Your Marketing
Budget
Has a Leak.
Here’s exactly where, in Rands, in 60 seconds.
Most African tech scale-ups we look at flatten out between R20M and R200M ARR.
Not because the product is wrong, but because nobody is running enough experiments to find what actually moves revenue.
Built by ex-Ogilvy, VML, Publicis and Saatchi creatives · Two decades of agency craft on Coca-Cola, Samsung and Heineken
Real experiments. Actual results.
Experiment Engine
One North Star.
Every channel.
Every experiment.
Tell UPLVL your growth challenge.
Eight purpose-built agents run 30 experiments across paid, organic, email, activation, retention, and referral simultaneously. What wins in one channel compounds into every other.
The Problem
Why Traditional Agencies Fail Tech Scale-Ups
Two decades of agency craft, built at Ogilvy, VML and Publicis. Here’s what we learned, and why we built something better.
| Enterprise Agencies | Typical Growth Agencies | UPLVL AAARRR 2.0 |
|---|---|---|
| ✗6-month brand campaigns | ✗Only do paid ads | ✓30 experiments/Sprint across all 6 funnel stages |
| ✗R500K+ minimum retainers | ✗Copy-paste US playbooks | ✓R45K Sprint: first results by Week 3 |
| ✗3–5 experiments per quarter | ✗No systematic approach | ✓Ex-Ogilvy/VML/Publicis + 8 purpose-built agents |
| ✗Impressions, reach, likes. None of them bank. | ✗Disappear when things get hard | ✓Revenue metrics only: no vanity stats |
| ✗Junior teams on your budget | ✗Can't handle complexity | ✓Kill losers in 14 days. Scale winners in 72h. |
| ✗Zero agility | ✗Juniors posing as seniors | ✓You own the playbook. Always. |
“We learned what works at R100M+ scale: Coca-Cola, Samsung, Heineken. Then we asked: what if we rebuilt that systematic approach with 8 purpose-built agents, running 30 experiments per Sprint for companies that actually need to grow?
That’s AAARRR 2.0. That’s UPLVL.”
The Framework
The Reason
Your Growth Stalls
(And How We Fix It)
Most growth efforts target one part of the funnel at a time. You fix acquisition,
but churn kills the gains. You fix retention, but awareness is thin. Each fix creates a new leak. AAARRR 2.0 runs all six stages simultaneously: 30 experiments per Sprint, scored by impact, coordinated by 8 purpose-built agents.
AAARRR 1.0 Human Era | AAARRR 2.0 Agent Era | |
|---|---|---|
| Funnel coverage | Work one stage at a time | All 6 stages run simultaneously |
| Experiments | 5–15 per month | 30 per Sprint |
| Approach | React to what happened | Predict what will happen |
| Knowledge | Lives in your team's heads | 8 agents, compound across every Sprint |
| New client start | Start from zero | From every previous experiment |
| Reporting | Monthly | Real-time signal detection |
The Compounding Effect
Your next quarter will either compound or stall.
Winners scaling.
can't buy.
Our Background
Trained at the
World’s Best Agencies. Now Building for South Africa’s Best Scale-Ups.
Two decades of agency craft, building campaigns for Coca-Cola, Samsung, Heineken and other Fortune 500 brands at Ogilvy, Publicis and VML. We learned what works at R100M+ scale.
Then we asked one question: what if every growth principle we proved at enterprise scale could run automatically, across your entire AAARRR funnel? The answer is 8 purpose-built agents, AAARRR 2.0,
and the UPLVL Experiment Engine.
The Outcome Gap
Why Tech Scale-Ups Choose UPLVL
Over Traditional Agencies
The outcome gap is real. Here’s what it costs you to do this without UPLVL.
| Traditional Agencies | UPLVL AAARRR 2.0 |
|---|---|
| ✗6-month brand campaigns | ✓30-experiment Sprint: first results by Week 3 |
| ✗Results in Month 6–12 | ✓First results by Week 3. |
| ✗R500K+ minimum retainers | ✓R45K Sprint. Prove it first. |
| ✗Junior teams learning on your budget | ✓8 purpose-built agents + UPLVL strategist |
| ✗One funnel stage at a time | ✓All 6 AAARRR stages simultaneously |
| ✗Vague metrics (brand lift) | ✓Revenue, North Star Metric, experiment win rate |
| ✗Your account gets handed to a junior | ✓ANALYST monitors results. REPORT delivers every Monday. |
20 Years of Experiments
Every Lesson Now Lives
in Our Agents.
