Get in touch
partnerships@surkush.comFor DTC and ecommerce founders spending real money on creative
Your Ad budget is a bet.
Somebody should be able
to tell you the odds.
In ten working days, we research your buyer, your category, and the gaps between them. Then we turn that into five scripts, two hooks each, and a workspace your team can work from for 90 days.
We can't promise you a winner. Nobody honestly can. What we can do is shorten the odds.
Don't like it? Full refund on day five.
You see half the build before you're committed. If it isn't what you wanted, say so on that call and we return every dollar. No reasons needed.
$2,500 · One payment · Delivered in ten working days
Five clients a month. Done by hand.
Open your ads manager. Look at the last five ads.
Your winning Ad did its job.
Now you're making it the starting point for everything else.
You found a message that worked. You built a business around it. Now every new Ad starts there. Different creator. Different opening. Different edit. Same argument underneath. That is not a creative problem. It is what happens when the last thing that worked becomes the only thing you have to work from. And eventually, you stop asking what else could we say? and start asking how many more ways can we say the same thing?
Scaled to $18K
Killed on day 6
Same brand. Same budget. Same week. Nobody can say why one worked.
You can test the same idea forever.
A new hook is not a new argument. Neither is a new creator, a new format, or a different first three seconds. You can make ten versions of the same claim and learn which version of that claim performs best. Useful. But you are still learning about the same claim. The next useful thing to learn might be something else entirely.
You can run out of the same buyers.
When the same argument keeps reaching the same kind of buyer, you can end up paying more to get the same people to listen again. Then the usual conversation starts. More creative. More testing. More ways to say the thing that already worked. Sometimes that is the right answer. Sometimes you have simply run out of the people who wanted to hear that particular argument. The distinction matters.
Your own account is a useful place to start.
Your winning Ad tells you what worked. It does not tell you everything that could work. If every new concept starts with the last winner, the next concept is usually its cousin. Same family. Slightly different hair. A second idea needs a different starting point. That means looking at the buyer, the category, and the things your competitors are not saying. Not just asking what made the last Ad work.
Think of your last five ads. How many arguments were they, really?
Prove it to yourself
Think you're not guessing?
Ten questions. Most founders get four. Tick the ones you can answer right now, out loud, without opening a dashboard.
tick to start
Every blank is a decision your next creative is making without you.
Refundable in full on day five
Client reviews
What the last five brands had to say.
“We had plenty of creative going out, but most of it was the same argument with a different face on it. They made that obvious pretty quickly.
The useful part was not the scripts themselves. It was seeing why certain angles were worth testing and why others were just versions of things we had already tried. We ended up with five directions that felt genuinely different, not five new ways to say the same thing.
The workspace has also made briefing creators much easier. We are no longer sending a script and then explaining what the script is supposed to achieve.”
Daniel Harris
DTC Founder
“We went into this thinking we had a pretty good understanding of our customer. We did, but mostly at the category level.
The research picked up on a few things customers were saying that we had been treating as minor objections. They were not minor. They were shaping whether people believed the product was worth buying in the first place.
What I liked was that every recommendation had something behind it. A review, a comment, a competitor claim, or something from our own account. It was not someone presenting ten creative ideas and asking us to trust their instincts.
The output gave our team a much clearer starting point for the next round.”
Liam O'Connor
Ecommerce Brand Founder
“We had reached the point where we were producing a lot of creative and learning very little from it. Every week there was another batch of hooks, but the thinking underneath them was not changing much.
Surkush helped us separate the argument from the execution. That sounds simple, but it changed how we looked at our ads.
A few ideas we were excited about got rejected because competitors were already making the same claim. That was probably one of the most valuable parts of the process. We did not need another list of ideas. We needed someone to tell us which ideas were not worth making.
The build gave us a clearer creative direction without adding another monthly retainer to manage.”
Nathalie Erfanipour
Brand Founder
“The insight alone is definitely worth it. Before spending thousands of dollars on advertising, having concrete evidence about our audience and what actually matters to them gives us a much stronger starting point.
