AI app growth marketer for US founders, run inside your accounts.

consumer growth marketing, the way i run it, has a narrow fit on purpose. you have a consumer app that people use and some of them pay for. you have a budget for acquisition, usually $5,000 a month or more. you do not yet have a repeatable channel, or you have one and it is getting more expensive every month.

most of my founders are in the US. the app is often AI-native: a study mentor, a companion, a creative tool, a fitness coach. the buyer is a person, not a procurement team. that single fact decides the whole method.

if you are B2B, enterprise SaaS, or pre-product, this is not the page. the honest fit section says who to call instead.

app marketing is the broad field. app growth marketing is the part of it that owns the number. the title gets used for three different jobs. an ads manager runs campaigns. a growth advisor writes a plan. an AI app growth marketer, the way i run it, is the whole loop: find the channel, make the creative, ship it, read the numbers, kill the losers, scale the winners, then fix the product step that is leaking users. every week. inside your accounts.

i call the framework CFCP, because every consumer app grows through four engines and most founders are running one:

• community led growth. reading what your buyers already say on Reddit and X, then answering the questions they have already asked, as the person who knows the answer. this is the cheapest quality traffic in any consumer app mix, and the only channel that tells you why anyone cares.
• founder led growth. you are the least copyable asset the company has. phone-shot video on a cadence you can keep, the lessons you already learned written as posts, and outreach that runs without you living in the inbox.
• content led growth. short form in the format the platform is rewarding this month. volume beats polish: the winning ZuAI video was shot by a college junior on a phone, and a $2,000 creator video did 12,000 views.
• product led growth. onboarding that gives someone a win before it asks for anything, A/B landing pages, and the one conversion step that is actually leaking. acquisition is wasted if week one loses them.

each engine runs the same loop: analyze, execute, iterate, repeat. the channel changes. the loop never does. the services page lays out all four in detail.

the buyer is still learning what the category is. nobody searches for "AI study mentor" yet. they search for the problem. so the creative has to teach before it sells, and the landing page has to show the thing working, not list features.

the category moves monthly. a competitor with the same model can ship next week. the moat is distribution and retention, not the model. which means creative volume and a weekly loop matter more than a perfect launch.

retention decides everything. a teen investing app i worked on hit 10,000 users and day 7 retention of 5 percent. no channel fixes that. we pivoted the product into ZuAI and the numbers followed. if your retention is not measured, measure it before you hire anyone, including me.

ZuAI, a consumer AI study app: 10K to 2M users in 11 months at $0.02 blended CAC, 35,000 daily active users, ranked 33rd globally on the app store. the mix was TikTok UGC at volume, SAFE Reddit seeding, and paid scaling behind creative that organic had already proven. the full case study shows what flopped as well as what scaled.

today: about $300,000 a month in managed ad spend, 150+ creatives tested every month, in english, spanish, portuguese and chinese. ugly ads beat polished ads, and i have three years of spend saying so.

the Reddit method cost 40+ banned accounts to learn. it is published free as the SAFE Reddit playbook, along with playbooks on UGC, paid ads and getting recommended by AI search. the method is in the open. what you hire is the execution.

every friday you get the numbers in writing: what we tested, what won, what died, what changes next week. not an agency. no account managers, no onboarding theater, no deck that ends the engagement. when i take on a startup it is in my head at 3am, which is genuinely why it is capped at three.

before any of that there is a free breakdown call: your funnel, your creative, your channels, and what i would fix first. no pitch. yours either way. how engagements work has the three doors and what each costs.

hire one when the app retains, the budget exists, and the bottleneck is distribution. that is the situation the whole method is built for.

do not hire one yet if you have not measured retention, if your monthly acquisition budget is under about $5,000, or if you are pre-product. the free calculators include one built specifically to tell founders they are too early, including for me.

hire someone else for B2B and enterprise AI SaaS growth marketing. six month sales cycles, procurement, and pipeline attribution are a different craft. i do consumer apps, where the buyer is a person and the decision takes minutes. saying so plainly saves us both a call.

agency or full time hire instead? an agency gives you a team and an account manager between you and the work. a full time growth lead in the US costs $150,000 to $250,000 a year before equity and takes a quarter to ramp. an embedded operator sits between the two: one senior person, in your accounts, from week one, for as long as the numbers say so. the FAQ has the longer comparison.

the growth problem is not the same everywhere. each city page covers what the local talent pool is shaped for, what a full time growth hire costs there, and what i would run instead. all work is remote; in person is available only where marked.

• Growth marketer in San Jose, US (in person available)
• Growth marketer in San Francisco, US (in person available)
• Growth marketer in New York, US
• Growth marketer in Austin, US
• Growth marketer in Seattle, US
• Growth marketer in Los Angeles, US
• Growth marketer in Bengaluru, India
• Growth marketer in Delhi NCR, India (in person available)
• Growth marketer in Mumbai, India

the long version of how i got here, architecture in new delhi to 2M users, is at my story.

What does an AI app growth marketer actually do?

Runs the acquisition loop for a consumer AI app: finds the channel that is underused, ships creative into it in volume, reads the numbers weekly, and moves budget to what converts. Hands on in the ad account and the subreddits, not a deck.

How is this different from an app marketing agency?

One person does the work instead of an account manager relaying it. Three founders at a time, six months each. No onboarding theater, no handoff, and the person on the call is the person in the account at 3am.

How much does an AI app growth marketer cost?

The breakdown call is free. Sprints and monthly retainers are scoped on that call from your stage and channels. Below about $5,000 a month in acquisition budget the spend is better used elsewhere, and I say so on the call.

Do I need one before product-market fit?

Usually not. If day 7 retention is under 20 percent, acquisition pours users into a bucket with a hole in it. Measure retention first. There is a free calculator on this site built to tell you whether you are too early.

Which channels do you run for AI apps?

TikTok and Meta with raw UGC creative, Reddit done the way that does not get you banned, founder-led content, and the product side: onboarding, landing pages and conversion. Paid scales what organic has already proven.

What results can I expect?

The honest answer is a baseline CAC by month two and a lower one every month after. ZuAI went from 10K to 2M users at $0.02 blended CAC in 11 months. That number came from one channel and one audience and is not a promise for yours.

Do you work with US startups only?

US founders are the focus and most of the work. I also work with founders in Europe and India. Everything runs remotely, inside your accounts, in your time zone for the weekly call.

Do you do B2B or AI SaaS growth marketing?

No. Consumer apps only: the buyer is a person, the decision is fast, and the loop is creative volume plus retention. Enterprise SaaS with six month sales cycles is a different craft and I will point you to someone who does it.

What is the first week like?

Days one to two: a full read of your funnel, ad account history, CAC math and creative graveyard. Days three to four: subreddit map and creative angles. Days five to seven: first batch briefed and the first tests live.

How do you report?

Every friday, in writing: what we tested, what won, what died, what changes next week. Raw numbers from the account, not a dashboard built to look good.

How do I pick the best app growth marketer for my app?

Ask for one consumer app result with the real numbers including what failed, the name of who will be in your ad account, their creative volume per month, and how they report. The best one for you has run your kind of app, not the most followers. Then check retention before you hire anyone.