Quandri: the foundation that
enabled a US$12M raise

The Challenge

A successful Series A is a good news, bad news story. The good news is the resources to grow. The bad news is the pressure to build a leadership team and put the right strategy in place fast enough to spend that money well.

After Quandri's Series A, CEO Jackson Fregeau filled VP of Sales, Head of Operations and VP of Customer Success. The VP of Marketing seat stayed empty — and the absence of marketing leadership at the executive level had a cascading effect. Quandri was promoting itself through customer stories, LinkedIn and industry podcasts and conferences, but the activity wasn't coordinated or tied to a strategy.

"We needed to zoom out and look at the big picture: what did we want to achieve with marketing overall in the next 12 months? And what do we need to do now to ensure we get there?" says Jackson.

Underneath that sat a sharper problem. Without a clearly defined ideal client, Quandri could not map the buyer journey or measure the lead-to-deal process accurately — which put uncertainty directly into the revenue pipeline.

Why Fractional

Jackson knew he needed marketing help but wasn't sure where to turn, until his newly hired VP of Customer Success recommended Michael Gaudet. "That referral carried a lot of credibility," says Jackson. "When we met, Michael came across as extremely intelligent, very, very smart, and very competent."

The appeal of a fractional engagement was that it addressed the immediate strategic gap without waiting on a hire — and, as it turned out, accelerated that hire rather than replacing it.

What Was Done

Discovery and alignment

Michael began in person with Jackson and the engagement team to build rapport and secure buy-in, followed by one-to-one sessions with Jackson to understand the business goals for the year ahead. From there he worked with the team to set marketing goals that laddered up to those business goals, assessed the competencies and capacity of the existing team, and reviewed the systems and processes already in place before presenting findings and recommendations.

"Michael knows what he's doing," says Jackson. "He was prescriptive about what we needed but also open to our feedback. It was the right balance."

Hiring the VP of Marketing

Michael worked with Quandri's HR lead and a recruitment agency to build the hiring process — aligning on the job description, reviewing candidates, conducting interviews, advising on the final decision and creating a detailed onboarding plan.

"Chantielle was the perfect person for us," says Jackson. "Her skillset for what we are and what we're doing is a perfect match." The hire was made without consuming Jackson's calendar: "Michael could stand in for me. And it allowed us to be way more efficient with my time."

ICP and buyer journey first

During analysis Michael found Quandri didn't have a firm grasp of its ideal clients — which was undermining marketing activity and feeding the pipeline uncertainty. He argued for defining the ICP and buyer journeys before anything else moved forward.

"I'm not a marketing executive so I didn't place a huge importance on ICP prior to Michael coming in," says Jackson. "But he pointed out that we need to focus on ICP first and move from there — and that's exactly the kind of advice you want from a strategic leader because you don't know what you don't know."

Michael interviewed Quandri's top clients to understand the end-to-end buyer journey, distilled that into a clear ICP, and circulated it across the company. He also coached the marketing team on running those interviews themselves, so the ICP could be maintained as the business changed.

A buyer-led revenue pipeline

• Shared definitions — sales and marketing stakeholders aligned on what counted as a Lead, MQL, SQL and Deal.
• Stages built into the CRM — Michael worked with Revenue Operations to implement those stages and automate the handoffs.
• SLAs added — to improve client satisfaction and tighten operations further.

The Result

Quandri came out of the engagement with the foundation to make the most of its Series A. The new VP of Marketing rounded out the executive team and ramped quickly, helped by the transition plan and the marketing plan Michael left for the months after her hire.

Revenue predictability improved materially: each stage of the buyer journey is now captured and tracked in the CRM, giving visibility and data that guides decisions. Inbound traffic rose and the pipeline became more qualified.

There is also a decision worth noting. "Michael was a really good sounding board. He helped me walk through some problems we were facing and helped me make the decision to hire the VP of Marketing much earlier than we'd planned — even though that meant we wouldn't renew our contract with him. It was the right decision for us, and he encouraged it."

Quandri went on to raise US$12M, led by Framework Venture Partners.

In Their Own Words

"Without Michael, we wouldn't have done the ICP. We would have hired a VP of Marketing, but it would have taken longer — and taken my focus away from other areas of the business that are really important."

"We're starting to benefit from the ICP and Buyer Journey and everything that feeds into that."