The research was detailed, the arguments were practical, and the value for the price is excellent. We are now working with the team to get the scripts shot, and I am looking forward to seeing how they perform.
Very satisfied with the process so far.”
Ola
DTC Founder
“The two-hook approach has been surprisingly useful. Testing two different openings against the same creative strategy gives us a much cleaner read on what is getting attention. When one hook works, we can carry it into other angles instead of starting from zero every time.
The team has also been a great strategic partner. They challenge the obvious ideas without making the process complicated.
And the portal is genuinely useful for a small team. We can white-label it, invite creators, communicate, manage creative finances, and keep feedback attached to the right asset. No more chasing files across Google Drive or trying to remember which WhatsApp message had the latest feedback.”
Matthew Baitieri
Ecommerce Founder
“We had plenty of creative going out, but most of it was the same argument with a different face on it. They made that obvious pretty quickly.
The useful part was not the scripts themselves. It was seeing why certain angles were worth testing and why others were just versions of things we had already tried. We ended up with five directions that felt genuinely different, not five new ways to say the same thing.
The workspace has also made briefing creators much easier. We are no longer sending a script and then explaining what the script is supposed to achieve.”
Daniel Harris
DTC Founder
“We went into this thinking we had a pretty good understanding of our customer. We did, but mostly at the category level.
The research picked up on a few things customers were saying that we had been treating as minor objections. They were not minor. They were shaping whether people believed the product was worth buying in the first place.
What I liked was that every recommendation had something behind it. A review, a comment, a competitor claim, or something from our own account. It was not someone presenting ten creative ideas and asking us to trust their instincts.
The output gave our team a much clearer starting point for the next round.”
Liam O'Connor
Ecommerce Brand Founder
“We had reached the point where we were producing a lot of creative and learning very little from it. Every week there was another batch of hooks, but the thinking underneath them was not changing much.
Surkush helped us separate the argument from the execution. That sounds simple, but it changed how we looked at our ads.
A few ideas we were excited about got rejected because competitors were already making the same claim. That was probably one of the most valuable parts of the process. We did not need another list of ideas. We needed someone to tell us which ideas were not worth making.
The build gave us a clearer creative direction without adding another monthly retainer to manage.”
Nathalie Erfanipour
Brand Founder
“The insight alone is definitely worth it. Before spending thousands of dollars on advertising, having concrete evidence about our audience and what actually matters to them gives us a much stronger starting point.
The research was detailed, the arguments were practical, and the value for the price is excellent. We are now working with the team to get the scripts shot, and I am looking forward to seeing how they perform.
Very satisfied with the process so far.”
Ola
DTC Founder
“The two-hook approach has been surprisingly useful. Testing two different openings against the same creative strategy gives us a much cleaner read on what is getting attention. When one hook works, we can carry it into other angles instead of starting from zero every time.
The team has also been a great strategic partner. They challenge the obvious ideas without making the process complicated.
And the portal is genuinely useful for a small team. We can white-label it, invite creators, communicate, manage creative finances, and keep feedback attached to the right asset. No more chasing files across Google Drive or trying to remember which WhatsApp message had the latest feedback.”
Matthew Baitieri
Ecommerce Founder
“We had plenty of creative going out, but most of it was the same argument with a different face on it. They made that obvious pretty quickly.
The useful part was not the scripts themselves. It was seeing why certain angles were worth testing and why others were just versions of things we had already tried. We ended up with five directions that felt genuinely different, not five new ways to say the same thing.
The workspace has also made briefing creators much easier. We are no longer sending a script and then explaining what the script is supposed to achieve.”
Daniel Harris
DTC Founder
“We went into this thinking we had a pretty good understanding of our customer. We did, but mostly at the category level.
The research picked up on a few things customers were saying that we had been treating as minor objections. They were not minor. They were shaping whether people believed the product was worth buying in the first place.
