Headwaters Digital Start a conversationContact

Senior marketing leadership,
sized to what you need.

A small practice in Denver. Some engagements are a full fractional CMO seat, some are one channel, and either way the person you meet is the person doing the work. Fifteen years in, across 20+ companies from pre-revenue startups to $100M+ national institutions.

Ray Stein, Founder and Principal Denver, CO 720.352.2381

Two-time Google AdWords All-Star Top 1% Google AllStar Partner Member, Claude Partner Network (Anthropic, 2026) Featured speaker, Denver Startup Week Co-founder and organizer, Denver Analytics Meetup

Small on purpose.

You work with me, not with an account manager relaying your questions to someone you never meet. I embed inside your business, find the actual problem, and either fix it or build the team and systems that will.

Fifteen years in, across 20+ companies from pre-revenue startups to $100M+ national institutions.

Sectors

  • CPG
  • Healthcare
  • Education
  • Nonprofit
  • Government
  • Cultural institutions
  • Franchise development

Five ways to start. Pick the one that matches your problem.

Monthly retainer

Channel Management

Hand off a channel and stop thinking about it. Paid search, paid social, organic social, SEO, or PR, run by someone senior enough to tell you when the channel is not actually the problem. Reporting you can read without a translator.

Fixed fee, 2 weeks

Paid Media Audit

A full teardown of your ad accounts. What’s working, what’s leaking money, and a prioritized list of fixes with projected impact. You keep the findings whether or not we work together.

Fixed fee, 30 days

Analytics & Reporting Buildout

GA4, conversion tracking, and a dashboard your team will open. Ends the arguments about whose number is right.

Fixed fee, 30 days

AI Marketing Assistant

A tool wired to your analytics that answers questions in plain English, so your team stops waiting on a report to find out what happened last week.

Monthly retainer

Fractional CMO

Senior marketing leadership without a senior marketing salary. Strategy, team, budget, and accountability for the number.

Pricing depends on scope. Email me and I’ll give you a number, usually the same day.

Work that held up after I left.

Clients are intentionally unnamed. I’ll walk you through any of these in detail on a call.

27%

Grew a client’s revenue 27% on flat customer volume through repricing and repackaging over 18 months, with conversion holding at every increase.

First revenue

Took a VC-backed CPG brand from pre-revenue to first revenue as fractional CMO, owning positioning, packaging, website, paid and organic, and a 20 to 30 creator launch program.

70%+ organic

Drove 70%+ organic traffic growth in 18 months for a national accredited school through the launch of its online programs.

$40K / month

Secured a Google Ad Grants Pro award for a major museum, worth $40,000 a month in donated advertising, still running years later.

50 to 60%

Built a free-class lead funnel converting 50 to 60% of attendees into paid customers at roughly $1,000 lifetime value.

Start small. Grow it if it works.

  1. A conversation

    Thirty minutes. You tell me what’s not working. I tell you whether I’m the right person for it, and sometimes the answer is no.

  2. One scope or one channel

    Either a single fixed-scope project or a monthly retainer on one channel. Small enough that you can judge the work on the work.

  3. It grows, or it doesn’t

    If it goes well, it grows. If it doesn’t, you’re not locked into anything and you keep everything I built.

No long-term contracts. No minimum commitments. No account managers.

Tell me what’s not working.

Book time directly, or send a note and I’ll come back to you within one business day.

Book a 30-minute call

Email
ray@headwatersdigital.com
Phone
720.352.2381
Based in
Denver, Colorado. Working with clients anywhere in the US.

Goes straight to my inbox. No list, no drip sequence, no newsletter.