The Market Alignment Programme · For established founders
The business is working. But every important decision still comes back to you.
Eight weekly live sessions to decide who your business is for, what to focus on and how your offer, delivery and marketing should work together. You make the decisions, with expert guidance and a small group sharpening your thinking.
Join the waitlist
Starts 2027
No commitment. You’ll hear the dates before anyone else. Or book a 20-minute call if you’d like to talk it through first.
The details
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Eight weekly sessions · two hours each
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Starts in 2027 · dates go to the waitlist first
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Live online, all sessions recorded
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For established product and service businesses
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Small group (max 10)
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Two private 45-minute 1:1 strategy sessions
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$4,000 + GST
The problem isn’t a lack of ideas.
The business has customers and revenue. But you’re still carrying the important decisions alone: who to focus on, what to sell, which opportunities to pursue and where your limited time should go.
So you keep doing more. Another offer. Another channel. Another campaign. Maybe another freelancer or agency.
But more activity doesn’t fix a business without a clear strategic through-line.
You’ve made a hundred good decisions building this business. Customers, offers, pricing, delivery, marketing. All sensible. All made one at a time, as they came up.
Why that costs you.
When the decisions underneath don’t line up, effort gets spread thin and marketing amplifies the misalignment. More activity, more noise, same uncertain results. And everything the market can see - your messaging, your look, your products or services - is exactly what a competitor can copy.
Now flip it. When the whole business is built around one clearly chosen customer and what you mean to them, the right customers choose you even when you’re not the cheapest. And what they’re choosing can’t be copied from the outside, because it isn’t visible from the outside.
That’s not a marketing trick. That’s strategy. Not a document in a drawer… a set of decisions, made deliberately, designed to reinforce each other.
“It allowed us to really drill into the one area we wanted to do well in and close off a lot of the noise… a really good platform to start growing from. It’s allowed us to get some exceptional growth in the last six months.”
Hayden Walsh · General Manager, Agora
The Market Alignment Method
Over eight weeks, I teach you my Market Alignment Method: eight decisions, made in order, each one sharpening the next.
Week 1
Direction and focus
The business you’ve decided to build, in language specific enough to rule things out.
Week 2
Market and customer choice
Who you’re for, where growth actually comes from - and the customer personas that make them real.
Week 3
How you win
Your positioning and differentiation: the clear reason to choose you over the alternative.
Week 4
How it makes money
Your offer and business model, designed around the customer you chose.
Week 5
What you say, and how you say it
Your messaging, reasoned from your positioning rather than habit - what you say, and what you never say.
Week 6
How customers actually buy
Your marketing plan, reasoned from how your customer really makes decisions - journey, channels, and what not to spend on.
Week 7
Knowing what to measure
Your scorecard: the metrics, specific to your business, that show the strategy is on track.
Week 8
Embedding it
Your finished Strategy HQ, live in the business - so the decisions keep working long after week eight.
You don’t watch me do this. We start each decision together in the room, using your business. Between sessions, you complete and test it with structured tools - no sprawling workbook and no homework for homework’s sake.
Could you work through these eight questions on your own? You could. You’ve probably tried. But a strategy is only as good as the decisions inside it, and anyone can make eight decisions. Making the right eight, for your business, is the actual work.
That’s what you’re buying: a proven framework under each decision, strategic guidance from someone who’s made these calls at scale, and other founders who won’t let you settle for your first answer. The headers are free. The right decisions are why you’re here.
“It’s stepped me through some really solid thinking about what the business should be doing, and that makes the ongoing decisions about all the marketing and branding stuff so much easier to handle, because there’s a foundation to make those decisions.”
Liam · Stronglite
What changes by the end
You leave knowing what to focus on, what to stop doing and how the parts of the business should reinforce one another. That includes:
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A clear direction - the business you’re deliberately building, specific enough to rule distractions out
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A chosen customer and a reason to choose you - grounded in customer personas and real research
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An offer and business model that fit - what to sell, how it makes money and what no longer belongs
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A practical marketing direction - the channels, messages and priorities that follow from the strategy
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A scorecard that matters - the small set of measures that show whether the strategy is working
Not a slide deck. Every decision is captured in your Strategy HQ, with the whole strategy summarised in your Market Alignment Method. The thinking is yours; the HQ keeps it working.