What I liked was that every recommendation had something behind it. A review, a comment, a competitor claim, or something from our own account. It was not someone presenting ten creative ideas and asking us to trust their instincts.
The output gave our team a much clearer starting point for the next round.”
Liam O'Connor
Ecommerce Brand Founder
“We had reached the point where we were producing a lot of creative and learning very little from it. Every week there was another batch of hooks, but the thinking underneath them was not changing much.
Surkush helped us separate the argument from the execution. That sounds simple, but it changed how we looked at our ads.
A few ideas we were excited about got rejected because competitors were already making the same claim. That was probably one of the most valuable parts of the process. We did not need another list of ideas. We needed someone to tell us which ideas were not worth making.
The build gave us a clearer creative direction without adding another monthly retainer to manage.”
Nathalie Erfanipour
Brand Founder
“The insight alone is definitely worth it. Before spending thousands of dollars on advertising, having concrete evidence about our audience and what actually matters to them gives us a much stronger starting point.
The research was detailed, the arguments were practical, and the value for the price is excellent. We are now working with the team to get the scripts shot, and I am looking forward to seeing how they perform.
Very satisfied with the process so far.”
Ola
DTC Founder
“The two-hook approach has been surprisingly useful. Testing two different openings against the same creative strategy gives us a much cleaner read on what is getting attention. When one hook works, we can carry it into other angles instead of starting from zero every time.
The team has also been a great strategic partner. They challenge the obvious ideas without making the process complicated.
And the portal is genuinely useful for a small team. We can white-label it, invite creators, communicate, manage creative finances, and keep feedback attached to the right asset. No more chasing files across Google Drive or trying to remember which WhatsApp message had the latest feedback.”
Matthew Baitieri
Ecommerce Founder
“We had plenty of creative going out, but most of it was the same argument with a different face on it. They made that obvious pretty quickly.
The useful part was not the scripts themselves. It was seeing why certain angles were worth testing and why others were just versions of things we had already tried. We ended up with five directions that felt genuinely different, not five new ways to say the same thing.”
The workspace has also made briefing creators much easier. We are no longer sending a script and then explaining what the script is supposed to achieve.”
Daniel Harris
DTC Founder
“We went into this thinking we had a pretty good understanding of our customer. We did, but mostly at the category level.
The research picked up on a few things customers were saying that we had been treating as minor objections. They were not minor. They were shaping whether people believed the product was worth buying in the first place.”
What I liked was that every recommendation had something behind it. A review, a comment, a competitor claim, or something from our own account. It was not someone presenting ten creative ideas and asking us to trust their instincts.
The output gave our team a much clearer starting point for the next round.”
Liam O'Connor
Ecommerce Brand Founder
“We had reached the point where we were producing a lot of creative and learning very little from it. Every week there was another batch of hooks, but the thinking underneath them was not changing much.
Surkush helped us separate the argument from the execution. That sounds simple, but it changed how we looked at our ads.”
A few ideas we were excited about got rejected because competitors were already making the same claim. That was probably one of the most valuable parts of the process. We did not need another list of ideas. We needed someone to tell us which ideas were not worth making.
The build gave us a clearer creative direction without adding another monthly retainer to manage.”
Nathalie Erfanipour
Brand Founder
“The insight alone is definitely worth it. Before spending thousands of dollars on advertising, having concrete evidence about our audience and what actually matters to them gives us a much stronger starting point.
The research was detailed, the arguments were practical, and the value for the price is excellent. We are now working with the team to get the scripts shot, and I am looking forward to seeing how they perform.”
Very satisfied with the process so far.”
Ola
DTC Founder
“The two-hook approach has been surprisingly useful. Testing two different openings against the same creative strategy gives us a much cleaner read on what is getting attention. When one hook works, we can carry it into other angles instead of starting from zero every time.
The team has also been a great strategic partner. They challenge the obvious ideas without making the process complicated.”
