SHAY VAN LUE

SHAY VAN LUE

SHAY VAN LUE

REcognition

Yes, I drew this self portrait.
No, It's not AI.

Yes, I drew this self portrait.
No, It's not AI.

Yes, I drew this self portrait.
No, It's not AI.

AT a Glance

Meaning Architect and Experience Engineer

Founders: I'm here to prove you right.


I am the layer between what your company knows about itself and what your market needs to feel.

Bring me in while you're finding product-market fit. I capture your customer's language, thoughts, feelings, values, and lived experience with the depth only a film director brings to character—because I am one.


I'm passionately drawn to deep tech, frontier, and AI companies enabling human agency.


Meaning Architect
I find the truth underneath the one your company thinks it's telling.


Experience Engineer
I create the things to make your market feel that truth.


I use AI to supercharge my process, but the one thing it could never replace about me?


Making something out of nothing.



TL;DR in Jargon: I'm your 0 → 1 founding marketer here to build the GTM foundation you need in order to actually connect to your market and scale.

Yes, I drew this self portrait.
No, It's not AI.

Shay Van Lue

Be Magnetic. Create Truth.

Phone Number

Request via Email

Email

shay@shayvanlue.com

Current Residence

Greater Fort Collins Area

Relocating to San Francisco

Current time

5:11:54 AM

5:11:54 AM

Okay But…

Why Me and not the Growth-Bro?

I work in context, not just metrics.


A Growth-Bro is built for 1 → X. He scales an engine that already exists. That's step 2.


A Founding Marketer is the generalist that builds from 0 → 1, creating order out of chaos—that's me. I'm the one that builds the engine and makes it clear who you are. This is step 1.


And that means establishing the why behind the how and what. Knowing who you are and who you're for makes every dollar a defined bet instead of a slide-deck fantasy.


Scene: you closed capital, you're chasing PMF. Experiments run, fixes and features ship, but dashboards bleed, spend is off the rails, and investors are twitching. You're gutted, sleepless—about to knee-jerk on doubling down or torching your entire positioning because nobody has any idea what to do or why.


That's where I come in.


I listen.
I audit.
I unearth the signals your dashboards can’t see.
I reveal who you are and who you're for.
Then I build the infrastructure that catches and compounds what’s real.


The result? You now understand why your market behaves the way it does before you waste six months scaling the wrong assumptions.


That being said: if you want collaboration, discernment, systems, clear positioning, and a real understanding of your market? I'll move mountains with you.


But if you want to throw money at something and hope it plays mommy-maid for you? Go hire the Growth-Bro.


The choice is yours. 🤷

Sectors

AI

Deep Tech

SaaS

Film & Arts

Luxury

Retail

Commercial Real Estate

Events (10 to 100K+)

Current stack
NON-EXHAUsTIVE

Claude

Claude Code

Perplexity

ChatGPT

PostHog

Airtable

Google Analytics (GA4)

Google Ads

Search Console

Google G Suite

ahrefs

Looker Studio

Google BigQuery

PostgreSQL

WordPress

Zoho One

HubSpot

Salesforce

Microsoft Office Suite

Excel (VBA Coding)

Notion

ElevenLabs

Adobe Creative Cloud

Acrobat

Photoshop

Lightroom Classic

Premiere Pro

Illustrator

InDesign

Procreate

Agorapulse

Later

Framer

CapCut

LinkedIn

TikTok

Instagram

Meta

My Philosophy is the Process

Be Magnetic. Create Truth.

Great marketing engineers revelation—not manipulation.

Great marketing engineers revelation—not manipulation.

Here's how I build:

01

Research & Meaning

Understanding the problem and the solution

Immersion

I absorb our product, market, audience, and competitive landscape—not to check boxes, but to understand what's actually there.

Value Excavation

I dig beneath features and benefits to find the human truth. What does this enable? What does it represent?

Impact Identification

I listen for what resonates, pinpointing key themes in customer language, in market gaps, in what's being said and unsaid.

