Marketing Support for Recess — Invisible Engine
INVISIBLE ENGINE
June 2026 · Capabilities
For Recess · Marketplace · Austin

Marketing
support, scaled
for what's next.

A capabilities brief on what we'd build alongside your team as Recess scales from three cities to a category.
01 · The moment
02 / 07
Where Recess is right now

You just closed $6M. The next 18 months are pure scale.

You built trust with 7,000 families and 400 schools across three Texas cities — without the marketing infrastructure most marketplaces need at this stage. That gap will compound the moment you expand outside Texas. The marketing function has to scale faster than your operations, not after.

$6M
Total Seed funding
($4M closed June 2026)
7,000+
Families on the
platform today
400+
School and program
partners
3 → N
Cities live · National
expansion ahead
02 · The compounding gap
03 / 07
What breaks at this stage

Four marketing functions that don't scale by accident.

Your Head of Experience covers marketing and design. Your social and branding work runs through a contractor. The model holds at three cities. It doesn't survive geographic expansion, paid acquisition at Series A scale, or the SEO race for "afterschool programs near me."

01

Brand coherence across new cities

Local relevance without local fragmentation. A brand system that flexes for Dallas, Houston, Austin, and the next ten metros — without rebuilding the playbook each time.

02

Performance marketing at Series A scale

Paid acquisition that doesn't burn your runway. Creative production at velocity, channel testing with a real measurement framework, and a CAC story that holds up under board scrutiny.

03

Two-sided marketplace content

Parent-facing trust isn't the same job as provider-facing acquisition. Two distinct content engines, sharing one brand voice, both running at speed.

04

SEO as a moat, not an afterthought

"Afterschool programs near me" is a category-defining search. Own it now — before a competitor with worse product but better content does.

03 · What we do
04 / 07
Capabilities

Brand strategy is the foundation. The marketing engine sits on top of it.

Invisible Engine is a brand strategy studio — but the work doesn't stop at positioning and identity. We build and run the marketing functions a Seed-to-Series-A team needs and can't yet staff in-house.

01 · Foundation

Brand strategy & positioning

Category claim, narrative architecture, messaging hierarchy, and the verbal identity that anchors every channel.

02 · Foundation

Visual system & design

Logo, color, type, motion. A flexible identity built for scale, not a one-shot rebrand.

03 · Build

Web & product UX

Site architecture, landing pages, conversion flows, and product UX consultation aligned to the brand strategy.

04 · Build

Content & SEO

Editorial strategy, content calendar, keyword strategy, and the cornerstone content that owns category search.

05 · Run

Paid acquisition

Creative strategy, channel mix, testing framework, and measurement infrastructure for Meta, Google, and emerging channels.

06 · Run

Lifecycle & email

Onboarding, retention, reactivation. Parent-side and provider-side flows built on real behavior, not best-practice templates.

07 · Run

Video & creative production

Product video, founder content, social-native cuts. The volume your paid channels need without the production overhead.

08 · Run

Marketing ops & tooling

Stack architecture, attribution setup, reporting, and the operational scaffolding so the marketing function isn't a black box to your board.

04 · How we work
05 / 07
Engagement models

Three ways in, sized for where you actually are.

No retainer contracts you'll regret. Each engagement is scoped to a specific outcome with a clear endpoint — and you decide whether the next phase makes sense once you've seen the work.

2 weeks · Fixed scope

Discovery sprint

A complete brand & marketing audit, with a prioritized roadmap.
  • Brand & competitive audit
  • Marketing function diagnostic
  • Channel and SEO baseline
  • 30 / 60 / 90 day roadmap
4–8 weeks · Project

Foundational build

Strategy + identity + the launch assets you need to scale geography.
  • Brand strategy & positioning
  • Visual system refresh
  • Web & landing page builds
  • Content + SEO foundation
Ongoing · Monthly

Fractional marketing team

An embedded studio team running marketing alongside your Head of Experience.
  • Performance creative production
  • Content + editorial cadence
  • Lifecycle & email programs
  • Weekly stand-ups & reporting
05 · Why Invisible Engine
06 / 07
Why Invisible Engine for Recess specifically

Built for the stage you're in.

Most agencies are built for Series B and beyond. Most freelancers can't carry a multi-function marketing engine. Invisible Engine is the in-between — a studio sized for Seed-to-Series-A founders who need strategic horsepower and execution velocity from the same team.

Your investors — Baukunst, Wave Capital, Swizzle, Laura Modi — back companies that take brand seriously. We work with the same bar.

01 · Local

Austin-based. A few miles up Congress.

Same time zone, same city, same talent pool. In-person whenever it matters.

02 · Stage-fit

Sized for Seed-to-Series-A teams.

Senior strategists doing the work, not pitching it. No agency overhead, no 12-person calls.

03 · Editorial DNA

Trust brands. Marketplace brands. Voice brands.

Recess is built on parents trusting your judgment. The brand work has to earn that trust at every touchpoint.

04 · Operator-aware

We work alongside in-house teams.

April and the team stay in the driver's seat. We extend capacity, not replace it.

06 · Next steps
07 / 07
Next steps

Three steps. Two weeks to a clear answer.

01

A 20-minute call

We listen first. You share what's working, what isn't, and where the next 18 months are pointing. No pitch.

02

A free brand audit

Take 2 minutes at invisibleengine.co/brandaudit. Instant gaps report. You'll see what we'd dig into.

03

A scoped proposal

If there's a fit, we propose the right first engagement — discovery sprint, foundational build, or fractional team.

Here for the guts,
not the glory.
Caroline Schaffer · Founder caroline@invisibleengine.co
invisibleengine.co