Customer acquisition intelligence for owner-operated businesses on the California coast.
We read your customer acquisition the way a CFO reads a P&L. For founder-led wineries, health and wellness practices, elective medicine, and DTC ecommerce brands under $50MM. Fractional CFO advisory available for the few clients who need a CFO in the room.
30 minutes. Free. Written one-pager within 24 hours.
Veteran-owned and operated. Twenty-plus years of CFO experience.
A CFO lens, not an agency lens
Most market intelligence is built by marketers, for marketers. It tells you what's trending and where competitors are spending. Useful, but it stops at the top of the funnel.
We read your acquisition the way a CFO reads a P&L. Cash flow modeling. CAC and LTV at the segment level. Forecasting. Inventory planning. The pricing decision that adds margin and the one that quietly subtracts it. Which AI-search result is showing up for buyers who actually convert, and which one is just impressions.
The work product is intelligence; the discipline is finance.
Four ways we work with you
Discover
A one-time read on your market, your acquisition, and the gap between where you are and where the operator across town is. Priced per vertical.
Monitor
A continuous read. Monthly intelligence on AI search visibility, competitor moves, and the metrics that drive your acquisition cost. Priced per vertical.
Diagnose
A deep one-time diagnostic of the business. What's working, what's broken, what to do about it, sequenced. Priced per vertical.
Advisory
Embedded finance leadership for businesses on the Central Coast. When operational decision-making needs a veteran-owned, fractional CFO in the room. Engagements scoped at the Fit Call.
Discover, Monitor, and Diagnose are purchasable directly once you select your vertical. Advisory always starts with a Fit Call.
What changes when the read gets sharper
Five outcomes drive the work. Every engagement delivers some combination. The mix shifts by tier.
More revenue
More of the right customers to your door because the marketing intelligence is sharper, the targeting is tighter, the pricing is right.
Lower customer-acquisition cost
The acquisition spend you ARE making works harder. Redirected from channels that don't pay back into ones that do.
Lower operating expense
Time freed across your organization that was going to data-pulls, dashboards, status reports, and partner coordination. That time redeploys to higher-value work.
Faster reaction to market shifts
When AI search behavior changes, a competitor opens up, an algorithm updates: you're aware in 30 days, not 90.
Higher quality across the organization
Each piece of MSIQ-grade output raises the bar for the adjacent work. Your team starts producing better work too because the standard is visible.
Role by role, time redeploys to the work only that role can do
The hours that were going to data-pulls, status reports, and "what does this mean" memos return to the work each role was actually hired for.
The owner / founder
Stops the monthly data-pull and the late-night decisions on instinct. Spends the recovered hours on customers, product, partners, the work the founder is genuinely irreplaceable on.
The team lead
Stops producing custom reports for monthly reviews. Stops chasing data from five SaaS tools. Spends the time on the operational work they were hired for.
The agency or fractional partner
Stops producing the monthly status recap. Gets sharper briefs. Spends the time on execution.
The professional network
Your CPA, banker, attorney stick to their actual specialty. Every relationship gets sharper because the right question goes to the right voice.
We are not a marketing agency. We are not a BI vendor.
We don't run your ads, build your website, or write your blog posts. We don't sell you dashboards you won't open. We tell you what's actually happening, what to do about it, and, for Advisory clients, sit in the room while you decide. Execution stays with your team or your vetted partners.
Where we go deepest
Owner-operator-shaped work translates across many industries. Four verticals where we have built the deepest methodology, query packs, peer cohorts, and operating playbooks:
Wineries →
Owner-operator wineries balancing club, tasting room, DTC shipping, and distribution. Each customer base has different acquisition, retention, and lifetime value math. Free quarterly Wine Country Intelligence Report covers all 175 Santa Barbara County wineries →
Health & Wellness →
Longevity clinics, IV therapy, hormone optimization, functional medicine, recovery. Multiple modalities, distinct unit economics, often commingled in one P&L.
Elective Medicine →
Cosmetic surgery, dermatology, MedSpa, cosmetic dental, adult cosmetic ortho. Multi-modality practices where the consultation-to-procedure lever drives the math.
Ecommerce →
Owner-operated DTC ecommerce brands across site, marketplace, wholesale, and retail. Each channel has its own CAC, margin, and cash cycle, commingled in one P&L. See the DTC ecommerce playbook →
If you operate in another vertical and you're owner-operated, under $50MM, on the California coast, we likely still fit. Start with a Fit Call.
You only pay for the work that pays you back
Intelligence products are priced per vertical and published on the page. You see the number before you click buy. Advisory is scoped per client; the price comes out of the Fit Call, not off a tier card. Both shapes share the same discipline. You only ever pay for the work that pays you back.
What founders ask before they hire us
We read your customer acquisition the way a CFO reads a P&L. Four offerings cover the range: Discover (one-time market read), Monitor (recurring monthly intelligence), Diagnose (deep one-time diagnostic), and Advisory (embedded fractional CFO when you want one in the room while you act on the read).
Owner-operated and founder-led businesses under $50MM on the California coast, in four verticals: wineries, health and wellness practices, elective medicine practices, and DTC ecommerce brands. We serve six counties from San Luis Obispo to San Diego. Main Street IQ is veteran-owned and operated.
An agency sells you campaigns and reports on impressions. A BI tool sells you dashboards you will not open. We sell you the CFO's read on whether your acquisition pencils out, the cohorts that compound versus the ones that churn, and the pricing decision that adds margin versus the one that quietly subtracts it.
Intelligence products (Discover, Monitor, Diagnose) are priced per vertical and published on each vertical page; you see the number before you click buy. Advisory is scoped per client; the price comes out of the Fit Call, not off a tier card. Both shapes share the same discipline: you only pay for the work that pays you back.
Book a free 30-minute Fit Call. We talk about where the business is today, where the gaps are, and which of the four offerings fits your situation. You get a written one-pager within 24 hours, no pitch, no obligation. If we are not the right fit we will say so.