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One Growth Team.
Every Channel.

We replace your agency stack with a single senior team that owns paid, creative, site, email, and measurement. All coordinated. All accountable.

Christian Cortes · Founder & CEO

The Thesis

Growth is not a channel problem.
It is an alignment problem.

Mid-market DTC brands ($1M-$50M) scale in pieces: paid here, site there, retention later. Channels fight each other. Attribution lies. Budgets leak. Refractive runs the full system so wins compound.

8+

Years scaling a $40M eCom brand

$40M

Revenue built firsthand

1

Integrated team, not 5 vendors

The Problem

Agencies are broken at the mid-market

Junior Execution

Senior talent pitches. Junior AMs execute. The people on your call are not the people doing the work.

Misaligned Incentives

Agencies charge % of ad spend. They are rewarded for spending more of your money, not for growing your business.

Siloed Channels

Paid, creative, site, and email run by different vendors. Improvements in one channel cannibalize another.

Broken Measurement

Attribution is noisy. Nobody runs incrementality tests. Budget decisions are based on vanity dashboards.

"We built Refractive after scaling a $40M eCommerce brand and seeing the gap firsthand: agencies with energy at the pitch, and silence after the contract."

Market Opportunity

DTC brands that align the system scale fast

~$500M

OLIPOP 2024 Revenue

35,000+ retail stores. Product-market fit + modern growth engine.

$350M+

HexClad 2023 Revenue

Performance marketing, creative, and conversion systems built to scale.

Refractive targets the next wave: $1M to $50M revenue brands with meaningful ad spend and founder-operators who need senior marketing operators to scale profitably.

Category Proof

The growth partner model is validated

Darkroom

Founded 2017. Publishes packaged pricing. Consumer growth agency positioning with AI integration.

Power Digital

Tech-enabled full-stack agency. In-house analytics platform (Nova) as differentiator.

NP Digital

Global scale. Claims 500+ clients. Broad digital marketing services.

Tinuiti

Enterprise performance agency. Performance-based and SaaS fee pricing models.

Demand is proven. Refractive competes by being more operator-led, more measurement-first, and more incentive-aligned than any player in the market.

Refractive

An embedded growth team aligned to your KPIs, not ad spend

Senior-Operator Led

The people on your call are the people doing the work. Founder involvement on every account.

No layers. No telephone game.

Flat Retainers

No % of ad spend. Performance bonuses tied to business KPIs: MER, CAC, contribution margin.

We win when you win.

Illuminate Included

Full-funnel measurement, attribution, and incrementality testing baked into every engagement.

Prove what is real.

"Every channel talks to every other channel. One roadmap. Weekly testing velocity. Measurement that doesn't lie."

The Refraction Map

Four pillars. One compounding system.

01 Foundation

Business Strategy, Brand Positioning, GTM Planning, Creative Strategy, Ops & Integrations

Clear priorities + 90-day operating plan

02 Growth

Paid Social (Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn), Paid Search & Shopping, Creative Production, Marketplace, Analytics

Lower CAC + stronger MER

03 Experience

Shopify Development, CRO & A/B Testing, SEO, AI Enhancements, Performance UX

Higher CVR + revenue per session

04 Retention

Email & SMS (Klaviyo), Loyalty & Referral, Subscription Optimization, CX Systems, Affiliate

Higher repeat rate + LTV

One integrated system. Can be purchased pillar by pillar or as a full-stack engagement.

Delivery Model

Senior pods. Weekly velocity. No telephone game.

Each account gets a dedicated cross-functional pod: strategy, paid, creative, CRO, lifecycle, and data. The people on your call are the people doing the work.

Week 1-4

Foundation

Full audit. 90-day plan. First optimizations live within 2 weeks.

Weekly

Execution

Memo + test queue + budget moves. Biweekly creative review.

Monthly

Optimize

Roadmap reallocations. Budget shifts based on incrementality data.

Quarterly

Reset

Strategy reset. Illuminate readout. Next quarter plan.

"Most clients see their first optimizations live within two weeks."

Product

Illuminate™

Your single source of truth. Full-funnel dashboards, incrementality testing, and media mix modeling so you always know what is driving growth and where to invest next.

  • Multi-touch attribution + path-to-purchase insights
  • Geo/holdout incrementality testing
  • MMM scenario planning + budget simulator
  • Creative intelligence tied to outcomes
  • Anomaly detection + automated weekly memos

Available standalone from $2,500/mo or included with retainers.