And the portal is genuinely useful for a small team. We can white-label it, invite creators, communicate, manage creative finances, and keep feedback attached to the right asset. No more chasing files across Google Drive or trying to remember which WhatsApp message had the latest feedback.”
Matthew Baitieri
Ecommerce Founder
What happens after you stop guessing
We find out what your next Ad should argue. Not just how it should look.
We research the buyer, the category, and the gaps between them. Then we turn what we find into three arguments your team can actually use.
Ten working days. Six sections of research. Five scripts. One workspace.
We find out what your buyer is actually saying.
Your reviews, DMs, support tickets. That is where we start. Not because we need to understand your brand. You already do. We need to understand what your buyer is trying to solve, what they have already tried, and what they are still not getting. If you are early, we go where they talk instead. Competitor reviews. Forums. Comment sections. The one-star reviews of the product they tried before yours. We come back with their language. Not yours.
We find the reason they don’t buy.
There is mostly something standing between the buyer and the purchase. “They all do the same thing.” “It won’t work on me.” “It’s not worth the money.” Sometimes it is a belief. Sometimes it is a bad experience. Sometimes it is something they have not been given a reason to believe yet. We find it. Then we find what is sitting underneath it. Because that is what your next Ad needs to deal with.
We map the conversation your category is already having.
Not fifty competitors. The handful you are actually losing customers to, plus whoever is spending hardest in your category. We pull their live and retired ads and write down what each one is claiming. You get to see the whole conversation on one page. More importantly, you get to see what is missing from it.
We find the arguments worth making.
This is where the research becomes useful. We take the beliefs actually blocking the sale, cross them against the claims nobody in your category has taken, and keep the ones your product can genuinely back. Most ideas die here. The three that survive are the ones with a real reason to work. And you will be able to read that reason.
You get five scripts, tagged and ready to shoot.
Each one carries the argument it came from, the belief it is attacking, and the funnel stage it is built for. So you and your media buyer can decide what to run and when. Hand them to any creator. They know what they are making and why.
We write two hooks for every script.
Same argument but opening with two different ways. Not because one hook is guaranteed to win. Because you want to know which opening gets your buyer to pay attention to the argument — plus it also increases the odds.
Your team gets a workspace, not a folder.
The research, the arguments, and the scripts all live in one place. Your team can work from them for 90 days. Generate a link, send it to any creator you use, and their uploads come back against the right argument. No more Drive folder called final_v2_USE THIS.
Ten days from now, you stop briefing creators on vibes.
One flat fee. Everything included.
One payment
You are not signing up for another retainer, another monthly invoice, or another person to manage. This is one defined piece of work. We research the buyer, the category, and the gaps between them. Then we turn that into five scripts, ten hooks.
Delivered in ten working days
Full refund on day five — no reasons needed
Every finding traceable to a review, a comment or a competitor Ad
90-day workspace access included
For context, a freelance creative strategist can cost $2,000 to $5000 a month and you still have to manage them. An agency retainer can start around $5,000 and go all the way up and ask you to commit for three months. Those can be sensible decisions. They are just much larger decisions to make before you know whether the thinking is any good.
Exclusive to 5 brands per month.
Day-five guarantee
You see half the build before you're committed. On day five, three of the six sections land: your buyer, the belief blocking the sale, and the competitor map. If you don't want to continue, say so on that call and we return every dollar. No reasons needed.
20 minutes · We'll use the call to understand where you are, what you've tried, and whether we can help · If it isn't a fit, we'll say so
Day 11 onward
The build stops on day ten.
The system doesn't.
Everything we make lands inside your workspace and stays with you forever. Not as a document you open once. Here's what your team actually does with it.
Brief a creator without writing a brief.
Generate a link, send it to whoever's shooting for you. They see the script, the argument behind it, both hook options and what the video is meant to do. No PDF attachments, no explaining the strategy over WhatsApp, no version three of a doc nobody can find.
Uploads land where they belong.
