FRACTIONAL MARKETING & STRATEGY DEPARTMENT
Your marketing department. Without the overhead.
We act as the marketing department for founder-led consumer brands and service businesses. We own the strategy and bring the team to execute ads, email, creative and the systems behind them, without hiring a full department.
No pitch deck. We look at your numbers together.
Built to work with businesses across North America · Europe · Asia-Pacific
Avg monthly revenue in 6 months — DTC food brand
Email revenue, ~60% automated
Cost per lead in 2 months — ads taken in-house
Closed deals from 2,665 leads — tracked to CRM truth
01 — THE WALL
Most growing businesses hit the same wall.
Your business has customers, but marketing still runs through you. You need senior direction, creative that actually ships, and systems that turn interest into sales and keep customers coming back. Building that in-house means hiring across several skill sets. So the work gets split across freelancers, agencies and spreadsheets. Nobody owns the whole picture, and customer retention, lead follow-up and clear measurement get neglected.
You need one accountable department connecting strategy, creative, campaigns and operations. One team that understands how customers buy from you, owns the plan, and follows the work through from first interest to revenue.
02 — THE WORK
DTC · PREMIUM FOOD
A premium food brand
From one-channel store to compounding growth engine
TCL brought the strategy and the execution. We helped run stronger campaigns, improve retention, clean up attribution, and build a more consistent growth engine across the business. From April 2025 onward, revenue ran well ahead of the same months a year earlier while better lifecycle marketing, measurement and backend systems made growth more repeatable.
Endpoints actual: 2025 beat 2024 in all twelve months. From April 2025, when TCL came in, revenue ran 74% ahead of the same months a year earlier, and 2026 to date is running a further 68% ahead of 2025.
“TCL brought the strategy and the execution. They helped us run better campaigns, strengthen retention, clean up attribution, and turn marketing into a much more consistent growth engine.”
Emil
General Manager, TenderBites
B2B · PRINT & DOCUMENT SOLUTIONS
A print and document solutions business
Brought ads in-house. Cut cost per conversation 41%.
We brought Meta ads in-house, rebuilt CRM attribution, and established a faster creative testing rhythm. Cost per conversation fell 41%, CPM dropped 53%, and July reached 813 conversations at ₱27 each. The result was cleaner measurement, faster iteration and much stronger control over paid growth.
Endpoints actual: the previous agency averaged 279 conversations a month at ₱45 each. July ran 813 conversations at ₱27. Ads moved in-house in May.
Bringing ads in-house gave better visibility, faster iteration and much more control over performance. The work became more measurable, more efficient and easier to scale.
IN-HOUSE · FOUNDER'S OWN BRAND
Before we ran growth for anyone else, we built our own.
What started as a side hustle on Amazon became the proving ground for how we operate today. Across candles, wax seals and travel accessories, we scaled Minimale Collective to nearly seven figures in sales within three years, expanded across three marketplaces, and learned firsthand what actually drives ecommerce growth — creative, pricing, retention, inventory and operations. It was our own cash, our own inventory and our own mistakes, and it became part of the operating playbook behind TCL.
6.5x
IN ONE YEAR
4.5★
650+ CUSTOMER REVIEWS
IN SALES · WITHIN 3 YEARS
3
MARKETPLACES
FEATURED & RECOGNIZED BY
COSMOPOLITAN
First pick of 30 third-anniversary leather gifts
“This travel jewelry case is the perfect companion...”
Also recognized by Grit Daily (#2 candle-making kit), New Hobby Box (“Most Professional Kit”), and The Bridal Box (“Best Long-Lasting”).
03 — THE DEPARTMENT
A department you don’t have to build.
You get the functions of a real marketing and growth operations department, without assembling and managing the headcount yourself.
Strategy
Led by Mik · Founder — CMO-level direction across positioning, channel strategy, growth priorities and the roadmap.
Creative
Ads, email, organic social and creator content shipped consistently and tested systematically — not based on taste.
Operations
The systems behind execution — campaign operations, reporting, workflow design, CRM processes and custom tools that replace manual work and keep the business moving.
Systems & AI
Automation, attribution infrastructure, data workflows and AI-enabled systems that help the team move faster, make better decisions and scale without unnecessary complexity.
Specialists join where the work calls for them.
One department. One operating rhythm.
Strategy, creative, operations and systems work from the same priorities, numbers and weekly cadence. No managing multiple vendors. No chasing handoffs. No wondering who owns the next step.
Four growth systems.
One operating model.
01 · Lifecycle email & follow-up
Email that brings buyers back, nurtures new inquiries and keeps existing customers engaged, turning first interest into sales and repeat business.
02 · Honest attribution
Connect campaign data to your store or CRM. See which channels drive orders, qualified inquiries and revenue.
03 · Performance marketing
Paid social and campaign creative, plus influencer and UGC programs where they fit. Measured by sales and qualified inquiries.
04 · AI-era discovery (SEO/GEO)
Help people and AI tools find and recommend your products or services through technical SEO, schema, reviews and useful content.
What working with us looks like
Week 1 · Growth audit
We look at your customers, what you’ve tried, and the path from first interest to sale. You leave with clear priorities, whether or not we work together.
Months 1–2 · The department installs
We fix measurement first, then focus on acquisition, repeat purchases, lead follow-up or operations, based on what’s holding growth back. Clear ownership, progress every week.
Month 3+ · Compounding
A consistent operating rhythm: what shipped, what it returned, what we learned and what happens next. Decisions tied back to revenue, not activity reports.
04 — ABOUT THE FOUNDER
Hi, I’m Mik.
I started my career in multinational FMCG in Vancouver, then came up through Amazon FBA and went on to build and scale eCommerce across Asia, the US and Europe. Today, my work spans consumer brands and service businesses. I keep seeing the same problem: marketing gets split across people and channels, while the founder is left connecting the pieces.
So I built the department I kept wishing businesses had: senior strategy, dedicated creative and operations, specialists where needed, and systems that help us move faster. I lead the plan, and the team carries it through without making you recruit and manage every role yourself.
Frequently asked questions
What does Third Culture Lab do?
Who actually does the work?
Who is it for?
How is this different from an agency?
What does it cost?
Do I need to build an in-house marketing team?
Let’s look at your numbers.
30 minutes. Your dashboards, our questions. You’ll leave with at least one thing to fix, whether or not we ever work together.
Prefer email? mikhail@thirdculturelab.com