Research & Meaning

Understanding the problem and the solution

Immersion

I absorb our product, market, audience, and competitive landscape—not to check boxes, but to understand what's actually there.

Value Excavation

I dig beneath features and benefits to find the human truth. What does this enable? What does it represent?

Impact Identification

I listen for what resonates, pinpointing key themes in customer language, in market gaps, in what's being said and unsaid.

02

Positioning & Narrative

Speaking to the right people in the right way

Perception Audit

How are we currently understood? Where is that accurate, and where is it broken?

Identity Synthesis

I clarify who we are and who we're actually for—not the version in the pitch deck, but the version our market needs.

Thesis & POV Architecture

I create the core defining principle that everything in the company operates from. This is where everything we say and do can be traced back to—literally.

Positioning & Narrative

Speaking to the right people in the right way

Perception Audit

How are we currently understood? Where is that accurate, and where is it broken?

Identity Synthesis

I clarify who we are and who we're actually for—not the version in the pitch deck, but the version our market needs.

Thesis & POV Architecture

I create the core defining principle that everything in the company operates from. This is where everything we say and do can be traced back to—literally.

03

Translation & Craft

CREATING THE ARTIFACTS TO EVOKE THE MARKET

Cartography

I map where the market actually encounters us—and where the meaning is leaking out between touchpoints.

Message Engineering

I translate the positioning into language that moves people, from awareness to belief and to action, without losing what's true.

Creative Direction & Execution

I shape the assets and experiences so the feeling matches the message. This is where the filmmaker skills come alive.

Translation & Craft

CREATING THE ARTIFACTS TO EVOKE THE MARKET

Cartography

I map where the market actually encounters us—and where the meaning is leaking out between touchpoints.

Message Engineering

I translate the positioning into language that moves people, from awareness to belief and to action, without losing what's true.

Creative Direction & Execution

I shape the assets and experiences so the feeling matches the message. This is where the filmmaker skills come alive.

04

Systems & Piping

BUILDING THE GTM NERVOUS SYSTEM

Infrastructure

I stand up the systems that make the learning loop possible: CRM, attribution, dashboards, the technical layer that turns activity into signal.

Channel Activation

I deploy across the channels where the market actually lives (owned, earned, and paid) sequenced so each one compounds the others.

Telemetry

I instrument the data so we can tell the difference between what's working, what's noise, and what's worth doubling down on.

Systems & Piping

BUILDING THE GTM NERVOUS SYSTEM

Infrastructure

I stand up the systems that make the learning loop possible: CRM, attribution, dashboards, the technical layer that turns activity into signal.

Channel Activation

I deploy across the channels where the market actually lives (owned, earned, and paid) sequenced so each one compounds the others.

Telemetry

I instrument the data so we can tell the difference between what's working, what's noise, and what's worth doubling down on.

05

Observation & Integration

ITERATING BASED ON REAL MARKET FEEDBACK

Signal Synthesis

I read what the market is telling us—not just in numbers, but in language, behavior, and the gaps between what people say and what they do, contrasting product data with market signal.

Positioning Evolution

I feed every learning back into the positioning so identity gets sharper over time. Meaning is emergent—it grows when you let it.

Decision Cadence

I close the loop fast enough that learning actually changes what we do next. This is the difference between shipping and getting smarter.

Observation & Integration

ITERATING BASED ON REAL MARKET FEEDBACK

Signal Synthesis

I read what the market is telling us—not just in numbers, but in language, behavior, and the gaps between what people say and what they do, contrasting product data with market signal.

Positioning Evolution

I feed every learning back into the positioning so identity gets sharper over time. Meaning is emergent—it grows when you let it.

Decision Cadence

I close the loop fast enough that learning actually changes what we do next. This is the difference between shipping and getting smarter.

Growth!

Growth!

Identity is iterative, and positioning is never finished.

The market is always evolving. As a result, meaning only compounds when you build the system to continuously understand and steward it.

The market is always evolving. As a result, meaning only compounds when you build the system to continuously understand and steward it.

Case Studies

Startup Positioning Teardowns

Inside My Brain

Articles & Think Pieces