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About — Erin Toughill

A senior brand strategist who has actually shipped the thing she now advises on.

Independent practice. Ex-founder. Six years inside a unicorn B2B SaaS company before that. Engagements capped at twelve per quarter by design.

Book a Strategy Diagnostic Or write directly →
  • Ex-VP of Brand, Unicorn B2B SaaS
  • Bootstrapped D2C exit at $4.2M ARR
  • Independent since 2019

The Biography — In Three Chapters

The credibility here is operator credibility. I built the thing before I started naming it for other people.

Chapter 01 — The Operator Years

Six years inside a unicorn B2B SaaS company.

Before the independent practice existed, I spent six years as VP of Brand at a unicorn B2B SaaS company, learning firsthand what good positioning does to a pipeline, what bad positioning does to a fundraising round, and how rare it is to find a senior practitioner who can hold both the narrative and the numbers in the same head. I left in 2019 with a working theory: that the work I had been doing inside one company could be productized for a small roster of founders who needed the same level of attention without hiring a full-time VP.

Chapter 02 — The Founder Exit

A bootstrapped D2C brand, taken to $4.2M ARR, exited in 2020.

Alongside the operator track I ran a bootstrapped direct-to-consumer brand from a blank Stripe account to $4.2M in annual recurring revenue. I held the positioning, the creative, the P&L, and the customer support inbox — sometimes in the same afternoon. The brand exited in 2020. That chapter is the reason founders trust me in a room with their board: I have sat in the seat they are sitting in, and I have made the trade-offs they are about to make.

Chapter 03 — The Independent Practice

Founded 2019. Twelve engagements per quarter, capped by design.

The independent practice was founded in 2019 and has since completed 180+ engagements across 14 industries — B2B SaaS, fintech, healthtech, and consumer, with the occasional category that refuses to fit a label. I cap the roster at twelve active engagements per quarter so that every founder on it gets senior-level attention from me, not from a junior associate wearing my name. That cap is the single most-asked-about decision in the practice, and it has never been the wrong one.

The Ledger — Proof, Not Bragging

A short, honest accounting of the practice as it stands today.

180+

Brand engagements completed since 2019.

14

Industries served, from B2B SaaS to consumer.

$740M+

Cumulative client valuation influenced through positioning and narrative work.

3.2×

Average reported lift in qualified inbound pipeline within 90 days of launch.

21d

Average calendar days from kickoff to delivered positioning.

4

Client companies that exited above $100M valuation between 2020 and 2025.

Numbers updated quarterly. No projections, no multipliers, no asterisks.

The Recognition Arc — A Chronological Ledger

Recognition is downstream of the work. Here is the timeline.

  1. 2019

    Founded the independent practice.

    After six years as VP of Brand at a unicorn B2B SaaS company, opened the independent practice with a deliberately small roster. The first-year roster was seven engagements.

  2. 2020

    Bootstrapped D2C brand exited at $4.2M ARR.

    Personal founder track: the direct-to-consumer brand built in parallel to the advisory practice was acquired in 2020, sharpening the operator credibility founders ask about in every first call.

  3. 2021

    Forbes 30 Under 30 — Marketing & Advertising.

    Named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in Marketing & Advertising. Cited for the practice's positioning work with venture-backed B2B and consumer brands.

  4. 2023

    Adweek Creative 100.

    Included in the Adweek Creative 100. The same year, positioning frameworks from the practice began to be adopted by 40+ Y Combinator portfolio companies.

  5. 2024

    Ad Age 40 Under 40.

    Named to Ad Age 40 Under 40. Speaking engagements at SaaStr, First Round Capital CMO Summits, and the Pavilion founder track became a regular calendar fixture.

  6. 2025

    Cited in The Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, Axios, The Information.

    Practice's positioning work cited across major business and technology press. The quarterly cap remains at twelve active engagements — unchanged since founding.

On The Twelve

A small roster is a feature, not a constraint. It is the entire reason the work ships at the level it does.

"I take twelve. Every founder on the roster gets senior-level attention — mine, not a junior associate wearing my name. The cap is what makes the work possible. It is also why people book fast: there are only twelve seats, and they go quickly."

— Erin Toughill, on the practice's quarterly cap.

The Next Move

Twenty-one days from kickoff to delivered positioning. The first step is a thirty-minute diagnostic call.

No deck. No pitch. A working conversation about where your positioning is leaking pipeline, fundraising leverage, or category clarity — and whether the practice is the right fit to fix it this quarter.

Book a Strategy Diagnostic Or write directly: [email protected] →

Twelve engagements per quarter. Two are typically filled before the calendar turns. The diagnostic call is the door.