D3 builds the operations-led marketing system that founder-led B2B companies in life sciences, SaaS, software development, pharmaceutical, and medical device ($500K–$50M revenue) wish their other agency could have run. We built the agency we wished we could have hired.
The short version: I ran marketing teams at GE. I hired the biggest names. When I scaled into SMB-land in 2020, I needed marketing help at SMB budgets — and discovered the SMB agency market was nothing like what I'd known.
Out of GE, I'd hired the top firms in marketing and digital — the names that run campaigns for Fortune 500s. When I came down-market into SMB-land (life sciences, SaaS, medical device, software shops between $500K and $50M in revenue), I needed marketing help at SMB-affordable budgets.
The top firms were out of reach. The firms I could afford talked a lot about doing things and rarely got stuff done.
So in 2021 I founded D3 to be the agency I wished I'd been able to hire. By 2024 we'd delivered 150+ engagements — and I realized we were still running the same broken model: a campaign-first, creative-led shop that produced beautiful work but no compounding system.
That year I rebuilt the entire firm around operations rigor and AI. We stopped selling campaigns. We started installing operating systems. The output is WAVES — a five-capability growth operating system specifically designed for founder-led B2B companies in life sciences, SaaS, pharma, and medical device.
Today, the goal isn't more marketing. It's the operating layer that makes marketing actually produce. Systems compound. Campaigns end.
Three operating principles we wrote after living through the other side of this industry. Not abstract values — operating rules with anti-patterns.
Tactics are interchangeable. Systems compound. We build the system that holds the tactics — so when a tactic stops working, the system keeps producing while you replace the tactic.
What this rules out: hiring us for a one-off campaign or a single channel push. We will turn it down.Time on task isn't progress. We measure what moved the number. Every week ends with a deliverable signed off. Every engagement has a Day 30 result — a real lead, conversation, or scorecard completion — tracked in CxNector.
What this rules out: "engagement reports" full of impressions and reach without a connected commercial outcome.A campaign ends. A system keeps producing. The first three weeks of any client engagement install the system. The fourth week — and every week after — it runs. WAVES is built to survive your departure or ours.
What this rules out: "launch and ghost" engagements, three-month spikes followed by silence.Refusal is in the brand. We tell prospects what we don't do before what we do. We turn down clients who aren't fits — because the wrong fit hurts both of us.
If most of these are you, talk to us
Founder-led B2B in life sciences, SaaS, software, pharmaceutical, or medical device $500K–$50M annual revenue, decisions still flow through the founder
Proven offer, real customers The product works. The problem isn't product-market fit — it's that nobody knows it exists.
Ready for an operating layer You'd rather invest in a system that runs than buy another campaign that ends.
Founder will sit for the voice intake You'll spend 60–90 minutes on a recorded session so your voice becomes a system, not just one person's job.
Want operator transparency "I think" and "my belief is" instead of empty certainty. Working theories weekly evidence.
We'll refer you to someone better suited
You want a campaign, not a system If it has a start and an end and you'll measure success by impressions, we're the wrong shop.
You want a brand identity refresh We don't design logos or pick fonts. We bring in partners as needed when visual identity is the real need.
You want us to do your outreach We install the system, the tools, the cadence. The hands on the keyboard belong to the founder.
You're chasing MQL volume We're a quality-pipeline shop, not a volume shop. If your KPI is "leads per month at any cost," that's a different agency's job.
You want "growth hacks" Compounding takes 90 days minimum to show. We refuse promises we can't keep.
Four commitments we make to every client. Measurable. Auditable. Not aspirational.
A real conversation, a real lead, or a real scorecard completion. Tracked in CxNector. Number, not narrative.
Each pillar ends with a deliverable signed off before the next pillar starts. No surprises on Day 30.
Brand voice, ICP, brand system, CRM pipeline — all installed in your business. If we walk away on Day 31, the engine keeps running.
We commit to absolute clarity. We share our scoreboards, active work in progress, and live system diagnostics so you always know exactly where your system stands. If a strategy or a fit isn't working, we say so. Open partnership over sales theater.
Don Davis — Fortune 500 turnaround operator. PhD, MBA. Scaled a startup from $10M EBITDA to $350M in closed sales, into a $1.2B acquisition. 35+ years of operating experience across life sciences, healthcare, industrial software, and pharmaceutical product launches.
The credentials matter, but the operating record matters more. I ran businesses before I marketed them — and that's why every WAVES engagement is built around the same operating rigor I learned at GE, not the campaign-and-pray approach that defines most agency work.
"Out of GE, the rule was: if you can't find someone to do it, hire the number one in the field, have them show you how, and go build it yourself. WAVES is that build — the marketing operating system the SMB market needed, specifically for founder-led life sciences, SaaS, software, pharma, and medical device companies."
The WAVES Kompass — 20 questions across the five pillars. You get your wave level (Ripple → Tsunami), the one pillar costing you the most leverage right now, and a 30-day move you can run yourself. No call required.