Fractional CMO leadership, AI-native

Stop doing random acts of marketing. Start running a revenue engine.

Treetop pairs a real fractional CMO with the AI-native revenue engine we build in-house. Not another agency, not another slide deck. The same system we run inside Billy and Fitagentic, installed in your company, with Bill leading the work.

Book a strategy call → Or try the AI CMO free →

30-minute call · no deck, no pitch · you leave with a read on where to start

Operator track record Read the full story →

Factor_

Former CMO. Acquired by HelloFresh. INC 5000 two years running.

amSTATZ

Former VP Sales & Marketing. Acquired by NASM.

HubSpot Partner

12+ years running a HubSpot partner agency.

Billy & Fitagentic

AI-native revenue products we build in-house, in production today.

Named client stories and Clutch reviews land here as the current cohort agrees to be featured. Every engagement is under NDA by default; nothing goes on the page without written sign-off.

Why this is different

AI-native is a build order. AI-decorated is a coat of paint.

Every agency now claims AI. Here is the difference between building the engine that way and bolting a chatbot onto the old one.

Dimension

AI-decorated agency

AI-native Treetop

Memory

Slack threads, ad-hoc notes, whatever the current strategist remembers.

Persistent competitor, ICP, and revenue memory the system keeps current on its own.

Learning

Humans re-brief the tool every campaign.

The system retrains on your data every month. What worked in October informs November on its own.

Method

The old playbook plus a GPT wrapper in the sales flow.

Engine designed around AI as a first-class team member, not a bolt-on.

What you get

Slide decks, tactic lists, and a monthly status call.

A priority move for the month, shipped assets, and a system you own.

Try the AI CMO free → See what the engine actually produces before you talk to anyone.

Where most companies get stuck

When no one truly leads marketing, growth becomes a gamble.

You have a freelancer, a few tools, maybe an agency on retainer, and a stack of dashboards nobody trusts. Spend goes out. Results are murky. Every quarter you get asked where growth will come from, and the honest answer is you are not sure.

That is not a budget problem. It is a leadership problem, and it compounds.

What you get with Treetop

A leader in the room. A system underneath. Growth you can predict.

Four outcomes we install, in that order. The engine follows from the leadership, not the other way around.

A leader in the room

Strategy and ownership, not just more execution. Someone accountable for the number who has run one before.

An engine that compounds

Built on the Revenue Engine Method: Memory, then Intelligence, then Motion. Each month makes the next month easier.

Clarity in every growth conversation

The numbers, the plan, and one owner of the number. You walk in prepared, not defensive.

Senior leadership without the seven-figure bet

A proven CMO on your terms. Not a $300K hire you have to figure out how to manage.

How the math actually breaks down

Senior marketing leadership without the seven-figure bet.

Three ways to get a CMO on the number. Only one lets you start next week and change your mind next month.

Full-time CMO hire

$180K to $300K+ / year

Ramp: 6 months to real output.

Risk: one hire, one bet, plus benefits, equity, and severance if it does not work.

Exit: months of transition and a rehire cycle.

Agency retainer

$5K to $15K / month

Ramp: 60 to 90 days to see a plan.

Risk: junior-led execution, opaque priorities, senior name on the pitch you rarely see again.

Exit: 60 to 90-day notice, and the playbook leaves with them.

Treetop

Retainer, custom scope

Ramp: days. The engine is prebuilt; we install it on your data.

Risk: senior operator plus a system you own. Bill on the call.

Exit: any month. You keep the memory, the intelligence, and the assets.

The Operator behind Treetop

Bill Colbert has sat in your chair, and built the engine you are trying to install.

Former CMO at Factor_ (acquired by HelloFresh, Inc. 5000 two years running) and VP of Sales and Marketing at amSTATZ (acquired by NASM). 12+ years as a HubSpot agency partner. What no other fractional CMO can say: he builds the AI-native revenue products the industry is talking about, in-house. Billy runs sales and marketing operations for growth-stage companies. Fitagentic does the same for the fitness industry. The engine you buy from Treetop is the same one Bill runs in his own companies.

Bill's full background →

The Revenue Engine Method

Every engagement runs the same three phases, in this order, because skipping one breaks the next.

Memory

What your growth system knows. Competitors, ICP, revenue history, in one place.

Intelligence

How it thinks. AI keeping the diagnosis current and putting a priority on your desk every week.

Motion

What it actually does. Campaigns, deals, hires, budget, owned by a leader accountable for the number.

Read the full method →

What actually lands in your inbox

Not a slide deck. A monthly move you can ship.

A preview of the Guided tier memo. Every rung above Starter Report gets a version of this every month, shaped to how much you want us doing the work.

Revenue Engine memo · October

From: your AI CMO · Read time 6 min

01 · What changed

Three competitor moves detected. CompetitorB shifted messaging around integrations. Your top 8 keywords moved an average of 2.3 spots. Two of them opened.

02 · The priority move

Publish the integrations comparison page before the end of the month. Estimated 200 to 400 monthly visits at intent, 3 to 5 qualified conversations.

03 · Assets included

First-draft of the integrations page, comparison table, and 4-email nurture. Ready for your CMS.

04 · One question for Bill

Reply with the vertical you want to lead the messaging with. Bill answers by end of the next business day.

Sample content for illustration. Your memo runs on your data, your competitors, and your team's priorities.

How this works

Three steps to a growth system that works.

No long RFP, no bloated retainer, no betting the company on a full-time hire.

Book a strategy call.

30 minutes with Bill. Where you are, where the gap is, and whether it is a Memory, Intelligence, or Motion problem first. Free.

