Applied Work

Case Studies

Flagship Case Study · 2026 B2B Marketplace · Premium SaaS Platform
$35-50M
Projected Incremental Revenue
70%+
Margin Protection Target
+15-20pp
Utilization Lift
>105%
Net Revenue Retention

A Premium Marketplace Was Burning $30M+ in
Unused Capacity Every Year. The Problem Wasn't Price.

40-70% of purchased capacity expiring unused. Activation rates declining 900 basis points year-over-year. User satisfaction scores remained strong throughout. This was a high-traffic B2B marketplace with clear product-market fit and a commercial architecture that was structurally preventing its own adoption. The engagement redesigned the entire commercial model from entry-point pricing to enterprise governance without a product change or a price increase.

The Root Cause

Three Simultaneous Failure Modes

A zero-usage population blocked by a high entry barrier with no low-commitment option. Mid-tier users purchasing capacity in bulk but reaching expiry with 40-70% unused. Team accounts lacking governance structure, spreading utilization failure across members.

The ~900 bps year-over-year activation decline confirmed this was a commercial architecture problem not a product or market problem.

What Changed

Four-Strategy Architecture

Strategy A

Micro-Tiers + Performance Rebates COGS-positive trial tier eliminating the activation barrier with no margin dilution.

Strategy B

Pooled Capacity + Team Governance Shared allocation architecture for teams and enterprise accounts.

Strategy C

Subscription Bundles + PLG Hook Grounded in the reality that per-transaction ROI is negative until portfolio-level benefits are experienced.

Strategy D

Enterprise Deal Desk + Give-Get Matrix Margin floor guardrails for high-volume enterprise accounts.

Research & Validation

GBB Packaging & WTP Research

Three-tier Essential / Premium / Elite architecture differentiated on usage volume, team governance, analytics access, and dedicated support not arbitrary feature exclusions. Tier naming calibrated to professional identity to reduce downgrade pressure at renewal.

Gabor-Granger WTP research designed for each segment non-adopters, active users, and lapsed to validate the low-commitment trial price point before launch.

Matched-market pilot with pre-registered Go/No-Go thresholds at 30, 60, and 90 days.

Execution

9-Month Implementation Roadmap

Months 1-3 · Foundation
Activate the Base

Low-commitment trial launch · WTP research execution · Data infrastructure build · Matched-market pilot

Months 4-6 · Expansion
Scale What Works

GBB tier rollout · Subscription bundle launch · Team governance deployment · Go/No-Go evaluation

Months 7-9 · Governance
Protect the Margin

Enterprise Deal Desk activation · Give-Get matrix deployment · Enterprise account migration · NRR optimization

The Core Reframe

The 30-point utilization gap was not a price problem. It was a packaging and activation problem. The distinction saved the margin.

Selected Past Engagements

The blueprint applied.

A cross-section of engagements across B2B SaaS, enterprise technology, and commercial transformation. All clients anonymized.

Assessment, Diagnostic & Root Cause
Series B SaaS · $20M ARR

Revenue Acceleration Diagnostic & GTM Operating Model

Stalled revenue growth, 18-35% win rate variance by segment, and fragmented positioning. Five-workstream diagnostic covering GTM positioning, revenue intelligence, pricing, sales enablement, and operating cadence.

$3M
Revenue Leakage Found
8-10%
Margin Guardrail Improvement
6mo
Early on $50M Milestone
Large Enterprise Technology · $200M → $400M ARR

Global RevOps Scaling & AI Transformation

Fragmented systems across three regions with manual forecasting. Scaled RevOps team from 8 to 25, implemented AI-powered forecasting, configured CPQ and Salesforce automation.

35%
Forecast Accuracy Improvement
40%
Quote-to-Cash Cycle Reduction
ARR Growth Supported
Pricing Strategy, Packaging & Metering
B2B SaaS · $25M ARR · Mid-Market

Pricing Architecture & Monetization Overhaul

Flat ARPU, 20-40% discount variance, misaligned packaging. Three-tier GBB architecture with usage-based components for PLG. Validated via A/B experiments and GenAI-powered WTP research.

15-18%
Margin Improvement
25%
Shorter Sales Cycles
22%
Expansion Revenue Lift
Consumer Tech · $500M+ Revenue · Multi-Phase

HW/SW Bundle Architecture & Subscription Migration at Scale

1.5M+ installed-base transition from perpetual to subscription with cannibalization risk. Conjoint + Van Westendorp WTP research, anti-cannibalization guardrails, segmented migration playbooks.

