Growth, Lifecycle & Marketing Operations
I build the systems that turn content, lifecycle & distribution into growth.
Lifecycle marketing, marketing automation, and AI-native workflows — strategy, execution, and optimization working together, across media, subscription, and digital-product businesses. Remote from Brazil, on US hours.
The receipts
LinkedIn audience growth — 2,236 → 17,942 followers · The Brazilian Report, Jan 2023 – Jun 2026
LinkedIn newsletter subscribers, grown organically from launch — founders & CEOs among top readers
Open rate on a rebuilt 3,152-subscriber list — well above media-newsletter benchmarks
Systems Not campaigns · not assets
Four operating systems I built and ran
Each one is a repeatable machine, not a one-off deliverable: a defined problem, the constraints it had to survive, an architecture, the AI workflows and automation inside it, and the outcome it produced. Open any system to see how it's wired — and what I'd change today.
↺ The same discipline runs through all four: define the constraint, build the machine, let the data feed back — in publishing and in real estate.
The operating model How the four systems fit together
AI-Native Lifecycle & Growth Operating System
One model runs underneath everything: move a stranger to a habit across six stages, with AI on the repeatable middle and human judgment on every decision that matters. Each stage below names the mechanism I use, the AI workflow inside it, and the real system that proves it.
The lifecycle — mapped to real systems
The proof layer — capabilities, with evidence and honest maturity
Owned lifecycle channel built and run solo on a fixed weekly clock, with segmentation and day-one sequences.
Evidence: 0 → 7,427 subscribers · 49.6% open rate on a rebuilt 3,152 list · SYS/01, SYS/03
AI runs the repeatable middle — research, first drafts, format variants — behind a human QA gate nothing skips.
Evidence: sustained ~26 pieces/week across 4 accounts · unbroken 12-mo newsletter cadence · SYS/01, SYS/02, SYS/04
Conversion paths and landing pages optimized against live behavior during the subscription launch.
Evidence: revenue-ready launch in 30 days · conversion path rebuilt · SYS/03
Engagement-based segments and sequenced journeys — lighter on triggered automation, honest about where it ends.
Evidence: staged migration by engagement cohort · lifecycle sequences · SYS/03
One coordinated operation across two markets and four accounts — standardize once, localize at the edge.
Evidence: 1,702 posts / yr · 7,519 followers across the account set · SYS/04
I iterate on real performance data — shifting production mix and framing on what the numbers show. I don't claim controlled A/B testing.
Evidence: per-format mix shifts on engagement data · reader-title-informed framing · SYS/02
One automated journey, end to end — subscription re-engagement
Case 01 The Newsletter System · Lifecycle & Audience
0 → 7,427 professional subscribers
The Brazilian Report · "Brazil Business News Roundup" · sole owner — strategy to send
Context
An English-language publication on Brazilian politics and economics — a Digiday Media Awards finalist alongside Axios and Harvard Business Review. I ran its marketing for 3.5 years alongside a cofounder. The newsletter was mine end-to-end.
Problem
The publication needed a recurring channel that could turn episodic social reach into habitual readership among business professionals. A LinkedIn newsletter offered native distribution, subscriber notifications, and direct access to the audience we wanted.
The constraint: no promotion budget, no dedicated writer — it had to run inside the existing operation without adding headcount.
Case 01 The System
A weekly pipeline, not a writing task
↺ Analytics feed back into research — formats that earn reads get more room next week.
Positioning aimed deliberately at senior readers: business framing, decision-maker relevance, no fluff. The format was designed to be producible on a strict weekly rhythm — the cadence was a feature, not an aspiration.
Case 01 Results
subscribers from zero — solo-owned, organic
article views, final 12 months — ~1,500/issue
SYS/01 The specification
How the newsletter system is wired
Full specification Purpose, constraints, decision logic, stack, outcomes, lessons Open ↓Close ↑
Purpose
Convert episodic social reach into habitual, weekly readership among senior business decision-makers — a recurring subscriber channel more durable than one-off feed reach.
Business problem
Social reach was spiky and rented. The publication needed a recurring, owned touchpoint that compounded — without hiring a writer or spending on promotion.
Constraints
- No promotion budget — growth had to be fully organic
- No dedicated writer — had to run inside existing headcount
- Strict weekly cadence — the rhythm was the product
Decision framework
Every issue answered one question: would a founder or CEO forward this? Format, length and framing were fixed in advance so production never stalled on taste debates. Cadence beat perfection.
AI workflows
AI ran the boring middle — scanning the week's signal, first-pass drafting inside a fixed briefing template, format variants. It never chose what mattered or set the voice.
Automation & distribution
Publishing locked to the same weekly slot and folded into the existing distribution calendar, so distribution required no separate decision.
