Customer success, built from the ground up

Your company just raised. Customers are signing. Nobody owns making sure they stay.

TrellisCS builds the customer success foundation your early-stage SaaS company doesn't have yet — so retention isn't a mystery and your first CS hire isn't starting from zero.

Let's talk

Sound familiar?

The foundation hasn't been built yet

At most seed and Series A SaaS companies, customer success isn't a function yet — it's whatever's happening by default.

Maybe it's you, the founder, handling onboarding and support between everything else. Maybe you've hired a CSM or two, but there's no playbook, no one managing them, and no real way to know if they're doing a good job or just staying busy.

Either way, the signs are usually the same:

A customer churned and it caught you off guard
A board member asked about NRR and you didn't have a clean answer
Onboarding happens differently every time, depending on who's doing it
You have no idea which accounts are actually at risk until they've already decided to leave

None of this means something is broken. It means the foundation hasn't been built yet — and building it later, after the pain, is a lot harder than building it now.

How TrellisCS helps

Two ways to work together

Foundation Sprint

A fixed-scope engagement that builds your CS foundation from scratch — segmentation, onboarding playbooks, health scoring, renewal cadence, and the tech setup to actually run it in your CRM. Delivered in 4–6 weeks, so you walk away with a system already running, not a strategy deck.

$10,000–$15,000 flat

Fractional CS Leadership

For companies with 1–2 CSMs and no one managing them. I step in as your part-time head of CS — coaching your team, reviewing accounts, owning the metrics that go to your board — on an ongoing basis.

$4,000–$6,500 / month

I work with a small number of clients at a time by design, so the work stays hands-on. Final pricing depends on company stage and scope.

Why me

Built this before, twice

I've spent 15 years building customer success functions inside SaaS companies — not just working inside ones that already worked.

At Labster, I built the CS team from 2 people to 21 in a single year, as the company scaled from $2M to $24M in ARR. At BondLink, a fintech serving the municipal bond market, I built the client journey, health-score system, and playbooks from the ground up — improving net revenue retention and product adoption along the way.

2 → 21 CS team size in one year, Labster

$2M → $24M ARR growth alongside CS build-out

15 yrs building CS functions in SaaS

TrellisCS exists because most companies at your stage need exactly that: someone who's built this before, not someone learning on your dime.

How it works

What it looks like to work together

How the Foundation Sprint runs

Week 1

Discovery I learn how customers actually move through your business today — onboarding, support, renewals — through interviews and a look at whatever data exists.

Weeks 2–3

Design We build the segmentation model, customer journey, onboarding playbook, and health score together — not handed to you cold, built with your input so your team actually uses it.

Week 4

Tech build I configure the system directly into your CRM: health scoring, automations, and AI-assisted workflows like QBR prep or at-risk account alerts.

Weeks 5–6

Rollout We run the first live cycle together, and I hand off documentation so the system doesn't depend on me to keep running.

How Fractional Leadership runs

An ongoing engagement, usually 5–10 hours a week, built around a regular cadence rather than a fixed end date:

Weekly 1:1s with each CSM — coaching on specific accounts, not generic check-ins
Weekly or biweekly account reviews — walking the book, flagging risk, deciding what needs your attention versus mine
Monthly reporting — the retention metrics that matter to you and your board, with the story behind the numbers, not just the dashboard
Hiring support when you're ready to bring on your next CSM — job description, interview process, and onboarding them into a system that already exists
Quarterly playbook refresh — the foundation evolves as your product and customer base do

The goal is simple: you always know the state of your CS function without having to manage it yourself day to day.

Questions

FAQ

How is this different from just hiring a CSM?

A CSM executes day to day. TrellisCS builds the system a CSM operates inside — the playbooks, the health scoring, the process — so whoever you hire (now or later) isn't building it from scratch themselves.

We already have someone doing CS-ish work. Is this still relevant?

Often, yes. Most of the time it means there's effort but no system — no consistent playbook, no way to spot risk early, no clear ownership. That's exactly the gap the Foundation Sprint closes.

What does it cost?

Pricing is listed above, next to each service — I'd rather be upfront about it than make you ask.

How many clients do you work with at once?

A small number, by design — usually 1–2 at a time, so the work stays hands-on instead of templated.