I’m a growth-focused CMO and systems-builder who helps founders turn early traction into predictable revenue.

I specialize in building go-to-market systems that connect ad spend to retention — not just clicks to leads.

I’ve built, scaled, and exited multiple ventures across SaaS, eCommerce, and services — from founding Caffeine Marketing (acquired in 2025) to co-founding Homegrown, an online farmers-market SaaS, and leading growth for portfolio companies through Tactos.

My edge is combining hands-on execution with system design — copy, funnels, and attribution that make marketing measurable and scalable.

What I Do Best

- GTM & Positioning: Turn messy offers into clear, high-converting messaging and funnels.
- Acquisition & Lifecycle: Paid social, onboarding, and retention systems that shorten CAC payback.
- Attribution & Forecasting: HubSpot + GA4 + Stripe integration to track spend → activation → ARR.
- Team & System Design: Hire, mentor, and build processes that scale beyond the founder.

Proof Points
- Co-founded Homegrown — acquired 600+ vendors in six weeks at $6.70 CAC.
- Fractional CMO for early-stage SaaS — drove +$2M ARR and 3–5× CAC efficiency.
- Grew eCommerce ROAS from 1.9× → 4.8× and reduced churn 27% through lifecycle automation.
- Sold Caffeine Marketing after helping 100+ clients and building a repeatable, client-growth operating system.

How I Work
- I move fast, measure everything, and focus on leverage — the few systems that drive compounding results.
- If it can’t be repeated or measured, it’s not a strategy.
- Leadership to me means teaching teams to see problems as systems — not fires.

Now
I partner with early and growth-stage SaaS or marketplace teams as a CMO, VP Growth, or Co-Founder to design the GTM engine that scales them from traction to predictable growth.

⚡️ Evan Knox

You do business in a noisy world. Reports indicate people get thousands of marketing messages a day. This level of chaos confuses both your customers and your employees. Without clarity, you lose people. And it's hard to get them back.

I help companies amplify clarity by creating content that connects & converts. As a StoryBrand Certified Copywriter, I have the tools necessary to help you build a better business through a clearer message. 

Helping you through writing doesn't stop at your customers. I am a regular contributor to Forbes.com, where I focus on what companies do to find & keep great millennial talent. So as you try to further engage the largest generation in the workforce, I help you do that more effectively. 

No matter your need, I can help amplify your business. Let's talk.

Wes Gay

Starbucks' struggles are the same reason movies aren't good.

And it's probably the same reason your company is struggling too.

When Howard Schultz took over Starbucks, he solved a clear problem: the third place. That spot besides home and work where you connect, gather, and build community.

But as Starbucks grew, they stopped solving that problem.

They started solving the problem of efficiency. Drive-thru speed. 
Mobile orders. 
How fast can we get people through the line?

And it worked... for a while.

Everybody went mobile. But the quality declined. The experience declined. They literally removed chairs from their stores.

They stopped solving the core problem that helped them grow. And they struggled because of it.

This is the same reason so many movies feel forgettable. There's no clear, compelling problem keeping you hooked.

And it's the same trap most companies fall into.

You start solving the wrong problem. You talk about the wrong problem. You drift from the thing that made people choose you in the first place.

If you want to win, you've got to get clear on the problem your audience actually needs solved.
Not the problem that's easiest to talk about. Not the problem that sounds impressive internally.

The one they'll pay money to solve.

Get that right, and you grow. Get it wrong, and you end up removing chairs.

(I have a ton of these “Been There” mugs from Starbucks. Do you collect them too?)

I help brands find the right words for sales & marketing | Use StoryBrand to do it

No alternative text description for this image

A guy goes to the doctor and says his legs hurt.
 
When he touches his right leg, it hurts. When he touches his left leg, it hurts.
 
The doctor says, "That's because your finger's broken."
 
I've worked with close to 300 companies. And I can tell you this with absolute certainty:
 
Almost nobody comes to me with the right diagnosis.
 
They say, "We need a new website."
They say, "We need more leads."
They say, "Our marketing isn't working."
 
Those aren't diagnoses. Those are symptoms.
 
The real problem is almost always upstream. It's unclear messaging. It's an undefined audience. It's an offer that even the sales team can't explain in one sentence.
 
Here's the test I use with every client:
 
If you were in a room of 1,000 people and said what you do, would the room change? Would people lean in? Or would they politely nod and look for the snacks?
 
If the room doesn't change, the problem isn't your website. It's your words.
 
Stop treating the legs. Find the broken finger.

Customers don't care about your features.

They care about their futures.

I've watched countless salespeople open a pitch the same way: "Let me show you what we can do." Then comes the slide deck. Awards. Certifications. A feature list that reads like a product manual. The person who built that deck is genuinely proud of it. They should be. It looks great.

They should also be embarrassed by it.

Because no customer woke up this morning thinking, "I really hope someone spends 45 minutes talking about themselves on a sales call today."

What they actually woke up thinking: "I have a problem I need to solve. Who can help me?"

That's it. That's the whole game.

Your job in sales, and in marketing (which is just sales at scale), is not to show people what you do. It's to show people what their life looks like after you do it.

Stop asking, "What features are we most proud of?"

Start asking, "What future are we helping them reach?"

Saturday began with 90 baseball and softball teams (all under 11) driving by our house. 

Well, technically the day started at 6:30. That’s when my wife met other team moms for my daughter’s 6U softball team to decorate their truck. 

7:20- drop my daughter off and back to the house 
8:00- Parade begins 
9:30- Opening ceremonies 
12:45- 10U lacrosse game (I’m head coach. We beat a rival school. Game ended early because their parents were so awful. So was their coach) 
2:30- 6U softball game (I’m the catcher). We won 

Days like this remind you of the power of community. We saw so many people we knew. Lots of kids in the parade threw a little extra candy to our boys because they’re friends. 

There’s a lot to be pessimistic about in this world, but not after days like Saturday.

As an elder millennial, I had an epiphany this morning:

Claude Cowork feels like using a GameShark for my job.

Prompt engineering is the new SEO, meaning everyone is obsessed with it. Almost nobody's asking the right question.

The right question isn't "how do I write a better prompt?"

It's "what do I know that nobody else does?"

Rockefeller didn't get rich by finding oil. Everyone found oil. He built the refinery.
Same game. Different century.

Getting this right may change the trajectory of your business. 

New article.

You've probably heard the phrase "data is the new oil." It's everywhere. Conferences, keynotes, LinkedIn posts from people with "futurist" in their bi

Open article: Context, not Data, is the New Oil by Wes Gay • 5 min read

taplio

The Battle

⚡️ Evan Knox

Wes Gay

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreWes Gay's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

⚡️ Evan Knox

Wes Gay

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Wes Gay's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreWes Gay's LinkedIn Performance