Building Ventures. Engineering Growth.
We don't just market companies. We help build them.
Smoking Gun Media combines business strategy, creative execution, digital infrastructure and commercialization to build and scale companies. We think like founders, strategists, operators and investors, and we stay through execution.
More than 75 ventures launched. Every result we show is attributed.
| Client | Sector | Our role | Attributed outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| Xsolla | Gaming and game monetization | Full-funnel growth marketing across 15+ channels | 177% increase in annual revenue, 10x monthly traffic |
| 3 Day Blinds | Home improvement | Brand overhaul: e-commerce redesign, content and art direction, graphic design, customer experience | 1200% increase in lead generation and appointment scheduling |
| Term Limits for a Stronger America | Nonprofit advocacy | Website, CRM and donor infrastructure, advocacy funnel, GTM strategy, creative direction | Integrated digital and supporter ecosystem built to scale nationally |
Three disciplines.
One outcome.
Most companies buy strategy, creative and growth separately and hope they line up. We run them as one system. Each discipline sets the brief for the next, and the results feed back into the strategy.
Strategy
Decide where to win, and how it pays.
- White-space discovery
- Venture development
- Positioning
- Business models
- Go-to-market
- Growth planning
- Monetization
Feeds Creative & Digital. The brief: who we are for, what we offer and why it wins.
Creative & Digital
Make the position unmistakable.
- Brand identity
- Digital products
- Websites
- Content
- User experience
Feeds Growth Systems. The assets and experiences that acquisition and conversion depend on.
Growth Systems
Make the result repeatable.
- Acquisition
- CRM
- Automation
- Analytics
- Conversion
- Revenue optimization
- AI-enabled marketing operations
Feeds Strategy. The data that sharpens the plan and funds the next move.
Selected work
Each project is presented as the commercial problem, what we did about it, and the result we can stand behind.
Xsolla
Gaming and game monetization
- Business challenge
- In 2017, Xsolla had a strong presence in gaming but untapped growth across its digital channels. Brand awareness, user acquisition and lifecycle engagement needed to scale, and every stage of the customer journey needed to become more efficient.
- Strategic intervention
- A full-funnel marketing program across 15+ channels: SEO and content, email automation, conversational marketing, paid media and retargeting, partnerships and tradeshows, influencer and PR, conversion optimization and full-funnel analytics.
- Outcome
- 177% increase in annual revenue, 10x increase in monthly traffic, and 2x growth in organic search.
3 Day Blinds
Home improvement
- Business challenge
- Rebuild the brand following showroom closures, with a full brand overhaul delivered within six months.
- Strategic intervention
- A complete redesign of the e-commerce site, a modernized customer journey, and art direction and graphic design across advertising, packaging, sample books and collateral, backed by large-scale photo production.
- Outcome
- 1200% increase in lead generation and appointment scheduling, and over $223 million in sales attributed to improved online and offline customer experiences.
Term Limits for a Stronger America
Nonprofit advocacy
- Business challenge
- A fragmented, under-optimized digital ecosystem. Ahead of a nationwide advocacy push, the organization needed a credible, conversion-focused website, a supporter and donor pipeline that could scale, unified creative and a national growth strategy.
- Strategic intervention
- A full transformation across technology, creative and strategy: a redesigned website and donation flow, a connected CRM and donor stack with attribution dashboards, an advocacy funnel from petition to donation to volunteer, a national GTM roadmap, donor decks and a brand refresh.
- Outcome
- An integrated digital and supporter ecosystem built to scale nationally: a modernized website, a connected CRM and donor system, a structured expansion strategy and a complete creative refresh.
Companies we're incubating
We find white space opportunities and develop the idea into a business. Beyond client work, these are companies we are building now.
Fetch and Style
- What it is
- An AI-powered home décor app that matches photos of a user's room with personalized product recommendations, using image recognition, vector search and generative AI.
- Our role
- Product strategy and roadmap, go-to-market and investor strategy, merchant partnerships and the iOS and Android app prototype, led by Heather Stewart as product owner.
- Where it stands
- iOS and Android MVP designed and beta tested.
SharedLife
- What it is
- An encouragement community and daily companion app for women 40+, built around real women's stories and wisdom so women in every chapter of life feel heard, supported and more empowered, with tools and suggestions for each stage of life.
- Our role
- Smoking Gun Media incubated SharedLife from idea to market. We led brand, market and product definition, then designed and built sharedlifedaily.com and the launch campaigns across Instagram, Facebook, Threads and Pinterest. From November 2026 we will serve as its management partner, with Heather Stewart leading as CEO and Incubation Lead.
- Where it stands
- Pre-launch. The website and private Facebook community are live and free to join, with founding members already joining. The app is in development, with launch planned for 2027.
Built to Think. Built to Execute.
Most growth problems are not creative problems or media problems. They are handoff problems. The positioning sits in one deck, the build in another vendor's backlog, the budget in a third team's dashboard.
Where a fragmented model loses the thread
Strategy to creative
The positioning becomes a document nobody designs against.
Creative to build
The design is rebuilt from a spec, and the intent thins out.
Build to acquisition
Traffic is sent to pages nobody tuned for conversion.
Acquisition to revenue
Results are reported in clicks, not in margin.
One operator, one thread
The same team holds the commercial goal from the first diagnosis to the last report. Positioning, product, technology, acquisition and revenue stay connected, so each decision is made once, with the whole business in view.
That is the difference between buying deliverables and building a company.
How we work
Engagements flex. Some begin at step three. Others end at step two.
Diagnose the opportunity
We start with the business, not the brief: market, model, customers and the constraints that decide what is possible.
Architect the growth strategy
Positioning, offer, channels and economics become one plan with clear commercial targets.
Build and execute
Brand, product, website and growth infrastructure are built and launched by one team.
Measure, optimize, and scale
We track what moves revenue, cut what does not, and put more behind what does.
Founder, Smoking Gun Media
Heather Stewart
A strategic growth operator who connects brand, performance marketing, monetization and business results.
Heather founded Smoking Gun Media in 2006. She has also led teams from the inside: as VP of Marketing at Xsolla, where she directed a global team of more than 25, and as product owner of Fetch and Style, an AI-powered home décor app. Through the agency she has supported more than $15M in startup fundraising, through pitch refinement, investor decks and sales enablement.
As Director of Marketing and Creative at 3 Day Blinds (2004 to 2008), she led a company-wide rebrand and built the in-house creative department.
- 2006 to presentFounder, Smoking Gun Media
- 2023 to presentProduct Owner, Fetch and Style
- 2017 to 2023VP Marketing and Executive Producer, Xsolla
- 2004 to 2008Director, Marketing and Creative, 3 Day Blinds / Hunter Douglas
Fashion Institute of Technology, Advertising Design and Marketing. Webby Award, Best Green Website. ICFF 2025 presenter, AI x Design Trends.
Let's Build What's Next.
Bring a venture you want to launch, a growth opportunity you cannot yet capture, or a business problem that has outgrown your current team. We will tell you plainly whether and how we can help.
A first conversation is 30 minutes. We look at your marketing strategy and point to the growth opportunities hiding in it.