John Dobharchú is a Fractional CMO/COO and Constraint Strategist who helps founder-led subscription and mobile app companies find the real constraint capping growth and fix it in the right order.
When payback stretches, paywalls plateau, or cohort retention decays, teams reflexively fire the ad agency or redesign onboarding. But the bottleneck is almost never the channel you're watching. It's upstream in your unit economics, activation mechanics, or decision loops.
In four weeks, we locate the real constraint capping your growth and give you an objective read on where the fix has to start.
01
You've missed forecast two quarters running.
The plan looked right. The output didn't match it, and now you're staring at a "marketing problem" that doesn't quite explain the gap. The board wants a story before the next meeting, and "we'll spend more on acquisition" isn't it.
02
Your CMO or COO just left, or is about to.
Before you rehire, you need to know what the role actually requires now, not what the last person's title said. Hire against the wrong definition and you're back here in a year, one expensive mistake deeper.
03
Every meaningful decision still routes through you.
The team's waiting. Velocity has stalled. The round that was supposed to buy momentum bought headcount that doesn't fit the company they joined, and the strategy that worked at $5M is breaking at $15M.
20+
years operating, not advising
across operating roles since 2003
$43.8M → $62.5M
revenue grown
ARR, consumer subscription
44%
CPA reduction
paid social, founder-led brand
$1.1B
exit I contributed to
Lieferheld, later sold to Takeaway.com
Free teardown
How one subscription app fixed rising CAC, and why the fix wasn't a new channel, a hire, or tighter media buying. A short, honest walkthrough of where the real constraint was hiding.
Straight to your inbox. No spam.
Right fit
ANot for
BI find the real constraint, build the capability to fix it, and leave the company stronger than I found it.
Every company runs on three forces — Purpose, People, Performance. When growth stalls, one of them is usually the real constraint, even when the pain shows up somewhere else. I find which one, then work down to the specific thing driving it.
Force 01
Does the company know why it exists and where it's going?
Force 02
Can the org say it clearly, trust each other, and keep decisions moving across the team?
Force 03
Does the work coordinate into results the unit economics can sustain?
Each force resolves into specific layers the Diagnostic scores individually, seven in all, measured against survey, interview, and document signal. The three forces are what you need to understand the constraint; the layers are what prove it.
Find the real constraint. Sequence the fix. Hand your team a plan that holds.
I pull signal from three sources, not just the founder's account, and read them against each other so the call gets airtight.
Signal from
You leave with
Deliverable: a written Alignment Report and a live executive debrief. Built to run with or without me in the seat.
What comes next, if you want it
I step into the CMO or COO seat the constraint calls for, guide the fix into place, and hand the team a re-scored layer map proving it moved. The Diagnostic already located the constraint, so I open by sequencing the fix and putting it in motion: no second audit. The change sticks; you stay off the critical path.
The self-directed alternative: for founders who want the plan and have the team to run it. Built thorough enough to execute without me in the seat.
We were really struggling with user-acquisition performance before John took over. His strategic mindset, and frankly a level of boldness we were lacking, unlocked a ton of scale in our biggest markets. And he didn't shy away from the people side: genuine interest in our growth, not just the bottom line. Any marketing team would be lucky to have someone who combines hard and soft skills like he does.
Former Head of Media Buying
John is one of the strongest performance marketers I've ever worked with, his ability to motivate teams is second to none. I saw him turn declining numbers into growth scenarios time and time again.
Former CMO
John is a digital and mobile marketing expert, full stop. He understands the high-level strategy and has done the detailed work to build large-scale, ROI-positive media programs.
Former VP Marketing
The Diagnostic is where every engagement starts. A short call tells us whether now is the right time to run one, and you'll leave with a sharper read on your real constraint either way.
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