01 - PERFORMANCE PLATEAU
Your marketing still works, but it's running out of road
Paid media becomes less efficient, customer acquisition costs rise, and the same tactics stop delivering the momentum they once did. The business has become too focused on converting existing demand instead of creating future demand.
It requires strengthening brand visibility and positioning to rebalance brand and performance, so marketing starts compounding again.
02 - CATEGORY CEILING
You've defined a category that's too small to grow into.
Growth comes from expanding the way you define your category, finding adjacent spaces, new entry points, and audiences who don’t yet know they need you.
This is not more of the same. It needs media and creative working together to stretch the brand into new demand and unlock the ideas and channels that make that expansion stick.
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Sustainable growth requires clarity & alignment
TWO WALLS
This is the most common and most misread growth problem in the mid-market. Paid media efficiency drops, CAC rises, and the response is usually more spend, more channels, more creative. It doesn’t work.
The real issue is the brand has focused too much on converting demand, rather than creating it.
We diagnose this quickly and act on it. We make your brand easier to find and remember, rebalance your media mix so it shows up in the right moments, and build presence before people are ready to buy. We also strengthen consistency across advertising so performance compounds over time, rather than degrades.
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You’ve defined a category that's too small to grow in.
Growth still exists, but the category you’re playing in is too narrowly defined. It’s harder to see, and more dangerous at exit. On the surface, the business can look healthy, but underneath, growth is constrained by relevance only within a tight competitive set.
We assess category dynamics, audience breadth, and how much permission the brand has to move beyond its current niche.
Then we unlock it through combined media and creative strategy: identifying adjacent categories, building new entry points, and reaching audiences who don’t yet realise the brand is for them.
This is what drives real expansion and what ultimately moves the multiple.
Sustainable growth requires clarity & alignment
WHAT YOU RECEIVE.
Your Diagnostic, personalised.
A full written report that tells you which walls you're in or approaching, their severity, and the strategic priorities ordered by urgency, written for you, your board, or your investors.
Sustainable growth requires clarity & alignment
WHAT IS IT?
A structured diagnostic that names the wall you're approaching.
We combine category research, performance signal analysis and a 75-minute expert session with Diego Chicharro and Laura Derbyshire. The output tells you precisely which wall you're approaching and the strategic priorities to act on before you hit it.
Sustainable growth requires clarity & alignment
WHO IS IT FOR?
Built for founders, investors & leadership teams at every stage.
Sustainable growth requires clarity & alignment
HOW IT WORKS
Four steps. Seven days.
Sustainable growth requires clarity & alignment
HOW IT WORKS
One product.
Two ways to work with us.
SECTION 2
Category Health
Is your category growing or declining? Is your audience definition broad enough? What buying occasions could you own that you currently don't?
SECTION 1
Performance Health
Are you approaching the performance plateau or already in it? CAC trajectory, ROAS trend, channel concentration, brand vs performance split.
LEADERSHIP TEAM
Commercial Leaders
You know the numbers. You have a sense that something is off. The diagnostic gives you the independent evidence to make the case for strategic change with the board, with investors, with the founder.
PR / VC INVESTOR
Portfolio Diagnostic
An independent, data-backed read on growth health across your portfolio before the next round, not after the plateau has already cost you.
FOUNDER / CEO
Scale-up founders
CAC rising. New customer growth is slowing. Growth is not responding to spending. The diagnostic tells you whether this is a performance problem, a category problem, or both and what to do in the right order.
01
Growth Snapshot Call
FREE
A no-obligation 30-minute call. We identify which phase you're in, which wall you're approaching, and whether the diagnostic is right for you. If it isn't, we'll tell you.
02
Data & Research
48 HRS
OSER.AI researches your category growth trajectory, competitive density, adjacent audience opportunities. We work with you & your team to provide key data points.
03
Expert Interview
75 MINS
Diego and Laura run a structured session. We go deeper on what the data shows, explore the strategic context, and surface what isn't visible in the numbers.
04
Diagnostic Delivered
7 DAYS
Your full report: which walls you're approaching, severity, and the strategic priorities ordered by urgency, written for you and your board or investors..
Growth Diagnostic
£4,999
For scale-up founders and CEOs who want to know exactly which wall they're approaching and what to do before they hit it.
-
Performance plateau assessment
-
Category health analysis
-
75-minute expert session
-
Full written Growth Diagnostic report
-
Strategic priorities by urgency
-
Delivered in 7 days
Portfolio Diagnostic
Custom Pricing
For investors who need an independent read on growth health across their portfolio before the next round, before it becomes a problem.
-
Everything in the Growth Diagnostic
-
3-5 companies simultaneously
-
Wall 1 & Wall 2 comparison
-
Urgency ranking
-
Investor-ready summary report
-
Delivered in 10 business days
WALL 1
Performance Plateau
You've built performance channels that work. But performance channels can only reach the 5% of people who are in-market right now. Once you've exhausted that pool, CAC rises, ROAS falls, and new customer acquisition stalls.
The mistake is spending more on the same channels. You're fishing in a pool you've already emptied. The fix is brand that reaches and primes the 95% who aren't in-market yet, so future demand is waiting when they are ready.
SYMPTOMS
CAC Rising
ROAS decreasing
Ad fatigue setting in
New customers declining
WALL 2
Category Ceiling
You've broken through the performance plateau, you're investing in brand and reaching out-of-market buyers. But growth still stalls. Why? Because your audience is still too narrowly defined.