Your Strategy HQ
Strategy HQ is one central place where the key decisions behind your business live, so your team, partners and AI tools can all work from the same clear direction.
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Your strategy no longer lives only in your head.
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Your team knows what has been decided and why.
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Agencies and freelancers receive clearer briefs.
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Your marketing, messaging and offers stay consistent.
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AI gives more relevant answers because it understands your strategic context.
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New decisions can be checked against the strategy you’ve already agreed on.
One strategy. One source of truth. Everyone working from the same decisions.
You
Our main competitor just cut their prices by 15%. Do we need to respond?
Your AI, briefed by your Strategy HQ
No. You decided not to win on price - they’re fighting for the price-sensitive segment you ruled out. Matching them would tell your best customers you’re interchangeable. Hold price, lead your next campaign with the difference only you can claim, and watch repeat purchase rate this quarter. If it holds, they’ve made themselves cheaper, not more chosen.
References: customer.md · positioning.md · scorecard.md
Your plans, your decisions, your agency briefs - answered from strategy that’s actually yours. Not generic AI advice.
Why a cohort?
Because other founders sharpen your thinking. Product and service businesses look different on the surface, but their founders wrestle with many of the same decisions. Hearing those decisions tested in another business is often the fastest way to see your own clearly. And a group creates a rhythm that gets the work done.
Small groups (max 10): enough founders to sharpen each other’s thinking, small enough that everyone gets real airtime.
And some things shouldn’t be workshopped in a group. You also get two private 45-minute sessions with me to book whenever you need them: a strategy check, a decision you’re stuck on, or the questions too commercially sensitive for the room.
This is for founders who…
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Already have a proven offer, paying customers and real experience to build from
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Are a solo founder or lead a small team, but still carry the strategic decisions yourself
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Run a product or service business and are beyond the earliest stage of figuring out what to sell
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Are doing plenty, but can’t say with confidence that it’s the right things
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Want to build a business that gets chosen, not one that wins on price and volume
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Are ready to make actual decisions, not collect more ideas
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Can commit two hours a week for eight weeks, plus the thinking between sessions
What this isn’t
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A marketing course. We work on what sits underneath the marketing
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Done-for-you strategy. You build it, so you own it
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Theory. Every week ends in a decision made for your business
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A start-up course for finding your first offer or first customers
Who’s teaching
I’m Saskia Thornton, a growth strategist based in Taranaki. I built brands before I advised them - and not from the marketing desk. Mad Millie and Grainfather I built from scratch: found the gap in the market, shaped the concept, led the product. Mad Millie grew to 130,000 units a year across New Zealand, the USA, Australia and the UK. Grainfather to roughly $35M in recurring revenue.
Both were built under Bevie ($60M, 120 staff), where I was CMO and board member… the seat most scaling founders are missing. Bevie was later acquired by a large global US malting company - a process I was part of from the inside, due diligence and all. I also co-founded FTN Motion, with oversubscribed capital rounds.
The Method is that judgement, put in order so you can make the same decisions for your own business. And it’s proven: the results on this page come from clients I’ve taken through the same Method one-to-one. That’s them, quoted throughout.
Hear it from founders, not from me.
Gemma · Vizlink
Hayden Walsh · Agora
Liam Sutton · Stronglite
What it costs
The next cohort starts in 2027. Join the waitlist and you’ll get the dates before they’re announced anywhere else.
$4,000
+ GST
Eight live sessions · two private 1:1 sessions · your own Strategy HQ · small group (max 10)
New Zealand businesses may be eligible for funding through the Regional Business Partner Network. Speak to your local Growth Advisor before enrolling.
Join the waitlist
Questions founders ask
What’s the time commitment beyond the sessions?
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What if I miss a session?
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Can’t I just work through this myself?
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I run a service business, not a product business. Is this for me?
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Will I be sharing my numbers with a room of strangers?
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What happens after the eight weeks?
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Starting 2027
Get on the waitlist.
The next cohort starts in 2027. Join the waitlist and you’ll get the dates, and first pick of the places, before they’re announced anywhere else. No commitment.
Rather talk first? Book a 20-minute call