The problem
Phoenix Group was heading into a public listing and needed three things at once before the offer window closed: retail-investor demand, a credible corporate brand, and a live product story. I joined pre-IPO to lead growth and the digital side of the transformation.
What I built
- Ran the retail-investor marketing campaign for the IPO: a $370M raise at a $3.3B valuation, paired with a complete corporate rebrand.
- Directed the rebrand and shipped the new corporate website in 11 days to support the offering.
- Launched the UAE's first cloud mining platform, iOS and Android apps in 5 weeks, with dynamic pricing, FIAT and USDT payments, and a live BTC ROI calculator.
- Supported the $FAH token (ERC-20) launch and led a cross-functional team of 7 across marketing, sales, and product.
The result
The IPO closed 180x oversubscribed with retail investors and earned 40+ media placements.
Three problems, one deadline
An IPO gives you a fixed date and no way to move it. Everything either exists before the offer window opens or it does not count. Phoenix Group needed three things by then, and each one made the others harder.
It needed retail-investor demand, which is a marketing problem. It needed a corporate brand that held up to the scrutiny a public listing invites, which is a design and positioning problem. And it needed a live product story, because a mining company asking retail investors for $370M is more convincing when there is something a person can open and use. I owned all three, reporting to the Chief Sales Officer and the CEO.
The rebrand, and a website in 11 days
The rebrand came first, because every other piece sent people to it. A retail investor who hears about the offer looks the company up, and whatever they find is the pitch. The old identity was built for a mining business talking to other mining businesses, rather than for a listed company talking to the public.
I directed the rebrand and shipped the new corporate website in 11 days ahead of the listing. The listing date decided those 11 days. What made them workable was cutting the scope to the pages the offer needed and leaving everything else for after the listing.
The UAE's first cloud mining platform, in 5 weeks
Alongside the raise I shipped the cloud mining platform, iOS and Android apps included, in 5 weeks. It was the first of its kind in the UAE, which meant no local reference to copy and no established pattern for what buyers expected.
- Dynamic pricing, so the product could move with the underlying market instead of being repriced by hand
- FIAT and USDT payments, because the two audiences it had to serve pay in different money
- A live BTC return calculator, which was the single feature that made the offer easy to understand for someone new to mining
That calculator did more for conversion than any of the copy around it. Mining economics are hard to hold in your head, and a person who can put their own number in and see what comes back stops guessing.
Around the listing
Two more pieces ran alongside the main campaign. I supported the launch of the $FAH token, an ERC-20 token for the luxury auction platform, and I built educational webinar funnels with automated nurturing and sales-enabled onboarding behind a product launch at a $3,000 average order value. Webinars work in crypto for the same reason the calculator worked: the product needs teaching before it needs selling.
I also formed partnerships with leading crypto hardware brands, which produced same-day delivery for customers and first-page search rankings for the pages those partnerships sat on. Getting distribution and search rankings out of the same agreement is unusual, and it happened because the partner pages were written to be useful rather than to list logos.
What it added up to
The IPO closed 180 times oversubscribed with retail investors, at a $3.3B valuation, and the campaign earned 40 or more media placements. I led a cross-functional team of 7 across marketing, sales, and product to get there, with 5 direct reports.
The part I would carry into any other listing is the sequencing. The brand had to be ready before the campaign, the campaign before the product, and the product had to be real before the offer. Run those in the wrong order and each one undercuts the last.
What the people there said
I have worked with Donatas in multiple different roles. He was a the lead for growth marketing, his work was impeccable and his attention to detail has been amazing. He led a team to develop, implement and launch a whole sub-business of Phoenix, very successfully. Also he has developed several sites and launched other ventures that I have done. He is my go to for growth. I can't recommend him highly enough.