Over 20 years at Ogilvy, VML and Publicis, this team shipped campaigns for brands like Coca-Cola, Samsung and Heineken. Those weren’t just campaigns. They were a pattern library of what works, what fails, and why. Every one of those lessons now lives in our 8-agent system.
Entertainment
Creative Consultancy for VML (Studio X)
Ayra Starr x Coca-Cola
40M streams, 9:1 organic-to-paid ratio
Borrowed distribution converts at 5-10x cold traffic.
FMCG
Creative Consultancy for VML (Studio X)
Share A Coke Is Back
A decade-defining campaign, reimagined for Gen Z
Personalisation turns a commodity into a name you want to be seen holding.
FMCG
Creative Consultancy for Metropolitan Republic
Eskort x We Love Russians
15% sales uplift on a commodity sausage brand
Cultural insight beat a 5x media budget. R1M paid, R5M earned.
FMCG
Creative Consultancy for Metropolitan Republic
Med-Lemon x Bra Shakes
Broke into 18-34 without alienating core market
Authentic native content beat scripted brand ads 4:1 on sentiment lift.
FMCG
Creative Consultancy for Metropolitan Republic
Grand-Pa x Stick Pack
New format, new buyer, new purchase occasion
Format is a growth lever. The same product in a different package unlocked an entirely new buyer.
Free Resources
Free Growth Playbooks
for African Tech Scale-Ups
We're documenting everything we learn and giving it away for free. Every case study, every experiment result, every framework we've built, documented and shared. Because the best way to prove the system works is to show you exactly how it works.
How Yoco Built a Fintech Empire by Ignoring Every Banking Convention
While traditional banks spent decades rejecting informal traders as "unbankable", Yoco quietly built a thriving payments empire by targeting precisely this abandoned market segment.
View More
The Liquid Death Playbook: How to Build a $1.4B Empire by Making Water Look Dangerous
Forget everything you know about beverage marketing. Liquid Death turned water, the world's most boring product, into a $1.4B punk rock empire.
View More
The Shopify Logistics Rebellion: 100 to 100K Orders
Most e-commerce brands think they need Amazon-level infrastructure to scale logistics. They're dead wrong. Shopify proved this by helping 4.36 million merchants process $444 billion in GMV without owning a single warehouse.
View MoreWant these plays run on your funnel?
Your Growth Scan turns the playbooks into the specific experiments we’d run for you first.
Questions scale-up leaders ask us.
Straight answers on pricing, method and results. These are the questions African tech scale-ups actually ask before they commit to a Growth Sprint.
Your next quarter
will either compound or stall.
The difference is
30 experiments.
Most scale-ups we look at run one or two experiments a month. A Sprint runs 30. By Month 3 that is 90 hypotheses tested, losers killed inside 14 days, winners scaled inside 72 hours.
Growth Scan
Your funnel, diagnosed.
- A full read of your entire AAARRR funnel
- Quantified opportunity, in Rands not percentages
- The experiments we’d run first
- No cost, no obligation, no pitch. Just insight.
Growth Sprint: R45 000
30 experiments. First results by Week 3.
- 30 experiments designed, scored, and launched
- All 6 AAARRR stages covered
- First results by Week 3
- A co-signed value model + your first case study
Standalone pilot. No retainer lock-in.
Start Your SprintValue Retainer: from R30 000/mo
Priced on the value we uncover.
- 30 experiments every Sprint, compounding
- 8 purpose-built agents across all 6 AAARRR stages
- ~10% of the value at stake (band shown on your Scan)
- Monthly billing, 90-day notice, no annual lock-in
Creative Lab · Add-on
We build the winners we find.
- Full creative + production for your proven winners
- Ex-Ogilvy / VML / Publicis creative bench
- Transparent, cost-plus, scoped per winner
- Opt-in: only build what’s already working
Or email us: hello@uplvl.tech.
No pressure. No sales script. Just value.