When a creator submits, the file attaches to the argument it was shot for. Six weeks later, when you're working out what performed, you're not staring at a Drive folder called final_v2_USE THIS. You're looking at a video with its reasoning still attached to it.
Your research stops being a document.
The six sections stay live. When a test teaches you something, it goes back into the argument it came from. The next round starts from what you know now, not from a PDF you read once in September and haven't opened since.
Everyone works from the same page.
You, your media buyer, your editor, your creators. Same arguments, same reasoning, nobody briefing from memory or from a screenshot someone sent them in March. This is the part that compounds.
All your research, arguments, and scripts stay live in one workspace for 90 days.
Workspace
Argument: See-through is the #1 complaint nobody is answering.
142 one-star reviews. Zero competitor ads addressing it.
Hook A
“The squat test. That's all you need to know.”
Hook B
“I wore them three days straight. Here's what happened.”
creator_take_03.mp4
Uploaded by @sarah · attached to Script 01
5 scripts · 10 hooks · 3 uploads this week
The build ends on day ten. What you learn after it has somewhere to go.
The obvious question
AI will give you ten angles.
It won't tell you which one to bet on.
An AI-model can give you six buyer beliefs and ten angles before your coffee gets cold. And, to be fair, some of them will be good. But your competitor can ask the same question and get almost the same list. That is not the expensive part anymore. The expensive part is knowing which belief is actually true, which argument your product can support, and which idea is worth putting money behind.
AI-model has never watched a promising angle quietly eat a month of budget. It has no reason to tell you, “Don't shoot that. Four brands are already saying it.” It can generate the options. It cannot take responsibility for the decision. That is the gap we work on: turning research into a small number of arguments your team can defend, test, and build from.
“Our leggings outlast the competition.”
“Stop wasting money on leggings that fall apart.”
“Real women, real results — see the difference.”
Sounds right. Could be any brand.
“The leggings you bought last month are already pilling. These won’t.”
142 one-star reviews mention pilling within 3 washes. Lead with the specific frustration, not a generic claim.
“You’ve tried the $20 pair. You know how that ends.”
Buyers don’t think in “wasting money.” They remember the specific disappointment of the cheap pair.
“The squat test. That’s all you need to know.”
“Real women” is used by 4 competitors. The #1 purchase trigger in reviews is gym performance — specifically squats.
Same three angles. Different level of specificity.
Generating options is free now. Knowing which one to bet on is the part that isn't. That is the only part we charge for.
The part nobody explains
Your next winning Ad might start with someone else's one-star review.
The best place to find a new argument is not always the place you have been looking. Your buyer has already tried something before you. They had a reason to buy it. They had a reason to be disappointed. And they probably explained that disappointment in a review. That is useful information. Because the thing they wanted and did not get is often the thing your next Ad should talk about.
Start with the disappointment.
Your buyer did not wake up wanting to buy your product. They wanted something the product was supposed to do. Maybe it was a better night’s sleep. Maybe it was a cleaner kitchen. Maybe it was a product that finally did what the last one promised. The review tells you what happened between the promise and the experience. That is where the useful part starts.
Your competitors’ one-star reviews are not just complaints.
They are a record of what people expected to get, what they actually got, and what they wish had been different. That is a lot more useful than another afternoon looking at someone else’s headline. And it is not limited to what your competitors are doing badly. Sometimes the complaint is about something nobody in the category has bothered to address. That is the interesting part.
The argument is already there. You just have to find it.
A buyer says, “I bought this because I wanted X. It did Y. I wish it had done Z.” You now have a reason to make an Ad about Z. Not because you think it is a good idea. Because someone has already told you it matters. That is the difference between making another Ad and finding a new argument.
Competitor Review Audit
What buyers are saying about the products they tried before yours.
“Went see-through the first time I did squats. For $95 I expected way more than this.”
142 mentions across category
“Waistband rolls down every single workout. I spend half the class pulling them up.”
89 mentions across category
“Pilling after three washes. Three. I have $30 leggings that lasted longer than these.”