Get your Revenue Engine plan.

A clear diagnosis of the current state and a written roadmap for the first 90 days. You own the doc whether or not we keep working together.

Lead with a system that works.

Diagnose, Run, or Lead. Pick the rung on the ladder that matches how much of the work you want us to own, and start.

Book the call → Or try the AI CMO free first →

The longer read

Why random acts of marketing keep failing the same way.

Most companies below $50M in revenue do not have a marketing leader. They have a marketing function that grew by accretion: a freelancer here, an agency there, a tool that a former hire signed up for. Nobody owns the number. Nobody remembers what worked in Q2 by the time Q4 lands. Every quarter is a fresh set of bets on tactics that never compound.

The fix used to be a $300K CMO hire, a 6-month ramp, and hoping the bet paid off. Now the fix is an AI-native engine plus a senior operator running it. The operator owns the number and installs a system that keeps its own memory, updates its own intelligence, and puts a priority move on your desk every month. That is the shift.

Treetop does not sell AI-native as a description. We ship it, and we run it in our own companies first. When you hire us, you get the same engine, installed and led by the person who built it.

Is Treetop a fit

We are picky about who we work with. You should be too.

If you are the wrong fit, we will tell you on the call. This saves everybody a quarter.

You are a fit if

Revenue is $2M to $50M and you have real product-market fit.
Marketing has grown by accretion. Nobody owns the number.
You want a system installed, not a stack of tactics executed.
You want Bill on the calls, not a junior with a senior name on the pitch.
You are willing to try the AI CMO free before you commit.

You are not a fit if

You are pre-revenue or pre-product-market fit.
You want the cheapest option in the category.
You need a single-channel specialist (paid social, PR, SEO only).
You want your CMO to grind out execution rather than lead the number.
You need someone to nod along with a strategy already set.

The offers

Once you know marketing is broken, here is how we fix it.

Most companies start with a fractional CMO engagement. Every rung on this ladder ladders into the same engine. Pick the phase that matches where you are: Diagnose it, Run it, or hand a leader the number.

Diagnose your engine (Memory)

Not ready to talk yet? Start here.

Starter Report

$99 one-time

Same-day competitive teardown. Live Ahrefs data on 3 competitors, keyword gap, and a 90-day roadmap. The lowest-risk way to see how Treetop thinks.

Get the report →

Revenue Engine Audit

$1,500 5-day written

A written diagnosis and roadmap after 5 business days. Interviews, data pulls, and a plan you can act on. Credited toward Implementation if you climb from here.

See the Audit →

Run your engine (Intelligence + Motion)

Productized, always-on

Monitor

$249/mo

The report kept current every month, with a what-changed memo and one priority question answered.

Start Monitor →

Guided Most popular

$999/mo

A monthly working call, deeper analysis, and a strategist who shapes your priority assets.

Start Guided →

Embedded

$2,500/mo

A part-time CMO who produces the work with you, biweekly calls, and execution tracked not just recommended.

Start Embedded →

Lead your engine (A human owns the number)

Flagship retainer

Fractional CMO

Custom retainer, scoped to fit

Marketing leadership that owns the outcome and installs the engine. The full Revenue Engine Method, led by Bill.

See Fractional CMO →

Fractional CRO

Custom retainer, scoped to fit

The full revenue lifecycle, not just marketing. Sales, marketing, and CS alignment under one accountable leader.

See Fractional CRO →

Book a strategy call → Compare the full ladder →

Common questions

The eight questions everyone actually asks.

If yours is not here, ask on the strategy call. That is the point.

What does Bill do vs. the AI?

Bill leads strategy, owns the number, runs the calls, and makes the judgment calls the system cannot. The AI keeps the memory current, drafts the assets, watches your competitors and pipeline, and puts a priority move on your desk every month. Neither works without the other.

How many hours am I actually getting?

Fractional CMO retainers are scoped by outcome, not hours. A typical engagement runs 20 to 40 hours a month of Bill's time plus the always-on system. Monitor, Guided, and Embedded are productized, so the deliverables are the contract, not a timesheet.

What is the ramp?

Days, not months. The engine is prebuilt. Week 1 is data hookup and first competitor read. Week 2 is your first priority move on your desk. Week 4 is the first shipped asset. A traditional CMO hire is 6 months to comparable output.

What happens if it is not working?

You leave. Retainers are month-to-month. Productized rungs cancel any month. You keep the memory, the intelligence, and every asset we shipped. No 60-day notice, no severance, no rehire cycle.

Who owns the assets if we stop working together?

You do. Every draft, every doc, every dashboard. The Memory layer exports on request. If you replace us with an in-house CMO or another partner, they inherit a running system, not a starting point.

How does the $99 report fit?

It is the floor of the ladder. The lowest-risk way to see how Treetop thinks before you talk to anyone. Same-day delivery, real competitive data. If you climb, you climb.

How is this different from a fractional CMO marketplace or a firm like Chief Outsiders?

Marketplaces are a rolodex. Firms like Chief Outsiders match you with one of a hundred generalists on their bench. Treetop is one senior operator (Bill) plus an AI-native engine his team builds and runs in-house. What you get in month one is not a random rolodex match on a checklist. It is the same engine we run inside Billy and Fitagentic.

What happens on the strategy call?

30 minutes with Bill. Where you are, where the gap is, whether it is a Memory, Intelligence, or Motion problem first, and whether Treetop is even the right partner. No deck. No pitch. If we are not a fit, we say so.

Book a strategy call → Try the AI CMO free → Or take the 3-minute Revenue Engine Scorecard →