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Case Study
Resuscitating a stagnated but deeply loved email client
Advisor · Summer 2025 — Present · Owning end to end GTM across brand, PLG, and revenue for a legacy YC SaaS asset. Driving 60% growth in weekly new signups and active trials. Built and operate the core organic marketing engine. Rebuilt onboarding/expansion flows, reducing weekly net MRR contraction.
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MRR growth
+3% MoM Dec-Jan
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Subscriber growth
+259 net new
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New trial signups
+568 net new
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Website visitors
108% increase in H2
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Problem
Years of ownership changes left Polymail without a clear ICP, narrative, or growth engine. What was once a 10,000+ user product had contracted to ~1,350 active users, despite a deeply loved core experience.
Churn was high and the product’s strongest capabilities were invisible to the people most willing to pay. Polymail had product love, but not commercial focus.
The real problem was stopping the bleed while rebuilding a path to growth – repositioning Polymail from “email client” to a revenue-critical work system with no margin for error.
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Strategy
Rebuild Polymail’s growth system end to end by correcting positioning, reactivating dormant demand, and converting existing attention into revenue – instead of chasing net-new acquisition before the foundation was fixed.
Key bets:
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New website to reposition Polymail from email client to revenue-driving inbox
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List buy + outbound email campaign to spur trial activation
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Win-back of 185K churned users as the fastest revenue lever
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Creator affiliate program to turn users into distribution
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Vertical SEO pages targeting high-intent buyer use cases
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Testimonial videos to accelerate trust and close rates
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CEO-led customer newsletter + social posting
- iOS Apple store refresh for more modern look and content
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Snapshot
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Role
Advisor/Consultant (1099)
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Audience
Prosumers (coaches, photographers, solopreneurs, small teams)
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Partnered with
Owner & CEO
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KPIs
MRR, trial → paid, new trial signups
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Results (6 months)
• +259 net new subscribers
• +568 net new trials
• +3% MoM MRR growth (Dec → Jan)
• 108% increase in website traffic in H2
• Churn reduced ~40% from mid-Feb peak
Growth engine rebuilt and reactivated across acquisition, reactivation, and positioning.
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What I shipped
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#1: GTM plan
Designed an end-to-end GTM model using the 4DX framework to isolate the few growth levers that actually mattered across acquisition, activation, retention, and monetization.
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#2: Cold outbound campaign
Worked with a freelancer to source a 22.5K-contact list tightly aligned to the ICP. Launched a low-lift outbound landing page to drive trial starts, paired with a 2-touch email sequence optimized for response and learning.
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#3: Paid ads for retargeting
Produced fast-turn retargeting creative to support outbound traffic and site visitors, prioritizing message reinforcement over net-new demand.
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#4: Free trial welcome series
Rebuilt the trial experience from a 14-step maze into a clear, value-moment driven flow designed to reduce overwhelm, drive usage first, and earn the upgrade.
Re-wrote emails to correspond, below.
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#5: New website
Led a full site overhaul – strategy, copy, agency comms, and execution/iteration cycles.
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#6: Social/blog/video
Produced content for LinkedIn and Twitter, including evergreen posts, carousels, and infographics to re-establish narrative consistency and inbound credibility.
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#7: Win-back strategy
Mapped a phased winback strategy for 185K churned users, including segmentation, messaging, and execution planning – a potential 3–6x revenue lever if executed correctly.
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#8: “Inbox Ops” Lead magnet
Built a response-optimized email library (30+ templates) mapped to funnel stage, persona, use case, and CTA, packaged as a lead magnet to capture demand and support outbound, inbound, and winback motions.
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Transferable playbook
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Stabilize before scaling. Fix positioning, onboarding, and monetization before pushing growth. Traffic magnifies problems.
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Anchor the product to a single job. Define one outcome the product owns and remove anything that distracts from it.
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Use GTM to learn, not to look busy. Run small outbound and landing page tests to create signal fast before committing spend.
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Treat self-serve as assisted until it proves itself. Manually qualify, convert, and observe behavior before automating anything.
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Design onboarding around first value, not features. Cut steps. Get users to a useful moment quickly. Upgrades follow usage.
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Exhaust existing demand before buying new. Win back churned users and dormant lists before chasing cold leads.
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Build assets that compound across channels. Create pages, flows, templates, and proof that work for outbound, inbound, and retention at once.
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