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Diagnostic for Gaming Founders

Stop being your
own CMO.

A 2 to 3 week structured diagnostic for post-PMF gaming studios where the founder is still running marketing. You get a written plan to step out.

Duration 2 to 3 weeks
Scope Fixed
Book 30-min discovery call ›
Symptoms

If this sounds familiar, this diagnostic was built for you.

You have a marketing lead you trust, and you are no longer sure the company has not outgrown the seat. You cannot say it out loud yet, and you have nothing to say it with.
You sit in weekly UA review meetings because no one else on your team can diagnose a ROAS drop with confidence.
You triangulate AppsFlyer, Adjust, and SKAN and still do not fully trust CPI or LTV. Attribution is a recurring debate, not settled.
Your creative team is approaching burnout. Running thousands of variants per quarter on a small team. Kill rate is high, but so is attrition risk.
Your last real vacation was 12+ months ago. You checked Slack during it. Multiple times a day.
One question decides whether this is your engagement: is the thing you cannot explain a number, or a person? If you cannot explain why payback moved, that is a Growth Audit. If you can explain the numbers and cannot say out loud whether the team can carry the next twelve months, you are in the right place.
What you get

A specific, written plan you can act on.

Six concrete deliverables. Fixed scope. No retainer trap. Designed to end with you holding a roadmap, not a vague Slack channel.

01
10-dimension Capability Matrix
Your current marketing team scored 1 to 5 across UA, creative, lifecycle, brand, analytics, monetization, ASO, influencer, partnerships, and player research. Visualized against the level required for your next MRR target.
02
12-month Hiring Plan with Salary Bands
Sequenced roles by priority. Salary bands for RU, IL, EU, and US markets. Each role tied to a specific capability gap.
03
Solutions Menu per Capability Gap
For each gap, four options compared by cost and timing: hire senior, train internal, outsource, or Fractional fill. You decide which combination fits your stage.
04
Written Org Gap Report
25 to 30 page document. Executive summary for your board. Detail sections for each capability. Your data room ready.
05
Live Presentation with Your Team
2-hour structured walkthrough. Founder plus selected leadership. Documented Q&A. Everyone leaves with the same understanding.
06
30-day Follow-up Call
One month after delivery. Review what was implemented, what blocked, what changed. Adjust the plan if needed.

What this is NOT

x A Fractional CMO retainer pitch in disguise
x A single discovery call
x A McKinsey-style 80-slide deck
x Generic growth advice you can find on Substack
How it works

2 to 3 weeks, structured.

Week 1
Discovery
Kickoff with founder. Current state plus 12-month MRR target. Interviews with 4 to 8 of your team (45 to 60 min each). Document and KPI review.
Week 2
Analysis
Capability matrix self-mapping. Functional gap analysis across 10 dimensions. Hiring plan draft with salary bands. Solutions menu per gap.
Week 3
Delivery
Refine outputs. 2-hour live presentation with your team. Documented Q&A. 30-day follow-up call booked.
About the interviews. The fastest way to break a marketing team is to let it discover that someone is scoring it. So the rules are fixed before week one. Your team hears it from you, not from me, and the framing is the true one: we are building next year's plan. Individual conversations are not reported back, to you or to anyone; the report names roles and gaps, not people. Nothing goes to your board unless you decide to send it, and the written findings come to you first. If the honest answer about a person is that the role outgrew them, you will hear it from me privately, and you will hear the alternative to replacing them at the same time.
Background

Nine years inside one publisher. CMO of a $1B+ portfolio.

Nine years inside one global publisher, from Team Lead Eastern Europe to CMO of a $1B+ portfolio of mobile and PC games. At peak: 100+ marketing team, 9-figure annual media budget, multi-continent presence across UA, ASO, ad monetization, brand, and analytics.

We have built and rebuilt this marketing organization at four different scale points: team of 15, 30, 60, and 100+. We have run the founder-out-of-CMO-seat transition five times across different studios and stages.

Qiwil is a Growth Partner practice for gaming studios past PMF. The Marketing Org Gap Diagnostic is a productized engagement based on the exact pattern diagnosed each time a portfolio company in that group hit the founder-led ceiling.

9 years
Inside one publisher
$1B+
Portfolio MRR managed
100+
Marketing team built
Operator and advisor history
Global mobile publisher / Rewarded gaming platform / Gaming adtech
Fit

This is for some studios. Not for others.

This is for you if

  • The question keeping you up is about people, not about a number you cannot explain
  • You have a marketing lead and you are no longer sure the seat has grown with the company
  • Or there is no senior marketing leadership at all, and you are still effectively running it yourself
  • You are about to hire, restructure, raise, or step out of the marketing seat
  • Mobile or PC games (not iGaming or gambling)
  • Post-PMF (you have validated product market fit)

This is not for you if

  • You are pre-PMF (different problem to solve first)
  • What you actually cannot explain is a number, not a person (that is the Growth Audit)
  • You have already decided who to let go and want the report to justify it
  • You are iGaming, gambling, or sweepstakes
  • You want a Fractional CMO retainer right now (book a call, that is a different conversation)
  • You need an answer in 5 business days (this is a 2-3 week engagement)
Investment
From $15,000
2 to 3 weeks. Scope fixed before start, no creep after.
Payment: 50% upfront, 50% on delivery.
Conversion credit: if we conclude Fractional CMO is the right answer and you choose to continue with me, the full diagnostic fee credits toward your first two months of retainer.
What it saves: the output is a sequenced hiring plan. One senior hire made in the wrong order costs a multiple of this in salary and lost quarters.
Book a discovery call ›

30 minutes to find out if this is right for you.

A short discovery call. Five questions about your studio, and a straight answer in 30 minutes: whether the diagnostic will produce a clear plan for your situation, or whether you need something else, in which case we will say what.

Book 30-min discovery call ›
Other engagements
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