67 mentions across category
“Sizing is completely off. Ordered my usual medium and they were skin-tight in the worst way.”
54 mentions across category
“Washed them twice and the colour is already dull. They looked nothing like the photos.”
38 mentions across category
20 complaints. Zero brands addressing them in ads.
“The squat test. That’s all you need to know.”
142 reviews say see-through. No one is proving otherwise.
“Put them on. Forget about them. That’s the review we’re after.”
89 complaints about waistband. The absence of that is the selling point.
Two arguments. Both backed by evidence your competitor handed you for free.
Every argument you've never made is a group of buyers you've never reached.
That is how we think about creative. And this is just one place we look.
Before You Book
We've talked more brands out of this than into it. Because research only works when the problem is actually creative. Half the time it isn't, and we'll tell you that on the call.
This is built for you if
- You're spending on paid social and creative is the thing holding you back, not budget or product.
- You've had a winner you couldn't repeat, and it still bothers you.
- You have creators, or can get them, and what's missing is what to tell them.
- You're about to spend more this quarter than last, and you'd rather not spend it the same way.
- You've paid an agency for strategy before and got a deck you never used.
- Your old targeting playbook stopped working and you're not sure what replaced it.
- You're launching your first store and would rather work out the angles now than find them at $10K in.
The rest of it
Everything people ask before they book.
Eight years of brand strategy, and brands we've built positioning for have gone past seven figures. That's the part most creative shops skip. They start at production because production is what they sell. We start at what your buyer believes, because that decides whether the production is worth anything.
Every finding in your build traces back to a real customer quote, a review, or a competitor Ad we can show you. Nothing generated, nothing assumed, nothing recycled from another client. That's why it takes ten days rather than two.
By reading, mostly. Reviews and support tickets on your side, then the one and two-star reviews of the products your buyer tried before yours, then forum and comment threads where your category gets argued about, then every live and retired Ad from the competitors who matter. Ten days is what that takes when nothing is generated.
Here's the thing about product-market fit: it means one argument landed. Not that you found all of them. Most brands that get past that point are still running variations of the message that worked at the start, and it holds until you push spend, at which point the same argument keeps reaching the same people and costs climb.
So what you already know is one thing. This is about the other four. And it isn't generic, because none of it comes from your account or from a template. It comes from your buyer's language, your category's claims, and the specific gaps between them.
That said, you'll see three of the six sections on day five and decide for yourself. If it reads as things you already knew, say so on that call and we return every dollar.
Those read what's inside your account. They're good at telling you which of your existing arguments performed and which patterns repeat in your winners. They can't surface an argument you've never made, because it hasn't produced any data. That's the part this is for.
It's the most common situation we see and it's usually where the biggest gap is. Everything since has been inference from Ad performance, which is a record of your own decisions rather than of your buyer.
No. One 45-minute call at the start, one at the end, nothing needed from you in between. The output arrives briefable, so it enters your normal cycle rather than replacing anything.
We scope it on the call. If one product carries most of your spend we build around that buyer. If it's a catalogue with no clear message we go brand-level. Either way it's one focus per build, because research spread across five products ends up generic about all five.
Then we'll say so on the call and we won't take the work. If you're running traffic and converting close to nothing, the problem is usually further down: the site, the offer, the product. Better arguments send more people to the same place. We'd rather tell you that in twenty minutes than take $2,500 and watch it not work.
Yes. The scripts are written so any creator you already work with can shoot them. If you'd rather we ran production as well, that's a conversation for after the build, once we can both see what we'd be shooting.
You do, permanently, including after the 90 days end. Yours to keep and hand to any agency or creator you work with.
Your research and everything built inside it stays accessible. Continued access to the creator and campaign tools is a separate conversation, only if you want it. Nothing you've made gets taken away.
Anything else, ask on the call. Twenty minutes, and there's no pitch at the end of it.
Ten days from now, you'll
know what to shoot next.
20 minutes · No pitch at the end · If we're not right for you, we'll say so on the call