Cross-functional partners
Tools & stack
Business outcomes & metrics
- 7,427 subscribers from zero — solo-owned, organic
- 77,942 article views in the final 12 months (~1,500/issue)
- Founders, CEOs, owners consistently top reader titles
- Unbroken weekly cadence for 12 months, through shifting priorities
Lessons learned & how I'd improve it today
Readership stayed consistent; the acquisition engine needed a second stage. Growth plateaued once the organic audience matured. Today I'd wire a referral loop and cross-promotion partnerships in from month one, instead of leaning on platform distribution alone — and A/B the subject framing against the reader-title data I was already collecting.
Case 02 The Organic Distribution Engine · Operations
1,174 posts in 365 days. One person.
The Brazilian Report · multi-channel distribution, effectively zero ad spend
Problem
The publication needed daily presence across every channel while resources and production capacity were becoming increasingly constrained. No ad budget. No additional headcount. The bottleneck was never ideas — it was the distance between idea and published.
The System
AI pointed at the boring middle — research passes, first drafts, format variations, SEO checks. Never at the judgment calls.
What stayed human: what was worth covering, what the brand sounded like, and a QA gate nothing skipped.
↺ Performance data feeds back into what gets made next week.
Case 02 Results
impressions in 12 months — 99.2% organic
content clicks — 19.7% engagement incl. clicks
LinkedIn audience across tenure — 2,236 → 17,942
Full specification Purpose, constraints, decision logic, stack, outcomes, lessons Open ↓Close ↑
Purpose
Sustain daily presence across every channel with one operator, by collapsing the distance between having an idea and it being published.
Business problem
As resources and production capacity tightened, the audience still expected daily output. The bottleneck was never ideas — it was throughput from idea to live post.
Constraints
- Effectively zero ad spend — organic only
- One person — no additional headcount
- Every channel, every day — cadence could not drop
Decision framework
Produce once, adapt many. No format got bespoke effort until the data earned it. Anything that couldn't be templated didn't enter the pipeline.
AI workflows
AI handled research passes, first drafts and per-channel format variations inside fixed templates — turning one core idea into a full day's cross-channel set.
Automation & distribution
Content was batched and scheduled ahead of time, so daily publishing ran without a daily decision.
Cross-functional partners
Tools & stack
Business outcomes & metrics
- 1,174 posts in 365 days, one operator
- 548K impressions in 12 months — 99.2% organic
- 102K content clicks — 19.7% engagement incl. clicks
- 8× LinkedIn audience across tenure (2,236 → 17,942)
Lessons learned & how I'd improve it today
Engagement concentrated in evergreen and visual formats, and I had the per-format data for months before I acted on it. Today I'd make the feedback loop enforce itself — shift the production mix on the data far earlier and cut formats that were only earning volume, rather than reviewing by hand.
Case 03 Subscription Infrastructure · Lifecycle & Subscription
Launch the product, then move it — without losing the audience
The Brazilian Report · one system, two phases: a revenue-ready launch, then an audience-safe migration
Problem
Launch a paid subscription product on a 30-day clock — then, later, move the entire newsletter operation off a complex legacy WordPress stack without losing the audience in the cutover.
The System · two phases
Phase 1 — Revenue-ready launch: cut "launch" down to what actually blocked revenue — positioning, site structure, the conversion path, the day-one lifecycle emails. Everything else waited.
Phase 2 — Audience-safe migration: staged communications instead of one blast, segmented by engagement — most active readers first and most often. Every message answered the reader's only real question: what do I do, and when.
Case 03 Results
days from brief to live subscription platform
active subscribers on the rebuilt list
open rate — media benchmarks typically run 30–40%
What I can and can't prove
I can't give you a clean retention figure for the cutover itself. The legacy stack's analytics are gone, and I didn't own that reporting at the time.
The figures above are the rebuilt list's current performance — I'd rather cite those than quote a number I can't stand behind. I don't publish the platform dashboards; they belong to the publication, not to me. Happy to walk through the detail in a conversation.
Where the credit sits
The editorial team wrote the journalism — award-shortlisted work by real journalists.
I built and moved the machine around it: the subscription platform, the migration, the lifecycle programs, and the growth work on top. The open rate is what the audience does with all of it together.
Stack — beehiiv · WordPress (legacy) · segmented lifecycle sequences · subscription tiers & access logic
Full specification Architecture, migration logic, constraints, outcomes, lessons Open ↓Close ↑
Purpose
Two jobs in one system: launch a paid subscription product fast, then move the whole newsletter operation to a new stack without losing the audience in the cutover.
Business problem
A 30-day clock on revenue, and a complex legacy WordPress stack that couldn't be carried forward — but whose audience was the entire asset.
