Cobalt → FactSet: A 100 Yards to Go Case Study

A turnaround in a tight, discerning industry. Build the play. Fly it. Then sell it.

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01The Problem

Founded as Bison. Renamed Cobalt. Stalled. Selling into private equity, where reputation moves at the speed of dinner.

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02The Work

Embedded with the company. Defined the portfolio monitoring category. Built the funnel. Polished the pitch. Reinforced the room.

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03The Result

3x revenue from 2018 to 2021. Acquired by FactSet for $50M, October 2021.

The Mandate

Build the play while you fly it.

The Work

Five things, in order.

Build the play.

Fly it.

Define the category.

Polish the pitch.

Close the round.

What We Did

Six pillars of the turnaround.

Embedded With The Company

Sat in on sales calls. Advised the CEO. Worked the product and customer success teams. Functioned like full-time employees, not an agency on a retainer.

Defined The Portfolio Monitoring Category

Articulated the PE tech stack — accounting, CRM, and the missing piece: portfolio monitoring. Built the case that spreadsheets were risky and inefficient through crisp content and hosted virtual events.

Followed The Data To The Customer

Ran targeted social campaigns. Analyzed results with sales and CS. Developed and prioritized a focused set of ICPs. Found the pain points that mattered to each function inside an investment firm.

Built The Funnel

Designed and shipped a full marketing funnel — top to bottom. Equipped sales with one-pagers, brochures, and decks. Offered white papers in exchange for emails. Filled the pipe.

Created A Culture Of Winning

Steady stream of partnership and new client announcements. Detailed case studies. Webinars with industry experts. Cobalt got associated with the names that mattered — and the salesforce got something to point at.

Polished The Pitch

New logo. Restructured website. 360° messaging across every public touchpoint. When investors started calling, leadership had a deck and a story that matched.

The Work, Shipped

No fluff. Real deliverables.

Sales decks & one-pagers.

Show, don't tell. Results-first messaging. Single-page feature releases that drew a bright line between feature and outcome.

A category framework.

The PE tech stack — articulated, named, defended. Cobalt sat at the center of it.

A "chart of the month."

Bite-sized, smart, social-native. Looked like research. Worked like marketing.

Skimmable case studies.

Conversational. Relatable. Written for the buyer, not the boardroom.

A new logo & site.

From multi-audience and vague to crisp messaging that says what it does, for whom, and what they get — up front.

An investor pitch.

Built to stand up to scrutiny. Honed alongside leadership. Helped close a $50M acquisition.

Acquired · October 2021

$50M.

3× Revenue·New Category·FactSet Deal Closed·Salesforce Re-engaged

100 YARDS isn't an agency. They became embedded partners — and came to feel more like full-time employees.

Cobalt didn't have a category. So we built one. FactSet bought it for $50M.

Six pillars of the turnaround.

No fluff. Real deliverables.

Did this make you think differently about your category?