Hottest Commodity provides senior marketing leadership to selective pre-Series-A startups in exchange for meaningful equity. No cash retainer required. Twelve-month minimum. Highly selective. We turn down most applications and that's the right answer for both sides.
Pre-Series-A is when positioning, channel selection, and message-market fit decide whether the next round happens. It's also when most startups have the least money to hire the operators who know what they're doing. That's the gap. The equity engagement closes it.
Pre-PMF startups burn months testing channels that were doomed by the brand promise. A senior operator catches this in the first week.
Paid before organic. SEO before SEM. Influencer before community. The order matters more than the channels and the founder rarely knows it.
Founders write copy for the product they built. Operators write copy for the buyer who exists. Bridging that gap is the work.
Plain English. No retainer fees. No agency overhead. Equity for outcomes, vested monthly over twenty-four months. The same operator who finds $1.5 million in marketing leaks on cash audits runs the play for you. No cash up front.
Equity engagements are selective because equity is finite. We can only carry a small portfolio of startup engagements at any time. Here's the bar.
Real product in market. Some traction. Not a deck. Not pre-seed without a prototype. Not Series B with a marketing function in place.
DTC, B2B SaaS, fintech, regulated industries, sports and gaming. Hard pass on web3, crypto, AI hype products, and categories without a clear unit economic story.
You've done this before, or you're doing it now with the conviction of someone who's already on round two. Coachable. Direct. Honest about what's working and what isn't.
Standard founder shares. Normal preferences. No surprises in the docs. Or a clear path to clean before signing.
Regulatory and tax simplicity for both sides. Delaware C-corp preferred.
If the company isn't likely to be worth meaningfully more in three years than it is today, this isn't the right structure. We bet on outcomes.
The form below. Five minutes. We review every application personally. Response within five business days.
Thirty minutes with Jordan. We scope fit, vertical, traction, equity range, and engagement scope. No commitment from either side.
Seven-day forensic diagnostic. Same audit, deferred-equity terms. Proof of value before the long-term engagement signs.
Equity terms, vesting schedule, scope, and reporting cadence documented. Counsel on both sides. Then we go.
Five minutes. Plain English. Every application is read personally. Time-wasters get nothing back. Serious founders get a response within five business days.
Because pre-Series-A startups have more equity than cash. Cash burn is finite and the marketing line item is usually the first one cut when revenue slows. Equity is meaningful but doesn't kill runway. We'd rather own a piece of a company that wins than be the agency invoice that got canceled in month three.
One to three percent of common stock, vesting monthly over twenty-four months. Specifics depend on stage, traction, scope, and how much full-time marketing leadership we're displacing. Standard advisor terms. We use the Founder Institute's FAST framework as a starting point.
No. Advisor seat optional and case-by-case. We're operators, not investors. We do the work and we get paid in shares of the outcome.
Twelve-month minimum, because marketing doesn't compound in a quarter and founders' first instinct under pressure is to fire the marketing function. After twelve months either side can exit. Vested equity stays with the executive. Unvested equity reverts to the cap table.
No. Most applications are turned down. We say no for stage, vertical, cap table, or founder fit. That's the right answer for both sides. We can only carry a small portfolio of startup engagements at any time and we want to be honest about that.
Yes. Many engagements convert to hybrid cash plus equity once revenue scales. The cap table doesn't have to be the only currency forever. Once the company has the cash to support a CMO retainer, we restructure.
Yes. No junior analysts. No outsourced research. No template swap. The same operator who delivered $1.5M findings on the last three cash audits delivers the work. Seventeen years of pattern recognition shows up to every meeting.
The standard $2,500 audit fee is deferred and converted to additional equity at engagement signing. If we sign, the audit cost is rolled into the deal. If we don't sign, the audit report is yours and no equity transfers.