Cirrus Capital Partners × Michael Becker
I built the media property that gave Cirrus a recurring voice in the market.
Brought in to launch Altitude News from zero, I partnered with Cirrus co-founder and managing partner Ryan Ridgway to translate his views on capital, markets, technology and operating into a publication for founders, lenders, banks and deal partners. I designed the editorial format, ghostwrote every edition and built the research system behind it.
0→1
Net-new media property
2,500
Organic subscribers / 6 months
64%
Average open rate
~5 hrs
Research + writing per edition
The commercial mandate
Cirrus needed owned media that could build trust on both sides of a financing transaction.
Cirrus operates in a two-sided market: growth companies seeking non-dilutive capital, and the lenders, banks, credit funds, allocators and referral partners capable of financing them. Altitude had to be useful to both groups while giving Ryan a credible, recurring platform for his point of view.
The brief was not “write a newsletter.” It was to launch a durable media asset that could create familiarity between transactions, turn market interpretation into authority, and give Cirrus a natural way to share deal proof, company news and founder guidance.
The business context
Market intelligence → founder authority → audience trust → commercial relevance.
The editorial operating system
Ghostwriting was only one part of the job. The harder work was maintaining informed judgment every edition.
Weekly calls and async Slack gave me access to Ryan’s live thinking. I paired that with an updated finance knowledge base, deal research and repeatable editorial architecture so each issue sounded like a founder with a real view—not a generic content team summarizing links.
Interview, distill and preserve conviction.
Picked Ryan’s brain week over week, isolated the non-obvious judgment behind his reactions, and converted raw discussion into first-person OpEd-style writing without sanding away his tone or making the work feel institutionally generic.
Cadence: weekly calls · async Slack · outline alignment · founder review · final ghostwritten edition
Maintain the data behind the opinion.
Maintained a working brief across SOFR, prime, the S&P 500, Nasdaq, the 10-year Treasury, gold, Bitcoin, payrolls and unemployment—then translated movement into a concise “vibe check” useful to operators and finance professionals.
Output: Markets & Assets At-A-Glance · macro context · concise operator interpretation
Find the transactions worth explaining.
Pulled M&A, credit-facility, private-capital and market-mover intelligence from specialist finance publications, company releases and transaction announcements. ABL Advisor was a core source for the asset-based lending and commercial finance beat.
Output: Market Movers · M&A / strategic deals · credit transactions · recent Cirrus term sheets
Use AI to move faster without outsourcing judgment.
Used ChatGPT and Claude for synthesis, outlining and revision. Topic selection, source verification, argument quality, voice matching and final editorial decisions remained human-led. Each edition required roughly five focused hours.
AI accelerated the workflow. It did not replace interviews, finance fluency, fact checking or editorial taste.
The work in market
Not a link roundup. A recurring editorial product with a defined point of view.
Each edition opened with a substantial essay on a live development, then moved through reusable sections that made the publication useful, scannable and commercially connected to Cirrus. The mix created a reason to read even when the audience was not actively raising or placing capital.
The anchor
One conviction-led essay.
Topics ranged from founder power and capital efficiency to AI talent, cultural shifts, M&A and emerging asset narratives—always translated into an operator takeaway.
The utility
Recurring intelligence sections.
Recent Cirrus Term Sheets & Transactions · Founder Tips · Markets & Assets At-A-Glance · Market Movers · M&A / Strategic Deals · News from Cirrus.
The commercial bridge
Cirrus proof without a sales pitch.
Recent term sheets, transaction updates, product announcements and firm news gave the business a natural place inside the publication without turning the edition into promotional copy.
The result
A founder-led publication with an owned audience, a repeatable production cadence and a direct role in Cirrus’s market presence.
Altitude gained 2,500 organic subscribers in its first six months with a 64% open rate. More importantly, the engagement left Cirrus with a durable format for turning Ryan’s expertise, live market developments and firm activity into a publication people had a reason to open repeatedly.
Public role validation
Cirrus’s official team page lists Michael Becker as Chief Editor, Altitude News.
The engagement in one line
I did not simply write a newsletter. I built and operated the editorial system behind a new media property.
The work combined founder interviewing, finance research, ghostwriting, recurring data, deal intelligence, AI-assisted production and distribution into one repeatable asset for Cirrus Capital Partners.
Public company figures and current role title sourced from Cirrus Capital Partners materials accessed August 2026. Subscriber, open-rate, workflow and engagement metrics are Michael Becker project records.