Results
Generated £1.3M+ in pipeline value from leads that booked meetings
Repositioned AdvisoryAI from three point products to one firm-wide platform on a win-loss, ICP, positioning, and messaging foundation, then rebranded and rebuilt the website around it
Ran the marketing function as acting head of marketing: agencies across SEO/AEO, paid, outbound calling and email, plus RevOps, team sprint planning in Linear, and the SDR and permanent-lead hires
Overview
AdvisoryAI is an AI platform for UK financial advice firms, where every role (advisers, paraplanners, compliance officers, operations managers, admin) works from one conversational interface: pre-meeting prep, suitability reports, compliance checks, client management, and investment research across 120+ DFMs and 2,700+ portfolios. Founded in 2023 and run from the UK, it already serves 400+ firms and 2,000+ advisers. It ranks #2 on AdviserSoftware.com, the biggest jump in the category that year, and #1 most-used adviser AI on FTAdviser in H1 2025. It competes against better-funded incumbents: Saturn (YC-backed, $15.5M Series A), Aveni (around £27M funded, with Tier 1 bank clients), and PlannerPal (350+ firms).
I joined AdvisoryAI as its acting head of marketing, reporting to founder and CEO Alan Gurung and working alongside Ben Glass, the product marketing manager, and the head of sales, Steve. The product had outgrown its story. It had matured into a firm-wide platform with 50+ live capabilities across five roles, but sales and the website still led with three separate point products, so high-intent buyers were comparing AdvisoryAI one feature at a time on a surface the funded incumbents owned. The marketing function also needed running day to day: a team to lead and agencies to manage.
That gap compounded fast. In a market of roughly 5,000 FCA-regulated firms consolidating quickly, every comparison AdvisoryAI lost on a single feature sent a high-intent buyer to a better-funded rival, right when consolidation was deciding who would still be standing. The consolidator segment alone was worth £2.6M to £3.0M ARR, where a single consolidator can outweigh more than 150 small-firm wins. Capturing it meant fixing the story, the brand, and the site, then running marketing while the permanent team came together.
Scope
I ran AdvisoryAI's marketing as acting head of marketing, from the underlying research through to shipped execution and the team behind it.
Context engineering: the foundation. Win-loss analysis across 188 sales calls (129 won, 59 lost), ICP research, teardowns of 12+ competitors, and the positioning and messaging built on top. Done first, with Claude Code, it showed buyers were comparing on single features and that consolidators were the highest-leverage segment, and it grounded everything downstream.
A rebrand and a full website redesign. A refreshed visual identity, then a rebuilt homepage and 16 competitor comparison pages plus role and product pages, all built in Framer around the one-platform story and laid out to win both the buyer and the AI answer engines.
A platform sales deck and three competitor battlecards. Designed in Figma and wired into HubSpot so the right battlecard reaches the rep the moment a competitor enters a deal, with a demo-offer playbook for the sales team.
Running the function and the team. I hired and managed the agencies across every channel: the SEO and AEO agency for organic and AI-search visibility, the paid agency running Google and LinkedIn ads, the outbound agency cold-calling firm principals into meetings, the email agency running cold sequences, and the RevOps setup wiring HubSpot attribution and reporting. I ran the in-house team with weekly sprint planning in Linear, and scoped and hired the SDR and the permanent head of marketing.
Growth programs for the high-value segments. An account-based program for the consolidator accounts, a referral program, and a competitive-displacement program to convert switchers off the funded incumbents.
A measurement system tying spend, pipeline, and AI-search visibility back to HubSpot, reported to the founder every week, with Granola for call sampling.
"I saw someone else describe Matteo as a one-man-army and tbh there's no better way to put it. When he came in we had product-market fit but near zero GTM infrastructure. No formal positioning, no messaging, no content engine, no launch playbook. One week later: all sales transcripts analysed, full win/loss breakdown, ICP defined from real deal data, competitive positioning mapped, founder POV extracted, and a positioning strategy delivered. The speed is mad but it's not even the main thing. Matteo doesn't just do the work: he builds the system that keeps doing the work after he leaves. Every launch becomes a template. For example, he coordinated five launches in five weeks (newsletter, website rebrand, integration, podcast, and a tier-one product launch) and each one left behind a playbook for the next. One more thing that sorta flies under the radar is his agency/freelance network. The best agencies in the space all have long waiting lists, but they're excited to work with Matteo. If you get the chance to work with him, take it."
Ben Glass
Impact
The one-platform story gave the team a single thing to sell, and the rebuilt go-to-market turned it into pipeline:
£1.3M+ in pipeline value generated from leads that booked meetings, tracked in HubSpot and the weekly report
Repositioned from three point products to one firm-wide platform, on a foundation of win-loss, ICP, positioning, messaging, and competitor research, adopted across the deck, homepage, and talk tracks
A rebrand and a full website redesign, including a rebuilt homepage and 16 competitor comparison pages that contest the "vs" search surface against the funded incumbents
The marketing function run as acting head of marketing: agencies hired and managed across SEO and AEO, paid (Google and LinkedIn), outbound calling, email, and RevOps; the in-house team run with weekly sprint planning in Linear; the SDR and permanent head-of-marketing hires scoped
Three competitor battlecards that reach the rep automatically when a competitor enters a deal
The consolidator opportunity quantified at £2.6M to £3.0M ARR, with the account-based and displacement programs built to capture it
