Leadership team handoff session
30-day async follow-up post-engagement
Investment: $12,000 Paid in three monthly installments. Two engagements per quarter maximum.
Executive Vision Review · Single Session
1-Hour Strategic Clarity Session
For founders and executives who need an outside perspective on a specific strategic question, fast.
In one focused session, we diagnose the real constraint, pressure-test your current direction, and identify the highest-leverage path forward. You leave with clarity and a prioritized action map, not a deck.
This is the entry point. Founders who do a Direction Sprint and see the value typically move into an ongoing advisory or project engagement from here.
Investment: $800 Single session. Available by application.
What You Can Expect
My approach is consistent across every engagement: identify the real constraint, create shared clarity at the leadership level, and design the strategy that makes execution inevitable.
Specific outcomes include:
A strategy and operating model aligned to your IP, brand, and distribution reality
Cross-functional alignment across leadership, sales, marketing, and creative teams
Frameworks and decision structures that improve leadership velocity
Strategic clarity that compounds, minimizing noise that has to be managed
The goal is sustained performance built on strategy that holds up.
Why Leaders Work With Me
Took Island Roots from zero to $3.5M valuation in under three years through integrated operations, marketing, and strategic infrastructure
Built and led cross-functional teams of up to 65 people across multiple locations and business lines
Installed operating systems that achieved 90% team adoption, in organizations that had never had them
Trusted by founders and executive teams as both strategic advisor and senior operator
Deep experience inside IP-driven organizations where creative ambition and financial performance have to work together
Who This Is For
These engagements work best for founders and executives at inflection-stage growth — leaders inside culture-driven companies where creative ambition and financial performance need to move together, and organizations ready to close the gap between strategy and scale.
If you need tactical support or outsourced execution, this won't be the right fit.
If you're building something significant and want a trusted strategic partner inside the work, it probably will be.
If you’re looking for tactical help or outsourced execution, this won’t be a fit.
If you’re building something that matters and want a trusted partner inside the work, it probably will be.
Apply to Work Together
I work with leaders navigating growth, transition, or organizational complexity where vision is clear, but the strategy and systems needed to perform against it haven't caught up.
If you're responsible for outcomes and looking for a trusted partner to close that gap, we should talk.
✉️ Email: thomas@tmphillips.co (not .com)
🔗 LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/tmphillips
Report abuse