2024 Fluvio Company Annual Report, Reflection & Lookahead
WRITTEN BY DEVON O’ROURKE, FOUNDER & MANAGING PARTNER
Despite a muted tech industry throughout 2024, Fluvio seized the opportunity to expand our services and address the most pressing go-to-market (GTM) challenges for mid-market and enterprise clients. These efforts culminated in a historically strong fourth quarter, propelling us to grow revenue for the fifth consecutive year and reaccelerating YoY growth from 3% in 2023 to 7.6% in 2024.
At Fluvio, we are committed to transparency. While we are a private company, we believe that openly sharing our performance and insights fosters accountability and supports those invested in our future—clients, partners, and the broader product marketing ecosystem.
Key Metrics
1 Includes Workshops, Launchpad, & GTM Assessments
2 Measured via Google Form surveys, NPS benchmarks - 100th percentile across all industries
Highlights
Fluvio reaccelerated growth in 2024, achieving revenue increases every quarter and closing the year with our strongest quarter in five years – representing a remarkable 50% quarter-over-quarter increase from Q3. We remained focused on the core of our business (Consulting) which grew 4.2% YoY. While startups often rely on individual product marketing consultants or conctractors, Fluvio differentiates itself by partnering with mid-market and global enterprise technology clients seeking strategic and foundational product marketing expertise. Our success was buoyed by exceptional client satisfaction and support; we were named a finalist for the Product Marketing Team of the Year award for the second consecutive year and achieved a +100 Net Promoter Score, placing us in the 100th percentile across industry benchmarks. These strengths have driven renewals, referrals, and significant growth across our network.
While our core consulting business continued to grow, we expanded our offerings in 2024 with the launch of the tech industry’s first retained search service for product marketers. This addition was a natural extension of our reputation for delivering exceptional product marketing talent and marked a significant milestone in our evolution. By integrating recruiting and talent development services into our portfolio, we now offer a more comprehensive suite of solutions to help software and technology companies scale efficiently at every stage of their lifecycle. The Recruiting service launch proved to be our most successful product/service launch since Fluvio’s inception in 2019. Despite launching in late Q2, this service significantly boosted our non-consulting revenue, contributing to an impressive +40% YoY growth in this segment. We finished 2024 with seven open roles for recruiting clients, and therefore, are poised for a strong start to 2025 (Recruiting revenue is booked upon a candidate’s hiring). A historically strong Q4 propelled us to grow revenue for the fifth consecutive year and reaccelerating YoY growth from 3% in 2023 to 7.6% in 2024 ($2.3M).
As we increasingly secure contracts with global enterprise tech firms and attract localized players in non-US markets, we feel more confident investing in growth opportunities compared to the previous two years. We are well-positioned as we enter 2025.
Reflection
As the Managing Partner, I dedicate time each year to review and reflect upon Fluvio’s performance in order to identify the key drivers behind our success and effectively plan for growth in the year(s) ahead.
Product & Services Performance
In 2024, we maintained our focus on the core strategic consulting business while successfully scaling new revenue streams, including finding service-market fit with our product marketing recruiting offering. This achievement not only positions us to boost near-term profitability but also creates a flywheel effect for the entire business that will drive sustained growth in the mid- and long-term.
Consulting. Our core Consulting service performed strongly in 2024, growing 4.2% YoY and finishing with the year with 18.2% YoY growth in monthly active clients (MAC) despite continued volatility in the tech sector. Mid-market and enterprise companies gravitate toward our firm as they search for expert resourcing to help tackle their most critical GTM challenges/opportunities and install processes and infrastructure to sustain growth. In 2025 we secured contracts with multiple publicly traded companies, as well as with portfolio companies of renowned private equity firms Insight Partners, Francisco Partners, Volaris Group, and Thoma Bravo. This strong performance, combined with growing brand awareness, enabled us to increase our average base rate by 9.4% while maintaining an impressive 90.5% consultant utilization rate. As the first-to-market pioneer in the emerging category of product marketing consulting, we are proud to be recognized and trusted as the leader and have absolutely no plans of taking our focus elsewhere.
