One desk, not a layer of account managers. You work directly with the operator who scaled two of the largest marine marketplaces online. A deliberately small roster, so every client gets a flagship effort.
Before Topside, I led growth at Boats Group and in the entertainment industry. The categories differed. The pattern held: find the channels that compound, build the data to see them clearly, and let disciplined execution do the rest.
And more recently in the entertainment industry: 50% year-over-year new subscription growth in six months, a marketing tooling bill cut by $1M, and a free-to-paid lift of 10% from a lifecycle program I built from scratch.
Category knowledge is the edge. These are the worlds I know cold, as a marketer and, in most cases, as a customer.
Dealers, brokers, marketplaces, and manufacturers. I spent seven years inside the boat-buying lifecycle at Boat Trader, YachtWorld, and boats.com, from first search to financing to ownership. I know the seasonality, the inventory dynamics, and the buyer.
Two-sided growth is its own discipline. Supply and demand have to scale together, attribution gets messy, and lifecycle is everything. I have grown marketplace lead volume from hundreds of thousands into the millions.
Fishing, watersports, and the brands built around time on the water. I am a customer as much as a marketer, which shows up in creative that resonates with the audience instead of just performing on a spreadsheet.
Entertainment, finance, and services marketplaces. The growth playbook travels. If your business runs on acquisition, conversion, and retention at scale, we should talk.
SEM, paid social, and display built to compound rather than chase last-click. Landing-page testing that has lifted conversion 50% and more, with measurement you can defend to a CFO.
Traditional organic plus generative engine optimization. The goal is to show up in Google, in AI Overviews, and in answers from ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity, where buyers increasingly start.
Email and CRM programs that turn free users into paying ones and keep them. I have built browse-abandonment systems that lifted free-to-paid conversion by double digits.
Warehouse-native marketing on stacks like Redshift, Hightouch, Amplitude, and modern email platforms, so your team can finally see, trust, and act on the numbers.
Creator partnerships that earn real attention, including campaigns with leading fishing and outdoor YouTubers. Reach the audience where they already spend their time.
We start with your data, not a template. I find where growth is leaking and, more importantly, where it compounds.
I run the work directly. Channels, creative, lifecycle, and the measurement to prove it, all set up to last beyond the engagement.
Small roster, long horizon. I take on few clients so each gets senior attention and steady, compounding gains.
I am a growth marketing leader with over a decade scaling marketplaces in the marine, entertainment, finance, and services sectors. At Boats Group I helped grow lead volume from 300,000 to 4.7 million and double revenue across Boat Trader, YachtWorld, and boats.com. Today I lead a 16-person global marketing team in the entertainment industry across paid, SEO, lifecycle, and influencer.
I started Topside Growth to do the most direct version of this work: senior hands on a small number of businesses I believe in. I am based in the Greater Orlando area and spend my free time offshore fishing and on the water. That is not a coincidence.
I take on a small number of clients at a time. If you run a marine, marketplace, or outdoor brand and want senior growth help, send a note.
colin@topsidegrowth.com