I've sat in your chair.
I've built the marketing that drove a $350M division. I've rebuilt customer acquisition from scratch at a company burning cash. I've launched products, killed products, and sat in the room when leadership wanted answers. None of that was consulting. That was operating.
I didn't start in strategy. I started in stories.
Dirt Rag magazine. Journalism. Deep dives into companies, factory visits, events. I learned how brands actually work by writing about the people who build them.
That turned into building brands myself. At Trek, I met the owners and operators who ran the business. I hired athletes, built stories that scaled, and did it across more than mountain biking. At QBP and Specialized, I was on leadership — not running the P&L, but owning the marketing that drove it.
Then I crossed over. Bird Rides — a lifestyle mobility company, bad timing, SPAC crash, real pressure. Then software at Ride with GPS. Hard goods to software. Every jump forced me to learn a new business from the inside out.
The receipts.
Marketing that drove division growth
Built the marketing engine for a division that grew from $200M to $350M. Positioning, channel strategy, sales enablement, athlete partnerships — the system that made the revenue possible.
$200M → $350M revenueBrand leadership at scale
Directed brand and marketing strategy for a global cycling brand. Same pattern — understand the business first, then build the machine that scales it.
200% growth in premium e-bike segmentAcquisition rebuilt from scratch
A company burning cash on paid acquisition. I rebuilt the engine — cut customer acquisition cost by 96% and grew sales 37%. Not a tweak. A rebuild.
96% lower CAC · 37% sales increaseEngagement redesign
Redesigned onboarding and the engagement model. Different company, different industry. Same instinct — find the broken system, rebuild it, ship.
40% engagement liftAI made me faster. Not different.
I was doing this work before AI tools existed. The frameworks, the pattern recognition, the ability to look at a business and know where the leverage is — that comes from twenty years of operating.
What changed is speed. The go-to-market system that used to take four months now ships in four weeks. The content engine that required a team of three now runs with one. The research phase that cost $40K in billable hours now happens in days.
AI didn't make me a consultant. It made a twenty-year operator dangerous. I use AI the way a carpenter uses a nail gun — it's faster, but the skill is still knowing where to put the nail.
I bring AI fluency to every engagement now. Not as a buzzword. As a capability multiplier that compresses years of trial-and-error into weeks of execution. Whether that's standing up a go-to-market engine for a $5M company or transforming operations for a $100M brand — the advantage is the same. Operator judgment, amplified.
One person. That's the point.
Big Firms
- Senior partner sells it, junior analyst does it
- Six-month timelines for a strategy deck
- Seven figures before anything ships
- Frameworks designed for their process, not your business
Agencies & Freelancers
- Execute tactics without understanding the business
- Optimize channels but can't advise on strategy
- Hand you a deliverable, not a system
- Account manager plays telephone with the doer
Rise Above Partners
- The strategist and the builder are the same person
- Working systems ship in 2–4 weeks
- AI-fluent across every engagement
- Operator experience from Trek, Specialized, Bird — not a textbook
- You talk to me. I do the work. There's no one in between.
"Working with Rise Above Partners is a breath of fresh air. Most agencies offer a menu of services. Michael came in, evaluated our needs, and worked to deliver a proposal that hit the mark. On time, on the mark, and proving value from Day 1."
— Ben Witucki, VP Sales & Marketing, Shade HavenYou've outgrown your playbook.
You're past the point where another deck or another agency hire moves the needle. Most engagements run 2–8 weeks. One conversation to find out if we're a fit.