Fluvio Workshops & Recruiting. After a slow start to our non-consulting revenue in 2024, the late Q2 launch of our Recruiting service delivered a substantial boost, driving an 82.4% increase in non-consulting revenue from H1 to H2. While our core focus remains helping companies establish and accelerate the product marketing discipline through embedded consulting services, we’ve also become a key resource for ambitious product marketers seeking their next career move. Our success in shaping product marketing functions and delivering critical projects has positioned us to seamlessly match exceptional talent with full-time roles, solidifying Recruiting as a core extension of our offerings.
We secured our first three Recruiting contracts by the end of Q3 and closed 2024 with seven open roles, including senior-level positions such as Director and VP for two clients. Additionally, we have a VP search for a new client currently in contract review. Similar to the early stages of our Consulting services, Recruiting will initially be managed directly by me, Fluvio’s Managing Partner. However, with the growth we anticipate, we plan to invest in additional talent and tooling to scale this offering into a standalone service by H2 2025.
While our Recruiting service was a bright spot in 2024, our Workshop offering, which primarily targets the startup segment, faced challenges and was the only service line to decline YoY (-56%). This underperformance likely stemmed from three key factors: 1) the startup ecosystem has been constrained by a challenging macroeconomic environment, limiting budgets; 2) the segment is saturated with firms and individual consultants offering similar positioning and messaging support; and 3) startup founders and executives are often hesitant to evolve their company’s positioning, creating potential service-market misalignment.
Despite these setbacks, we see a compelling opportunity to reposition Workshops for mid-market and enterprise use cases focused on talent learning and development. With over two years of experience delivering Workshops, we’ve built a deep repository of knowledge, proven frameworks, and practical insights from our Consulting service that position us to deliver a compelling up-market Workshop offering. Mid-market and enterprise technology companies with large product marketing teams often grapple with varying levels of expertise and procedule sophistication across their organizations. Fluvio can address this gap by designing and delivering enterprise-level training programs and implementing tailored processes and frameworks that elevate teams to product marketing excellence.
Fluvio Ventures. In 2023, we introduced Fluvio Ventures, our investment arm designed to back and advise high-potential companies demonstrating strong signals of product-market fit and customer traction. Fluvio Ventures is a venture syndicate led and run by Fluvio and backed by a community of product marketing professionals, GTM leaders, and seasoned operators. In 2024, we reinvested in Freeplay (our inaugural investment), the end-to-end platform for software companies to ship great products with LLMs, and added two more companies to our investment portfolio - including modern energy company, David Energy and omnichannel premium plant company, Rooted. We’re excited about Fluvio Ventures’ ability to provide unique value (not just capital) to startups in addition to connecting product marketing leaders to the venture ecosystem.
Partnership & Ecosystem Growth
Content & PR. In 2024, we continued to focus on network expansion and invest heavily in content to educate and cultivate a follower base on LinkedIn, resulting in a 134% year-over-year increase in followers to over 5,580. Our most concentrated content effort has been our podcast, Embracing Erosion. Tapping our network, Embracing Erosion lets listeners inside the heads of product marketers, investors, and go-to-market leaders who tackle changes head-on and turn them into competitive advantages. The podcast grew followers by 51% YoY and was streamed over 3,000 times. We wrapped season one at the end of Q3 2024 and plan to launch season two in Q1 2025 to continue amplifying our voice and championing the product marketing discipline.
Partnerships. Partnerships help Fluvio establish brand awareness, grow pipeline, diversify revenue streams, and provide unique access to key players in our ecosystem. In 2024, we increased our focus and emphasis on partnerships – pursuing net new partners, renewing existing partners, and building a cross-selling motion with our clients. We started the year with eight partnerships and closed the year with eleven, including an expanded partnership with Product Marketing Alliance.
After three years of steadily growing our partnerships, our focus in 2025 will shift to optimizing the highest-performing relationships. Initiatives like contributing robust research and presenting at PMA’s Leadership Briefings in Austin, New York, San Francisco, and London in 2024 bolstered our brand perception and awareness, serving as key examples of where strategic investment can yield strong returns.
Ultimately, our high client satisfaction (evidenced by a 2024 NPS score of +100), enhanced visibility through content and PR, and partnership growth drove pipeline resilience and earned us a nomination as a finalist for PMA’s Product Marketing Team of the Year award for the second consecutive year. Our ability to sustain growth without relying on advertising, including search ads, underscores the strength of our partnerships and organic initiatives.