Illuminate dashboard UI mockup: attribution views, budget simulator, creative clusters

Technology Strategy

Fast to market now. Durable moat next.

Now

White Label

Launch Illuminate using best-in-class partners (Triple Whale, Northbeam, Semrush)

6-12 Mo

Proprietary

Build Refractive's own measurement layer with client data advantage

12+ Mo

Platform

AI-powered insights, auto-generated hypotheses, predictive budget modeling

Safeguards

  • Data portability guaranteed. No vendor lock-in.
  • Partner-agnostic integrations (Shopify, Klaviyo, GA4, Meta, Google)
  • Quarterly roadmap transparency with clients

Revenue Model

Flat retainers. Performance bonuses. No % of spend.

Core

$14-18k

per month

Scale

$22-28k

per month

Enterprise

$32-45k+

per month

Entry Programs

  • Signal Read — Free 20-min diagnostic. Qualifies leads.
  • Signal Scan — Paid 7-day deep audit. Creditable toward retainer.
  • Spectrum Sprint — 21-day alignment build. Full 90-day plan.

Illuminate standalone: Core $2,500/mo | Pro $5,000/mo (for brands managing media in-house)

Go-to-Market

Founder-led GTM built for trust and speed

01

Network

Warm outreach + operator communities

02

Content

Playbooks and frameworks as lead magnets

03

Qualify

Free Signal Read diagnoses fit

04

Prove

Paid audit or sprint builds credibility

05

Convert

Retainer + Illuminate

0-Client Credibility

  • 8+ years scaling a $40M sporting goods retailer from startup
  • Clear packaging and transparent pricing (live on site)
  • White label partners enable Day 1 delivery capability
  • Advisory board of 3-6 operator leaders for credibility and warm intros

Competitive Position

Full-stack is table stakes.
Our edge is truth.

vs. Traditional Agencies

They charge % of spend. Junior execution. No measurement rigor.

vs. Darkroom / Power Digital

Similar model, but we are more operator-led and measurement-first with Illuminate.

vs. In-House Teams

$300k+ for one senior hire. We deliver a full pod for similar cost with broader capability.

vs. Freelancers

Fragmented. No system thinking. No cross-channel coordination or measurement layer.

Competitive positioning chart
(X: Service breadth → Y: Strategic depth)
Refractive in upper-right quadrant

Early Traction

Built for brands like these

Refractive's founder has direct experience scaling DTC brands across paid, creative, site, and retention:

KANE

Performance footwear. Paid + creative + CRO.

Lax.com

Sporting goods marketplace. Full-funnel growth.

Invasion

DTC brand. Paid media + creative production.

Captain Zig

Consumer brand. Growth strategy + execution.

Zima

DTC consumer. Acquisition + retention systems.

Restore

Health & wellness. Creative + performance.

70+ platform integrations ready: Meta, Google, TikTok, Shopify, Klaviyo, GA4, Triple Whale, Northbeam, and more.

The Ask

Raising $500k to build speed and proof

$500k

Pre-Seed Round

Team & Pods
40%
Creative Production
20%
Tooling & Illuminate
20%
GTM & Content
20%

Runway: 12 months of aggressive GTM + delivery while building early case studies.

Milestones

Milestones investors can underwrite

0-90 Days
  • 3-5 design partners onboarded
  • First Signal Scan deliverables shipped
  • 1-2 sprint conversions to retainer
  • Illuminate dashboards live for pilots
90-180 Days
  • 3-6 retainer clients (mix of Core + Scale)
  • 2 published case studies with measured results
  • First incrementality test readout
  • Revenue run rate targeting $50k+/mo
6-12 Months
  • 8-12 retainer clients
  • Proprietary Illuminate layer v0.9 running
  • Revenue run rate targeting $150k+/mo
  • Position for Series A or profitability path

Team

Built by operators, not consultants

Headshot

Christian Cortes

Founder & CEO

8+ years scaling eCommerce. Built a $40M sporting goods brand from startup. Paid media, content, lifecycle, CRO.

Hiring

Dir. of Technology

Engineering & AI

Shopify architecture, AI-led systems, end-to-end platform integrations.

Hiring

Dir. of Strategy

Growth Ops

Strategy into execution, weekly cadences, outcomes alignment.

Advisory Board: 3-6 operator leaders (equity-light). Credibility, warm intros, and category expertise.

Stop guessing.
Start compounding.

The brands that win don't guess. They measure, align, and compound. Refractive is the team that makes it happen.

Let's talk

growth@refractive.co