Rick Bakas · Technical Marketing · Fractional CMO

Most companies don't have a marketing problem.
They have a translation problem.

Something real got built, and the story hasn't caught up. I close that gap — fluent in the standup, fluent in the market. The CMO who speaks engineer.

Nike, 8 yearsTeam Jordan · NFL · Oregon Ducks
$1M, year oneABBI → Flowsent · zero ad spend · Forbes
3 years earlyPre-Venmo · Solana '21 · AI '17
01 — The Method

Why the translation actually works.

HBDI-tested whole-brain profile — extreme scores across all four cognitive domains at once. The profile that can stand in an engineering standup, understand what's actually being built, and write the GTM strategy that makes the market understand it too.

Analytical

Reads the system

Structural

Ships the plan

Creative

Names the wave

Interpersonal

Lands the story

02 — The Work

Built early, every time.

Select a tile — it expands in place.

03 — Work Together

The specific problem this solves.

Technical founders. Series B and beyond. Something real has been built — genuinely better than what the market currently believes. Engineering runs the roadmap. The story hasn't caught up to the product.

That gap is a specific, solvable problem. It takes someone who functions in both rooms at full capacity — not summarizing engineering for marketing, or marketing for engineering.

Two or three engagements at a time. If the fit is there, it's clear quickly.