Real engagement · Hapana · 2017–2023

Scaling a global fitness SaaS from 150 to 1,200+ operator locations.

A six-year fractional Head of Marketing & GTM Strategy engagement with Hapana, the global fitness operator platform. From an Australia-anchored studio software with 150 locations to a globally-deployed enterprise SaaS supporting more than 1,200 multi-location fitness operators across North America, EMEA, and APAC.

800%

Revenue growth over the six-year engagement, supporting global expansion across three continents

Named client engagement, published with the consent of the client. Specific revenue figures aggregated for confidentiality; growth multiples reflect actual results.

The starting situation

2017: An Australian gym software ready to go global

Company stage: Pre-rebrand, ~150 fitness studio locations, almost entirely Australian. Strong product fit for boutique and multi-location operators in their home market; effectively unknown in North America and only beginning to test EMEA.

The constraint: The product was real and the operator economics were proven; the GTM motion to take it global wasn't. Marketing was light, brand recognition was zero outside of Australia, and the channel and operator relationships that drive multi-location SaaS adoption hadn't been built in the target markets.

What Treetop was asked to own: Marketing strategy, brand positioning, demand-generation systems, content, lifecycle marketing, trade show presence, and channel/operator relationships across North America, EMEA, and APAC. Reporting to the CEO with cross-functional partnership with Product, Sales, and Customer Success.

What we built

The six-year arc

Year 1–2: North American beachhead

$400K rebrand activation. Coordinated the company name + identity launch in the North American market, anchored by a major industry trade show. Multiple media touchpoints — new website, trade show booth, print media, social, PR, paid social campaigns — sequenced to land simultaneously.
Boutique-and-multi-location positioning sharpened. Moved from generic "gym software" framing to specific value propositions tailored to multi-location boutique operators — the segment where Hapana had the strongest product-market fit and the most defensible competitive position.
Demand generation systems built from scratch. Paid social, inbound content, lifecycle automation, and outbound channels. HubSpot infrastructure as the system of record across the full funnel.
First operator wins. Early multi-location operator adopters in the U.S. — the proof points that opened the door for the next year's enterprise pipeline.

Year 3–4: Enterprise + multi-location scaling

Segment-specific positioning + GTM narratives. Improved enterprise competitive close rates by ~22% through differentiated value props for boutique, studio, and hybrid operator cohorts.
Operator evaluation cycle reduction. New value props, product stories, and commercial frameworks reduced typical operator evaluation cycles by ~30% — meaningful for a complex multi-location SaaS purchase.
Pricing and packaging. Built tiered pricing structures that lifted ARPU 15–25% depending on operator cohort, without compromising new-logo win rates.
Trade show + industry presence at scale. Coordinated major fitness industry trade show presence as launching point for new market entries, product announcements, and partner co-marketing.

Year 5–6: Global expansion + product–marketing alignment

EMEA + APAC commercial playbooks. Adaptation of the North American GTM motion for European and Asia-Pacific operator markets with local positioning, partner relationships, and channel motions.
Product roadmap input from operator insights. Synthesized operator-research findings into product feature prioritization recommendations across boutique, studio, and hybrid operator types.
Cross-functional GTM alignment. Sales, Product, and Marketing operating from shared positioning, shared targets, and shared cadence — the operating model that supports sustained scale-up.

What we'd tell you about this pattern

What worked, what we'd do differently, what this means for your stage

What worked

Owning marketing as a long-arc engagement, not a project. Six years sounds long for a fractional engagement; the multi-year continuity is what made global expansion possible. Marketing leadership that turns over every 18 months loses the operator relationships and channel knowledge that compound.
Vertical-specific positioning over generic. "Software for boutique and multi-location fitness operators" beats "gym software" in every market we tested. Narrower positioning, broader buyer pool.
Trade show + brand event coordination. In B2B SaaS targeting operators, in-person industry events still matter materially. Coordinating product launches, brand moments, and partner relationships around major trade shows compresses the GTM clock.

What we'd do differently

Earlier AI-native systems. The current AI agent infrastructure for lead nurture, no-show recovery, and content production wasn't available in 2017 — but the principles of operator-centric automation were. We'd build that operational layer earlier in a comparable engagement today. See AI-native fractional CMO.
Faster EMEA + APAC playbook adaptation. The North American playbook ran for ~2.5 years before serious EMEA adaptation began. With the benefit of hindsight, parallel adaptation 12-18 months earlier would have compressed the global expansion arc.

If you're a B2B SaaS company evaluating fractional CMO

This pattern — fractional Head of Marketing / GTM Strategy as the durable senior leadership through multi-year scale-up — fits B2B SaaS companies that have product-market fit and need to professionalize the commercial motion as they expand into new markets, larger operators, or international geographies. See Fractional CMO for B2B SaaS for the operating model in detail, and AI-native fractional CMO for how the model has evolved since 2017.