Brand advertising that only reaches current category buyers is just performance marketing with a bigger budget. The unlock is identifying the broader growth audience - the people who could choose you, in situations they don't yet associate with your category.
SYMPTOMS
Audience too small
Sales cycles lengthening
Brand unclear at scale
Competitive noise
Sustainable growth requires clarity & alignment
HOW IT WORKS
Four steps.
Seven days.
Start with a free 30-minute call. If it's not right for your business, we'll tell you. No commitment required until you decide to proceed.
01
FREE
Growth snapshot call
A no-obligation 30-minute call. We identify which phase you're in, which wall you're in or approaching, and whether the diagnostic is right for you. If it isn't, we'll tell you.
02
48 HRS
Data & research
OSER.AI researches your category growth trajectory, competitive density, adjacent audience opportunities. We work with you & your team to provide key data points.
03
75 MINS
Expert interiew
Diego and Laura run a structured session. We go deeper on what the data shows, explore the strategic context, and surface what isn't visible in the numbers.
04
7 DAYS
Diagnostic delivered
Your full report: which walls you're approaching, severity, and the strategic priorities ordered by urgency - written for you and your board or investors..
Sustainable growth requires clarity & alignment
WHAT IS THE GROWTH DIAGNOSITC?
A structured diagnostic that names the wall you're approaching.
We combine category research, performance signal analysis and a 75-minute expert session with Diego Chicharro and Laura Derbyshire. The output tells you precisely which wall you're approaching and the strategic priorities to act on before you hit it.
SECTION 1
Performance Health
Are you approaching the performance plateau or already in it? CAC trajectory, ROAS trend, channel concentration, brand vs performance split.
SECTION 2
Category Health
Is your category growing or declining? Is your audience definition broad enough? What buying occasions could you own that you currently don't?
Sustainable growth requires clarity & alignment
PRICING
One Product.
Two ways to work with us.
FOR FOUNDERS, CEOS & LEADERSHIP TEAMS
Growth Diagnostic
For scale-up founders and CEOs who want to know exactly which wall they're approaching and what to do before they hit it.
£4,999
+ VAT
-
Performance plateau assessment
-
Category health analysis
-
75-minute expert session with Laura & Diego
-
Full written Growth Diagnostic report
-
Strategic priorities ordered by urgency
-
Delivered in 7 days
FOR PE & LATE-STAGE VC INVESTORS
Portfolio Diagnostic
For investors who need an independent read on growth health across their portfolio before the next round, before it becomes a problem.
Custom pricing
3-5 portfolio companies simultaneously
-
Everything in the Growth Diagnostic
-
3-5 companies benchmarked simultaneously
-
Wall 1 & Wall 2 comparison across the portfolio
-
Urgency ranking - who needs intervention first
-
Investor-ready summary report
-
Delivered in 10 business days
Sustainable growth requires clarity & alignment
WHO DOES THIS
Human judgement.
At the core.
OSER.AI handles the data. Laura and Diego handle the thinking. Every diagnostic is interpreted and written by people who have spent careers studying how brands grow.
Diego Chicharro
Partner & Growth StrategY
17 years in brand strategy and effectiveness. Most recently Head of Effectiveness at Publicis London, with work recognised by the IPA, Effies, and Marketing Week. Diego brings the same modelling rigour applied to P&O Ferries, Buxton Water, and Heineken to scale-up businesses that wouldn't otherwise have access to it.
He is the architect of the OSER diagnostic methodology: translating WARC, Binet & Field, and Ehrenberg-Bass frameworks into actionable strategic outputs.
Laura Derbyshire
Founder & Growth AdvisoR
23 years working with scale-up founders across brand strategy, commercial growth, and leadership. Laura has delivered 35% CAGR for Suits Me, 19% CAGR for Bayley & Sage, and led the creative strategy that secured a £5.6m PE funding round for IRIS Audio.
She founded OSER to give scale-up founders access to the kind of strategic thinking that has historically only been available to large-cap businesses.
Sustainable growth requires clarity & alignment
Which wall are you approaching?
Start with a free 30-minute Growth Snapshot Call. Laura or Diego will ask you about your business and advise as to whether the diagnostic is the right next step. No data needed. No commitment.
OUR PHILOSOPHY
A growth strategy rarely delivers what you want if you're unclear on what's holding you back - or you're not looking at the whole picture.
IMPACTS ON GROWTH
Vision, positioning, commercial model, strategic focus, demand, brand, customer strategy, data + insight, leadership, culture, capability, decision velocity, capital, talent, technology + AI, competitors.
IMPACTS ON GROWTH
Vision, positioning, commercial model, strategic focus, consumer demand, brand, customer strategy, data + insight, leadership alignment, execution alignment, culture, capability, decision velocity, access to capital, talent, technology + AI, market forces, competitors.
GROWTH CLARITY
What use is an A-grade strategy if you can't execute it?
Why increase budget on performance if no one remembers you?
Who wants a brand onion when you're raising capital?
See your growth score instantly
Start with clarity on your current growth position
1
2
Book a Strategic Conversation
Define the strategic moves required to accelerate growth.
Clarity & Ideas for
GROWTH
CLARITY & IDEAS
for Growth
CLARITY & IDEAS
for Growth
CLARITY & IDEAS
for Growth