Constraints
- 30 days to live — brief to paid product
- Minimize audience loss — the list was the business
- Legacy analytics dying — reporting wouldn't survive the move
Decision framework
Cut "launch" to only what blocked revenue — positioning, site structure, the conversion path, day-one lifecycle. For migration: stage by engagement, and make every message answer one reader question — what do I do, and when.
Automation & lifecycle
Segmented lifecycle sequences, subscription tiers and access logic — sequenced comms instead of a single blast, most-active cohorts first and most often.
Cross-functional partners
Business outcomes & metrics
- 30 days from brief to live subscription platform
- 3,152 active subscribers on the rebuilt list
- 49.6% open rate — media benchmarks run 30–40%
I can't give a clean cutover-retention figure — the legacy analytics are gone and I didn't own that reporting. I'd rather cite the rebuilt list's real performance than a number I can't stand behind.
Lessons learned & how I'd improve it today
The gap I'd close is measurement, not method. The staged migration worked, but I couldn't prove the cutover cleanly because instrumentation lived on the stack I was leaving. Today I'd stand up independent tracking before touching the legacy system, so the before/after is mine and portable — the machine was right; the evidence trail wasn't.
SYS/04 Multi-Market Marketing OS · Growth Ops · Real Estate
One marketing operation, two markets, many agents
Jana Caudill Team · coordinated marketing across Northwest Indiana & Southwest Florida — proof the systems thinking transfers beyond publishing
posts across 4 channels & 2 markets in 12 months
pieces per week, sustained — one coordinated operation
followers across the full account set — 4 pages, 3 platforms
Problem
Marketing was fragmented across two geographies, multiple agents, several websites, and many production channels — listings, open houses, newsletters, email blasts, print, social, and recurring market reports — with no single operating layer holding it together.
The System
One intake and one production standard feeding every market and channel: a shared template library, a single content calendar, and a defined hand-off so any listing or report moves through the same path regardless of market.
The point isn't more output — it's that two markets run on one coordinated machine instead of two ad-hoc ones.
Full specification Purpose, constraints, decision logic, stack, outcomes, lessons Open ↓Close ↑
Purpose
Give two geographically separate markets one coordinated marketing operation, so quality and cadence don't depend on which market or agent is producing.
Business problem
Fragmented marketing across two markets, multiple agents, multiple websites, and many production channels — no shared standard, so effort was duplicated and output was uneven.
Constraints
- Two distinct markets — different inventory, seasonality, audience
- Multiple agents & sites — many hands, one brand
- Lean operation — coordination can't add headcount
Decision framework
Standardize once, localize at the edge. Anything repeatable across markets becomes a template; only genuinely market-specific detail is produced fresh. The audience data shows the localization lands — top follower cities are the actual target markets (Crown Point, Valparaiso, Schererville), not scattered reach. It also shows the system working across pages: the brand-new Florida Facebook page's top follower city is Crown Point, Indiana — the established NW Indiana audience seeding the new market, exactly what one coordinated operation is supposed to do.
AI workflows
AI handles first-pass copy normalization and format variants from a single listing or report input — turning one source into the set each channel needs. Human judgment sets positioning and approves before anything ships.
Automation & distribution
A shared content calendar and templated production path move each listing, blast, and recurring report through the same steps across both markets — so ~26 pieces a week ship without ~26 separate decisions.
Cross-functional partners
Tools & stack
Business outcomes & metrics
- 1,702 posts across 4 channels & 2 markets in 12 months (~26/week)
- 471K + 78K FB views · 105K Instagram views · one coordinated operation
- 7,519 followers across the full account set — 4 pages over 3 platforms
- ~48% of Instagram reach from non-followers — content travels past the base
Lessons learned & how I'd improve it today
The transferable lesson: the industry changed, the method didn't. The same constraint-first, standardize-then-localize approach that ran a newsroom runs a two-market real-estate operation. The honest nuance: the two Facebook pages are at different ages — NW Indiana is years old and grew (+163 net followers), while the SW Florida page is new and is still being seeded off the Indiana base, so its raw totals are naturally smaller. Today I'd close two gaps: per-market reporting that accounts for page age so a young market isn't judged against a mature one, and lead attribution from social to inquiry, which the current stack doesn't yet trace end-to-end.
About
"I don't just create content — I build the structure behind it."
Eight years across marketing and design, trained originally in architecture — where the systems thinking comes from. I spent 3.5 years running marketing at The Brazilian Report through platform launches, audience growth, and major operational transitions; today I run marketing for the Jana Caudill Team across two US real estate markets, turning fragmented channels into one coordinated, lead-focused system.
Portuguese native, English fluent. Remote from Brazil, on US hours.
Contact
Talk to me
Hiring for lifecycle, growth, or marketing operations — or want the systems behind any of these numbers? The analytics exports are all saved.
lab.victorkq@gmail.com