1.5M+
Customers Migrated
20%
Profitability Improvement
<2%
Churn During Migration
Metering, AI Analytics & Execution
Series B SaaS · $15M ARR · PLG

AI-Powered Pricing & Revenue Operations

Manual pricing analysis consuming 15+ hours weekly. Implemented GenAI-powered pricing analytics, LLM-based quote generation, usage-based pricing frameworks, and automated anomaly detection.

60%
Analysis Time Reduced
4hr
Quote Turnaround (from 3 days)
10-12%
Margin Improvement
Multi-Product Technology · 15+ Product Lines

Multi-Product GTM Strategy & Sales Enablement

Inconsistent GTM across 15+ product lines, disconnected pricing models. Built unified GTM strategy with positioning frameworks by segment, redesigned pricing, established WBR/QBR governance.

18%
ARPU Expansion
45%
Decision Latency Reduction
Technology Consulting · $10M → $30M Growth

Commercial Architecture & Services Productization

Custom project-based pricing creating unpredictable margins. Productized services into tiered architecture, transitioned from T&M to value-based fixed-price packages with discount guardrails.

12-15%
Margin Improvement
$8M
New Business in 6 Months
20%
Shorter Sales Cycles
Corporate Career: Pricing Functions Built & Transformed
GoDaddy

Building a Pricing Function from Zero

Situation

GoDaddy was a $1.9B revenue company with no pricing function. Pricing decisions were made ad hoc across product, marketing, and finance with no central governance, no analytical infrastructure, and no systematic approach to packaging or discounting across domains, hosting, SaaS, and digital products.

Structural Flaw

Without a pricing function, every product team set prices independently — creating internal cannibalization, inconsistent discounting, and packaging that reflected the org chart rather than buyer segments. The structural debt was organizational: pricing decisions were distributed without governance, and the company had no mechanism to measure price realization or identify margin leakage.

Resolution

Built the pricing team from one to five. Designed the Website Builder Good-Better-Best packaging architecture. Established centralized governance, analytical infrastructure, and operating cadence across the multi-product portfolio. Created the pricing models, discounting frameworks, and segmentation strategies that connected product decisions to financial outcomes.

$3B+
Portfolio Revenue Scaled
1→5
Team Built from Scratch
GBB
Packaging Still in Use
Twilio / Segment

SMB Monetization Redesign

Situation

Twilio's pricing and monetization spanned SaaS, API-driven, and services offerings across enterprise, SMB, and developer segments. The SMB segment was underperforming on adoption and expansion despite strong product-market fit, and the existing packaging didn't differentiate between high-usage developers and low-volume SMB buyers.

Structural Flaw

The metering model didn't scale with compute costs. SMB customers were priced on the same axis as enterprise buyers, creating a barrier to entry that suppressed adoption. The value metric visible to buyers — per-message or per-API-call — didn't align with how SMB customers experienced value. The packaging was built around the product architecture, not the buyer segment.

Resolution

Identified a compute-based value metric through direct customer research that unlocked a new pricing axis for the SMB segment. Redesigned the SMB monetization model to lower the entry barrier and align cost to the value SMB buyers actually perceived. Built experimentation frameworks and willingness-to-pay analyses to validate the new model before rollout.

+20%
Customer Growth in 3 Months
New
Value Metric Discovered
Amazon

Digital Video Global Expansion

Situation

Amazon Instant Video operated in a limited number of markets with a video delivery infrastructure that consumed 60% of available budget. The digital video category needed to triple its geographic footprint while improving unit economics — two objectives that typically compete.

Structural Flaw

The delivery and monetization system wasn't built for global scale. The cost structure was tied to legacy infrastructure that didn't scale with compute costs, and pricing strategies were set per-locale without a unified commercial framework. The structural debt was in the delivery economics: you couldn't expand geographically without first fixing the cost base that made each new market margin-negative at launch.

Resolution

Implemented a cloud-managed global video delivery and monetization system that cut the availability budget by 60%. Executed strategic pricing actions and targeted promotional offers calibrated per-locale through simultaneous market intelligence monitoring across 8 markets. Reengineered the digital video supply chain to achieve 98% on-time publish rate.

+14%
Gross Margin Lift
+27%
Revenue Growth
3x
Geographic Footprint