Lookahead
We are more optimistic about the future than we have been in the previous two years. Signs of recovery are emerging across the tech ecosystem as well as the consulting industry. For example, Accenture announced $1 billion in new AI bookings – an area where our expertise in go-to-market strategies is increasingly relevant – will greatly accelerate their 2025 consulting revenue. Anticipated interest rate reductions by the Federal Reserve could lower borrowing costs, enabling more businesses to invest in strategic growth initiatives where Fluvio excels in supporting scalability. Global venture funding continues to recover, with the latest data (Q2 2024) indicating venture funding reached $94 billion across 4,500 deals, providing fertile ground for startups and mid-market companies – key segments for our consulting and recruiting services. Meanwhile, M&A activity is projected to rise 18% in 2025, aligning with Fluvio’s strengths in helping organizations position themselves for high-value transactions and optimizing post-acquisition integration efforts. While these macroeconomic trends reinforce our confidence in continued demand for Fluvio’s solutions, we remain disciplined in our operations and carefully evaluate investment decisions on a quarterly basis.
Challenges
As we enter 2025, the economic landscape presents a complex mix of optimism and caution. Many financial experts anticipate continued growth; for instance, Goldman Sachs Research forecasts a 2.5% increase in U.S. GDP for 2025, surpassing the consensus estimate of 1.9%. However, this positive outlook is tempered by concerns over persistent inflation and its potential impact on business spending.
Recent surveys echo this mix of optimism and caution. CFO confidence has risen, with 68.8% expressing optimism about the economy – a meaningful increase from earlier in 2024. However, a majority of finance leaders remain focused on cost optimization and operational efficiency, signaling a more conservative approach to resource allocation. Inflation remains a persistent challenge, and while the Federal Reserve has begun easing interest rates, the broader impact on business investment and hiring remains uncertain.
In this climate, companies are adopting more judicious financial planning and are prioritizing investments with clear, measurable outcomes. For Fluvio, this means doubling down on our strengths: delivering exceptional value and enabling clients to overcome their most critical go-to-market challenges. By reinforcing the measurable impact of our solutions, we are confident in our ability to navigate this evolving environment and position ourselves as a trusted partner for growth in 2025 and beyond.
Opportunities
Despite some warranted caution, we remain highly optimistic and opportunistic. Fluvio’s consistent growth over the past five years (no YoY contraction in our history), even as clients, competitors, and ecosystem partners have faced significant challenges, is a testament to our adaptability and value. By evolving our services and deepening our network, we are fast becoming the go-to firm for high-growth technology companies tackling their most strategically important go-to-market challenges.
As KPIs across the industry continue to shift from top-line growth to more sustainable metrics like Net Revenue Retention (NRR) and Annual Contract Value (ACV), Fluvio is uniquely positioned to capture demand for strategic engagements. We’ve delivered measurable client value through strategic initiatives like pricing optimization, market expansion, journey mapping for upsell opportunities, and ICP refinement to maximize efficiency. In 2024, leveraging the Fluvio GTM Model, we helped clients such as OpenX, Worldpay, and ABC Fitness and others achieve measurable success in these areas. These accomplishments, paired with the experience we’ve gained, will serve as the foundation for even greater impact in 2025 and beyond.
Final Outlook
While our success in 2024 is undeniable, we remain focused on areas of improvement. A year-end pipeline analysis highlighted a significant opportunity in our enterprise segment, which boasts the highest win rate yet the fewest open opportunities. This insight reinforces the need to prioritize and refine our focus on this high-value segment to drive even greater impact.
As we continue to prioritize our core Consulting service, we are also ready to invest further in our Recruiting service, which we believe will evolve into a second standalone revenue stream in 2025 as the market continues its recovery. By staying focused, strategic, and client-driven, we are confident in our ability to build on this momentum and deliver even greater value to our clients and ecosystem in the year ahead.
About Fluvio
Fluvio is a consulting firm built for the realities of the modern technology business, in which speed and execution are non-negotiable.
As the leading product marketing consulting firm, Fluvio helps technology companies tackle their most critical, strategic go-to-market challenges. Leveraging their Fluvio GTM Model, the firm now offers a suite of products and services to help businesses scale more effectively and efficiently throughout each stage of their lifecycle.