About
25 years online. Now planted in Fredericksburg.
Fresh Start Marketing is Mike Thomson: advertiser, analyst, and operator since the dial-up days, now a Business Operations Consultant in the Texas Hill Country.
The Story
I've spent 25 years running online advertising, marketing, and analytics. I helped take one direct-to-consumer brand from a standing start to $112M in lifetime revenue, and I still manage paid media for a client I've served for almost two decades. The lesson from all of it: tools change constantly, and the businesses that win are the ones that know which changes to ignore.
Then AI arrived, and every business owner I know started getting pitched the same thing. Chatbots. Agents. Automation platforms. Mostly by people who have never run an ad budget, closed a sale, or answered a customer complaint. The tools are real. The prescriptions are mostly junk.
So I built a practice around the missing step: diagnosis. I call it Business Reframing™. I look at how your business actually runs, we decide together where AI genuinely helps, and I say plainly where it doesn't. Sometimes the answer is a real build. Sometimes it's a checklist. You get the honest one.
In 2026 my wife and I moved to Fredericksburg, Texas. This practice is built for my neighbors, whoever they turn out to be. Realtors, attorneys, landmen, ranchers, insurance agents, manufacturers, and plenty of wineries. The industry on the sign changes. The bottleneck behind it almost never does. I work where I live, and around here your name is worth more than your ad budget. That keeps me grounded.
Operating Principles
What I Believe
The rules that survive contact with every engagement.
Diagnose Before Prescribing
No fix gets proposed before I understand how the work actually happens. Prescription without diagnosis is malpractice in every other profession. Mine too.
The Right Tool, Not the Shiny One
AI when it genuinely helps. A plain workflow when it does not. A one-page SOP when that is honestly enough. The answer is never "more software" by default.
Security, Ethics, Privacy. Designed In.
Every proposal passes all three lenses at the drawing board, or it is not done. Not a compliance checkbox. The actual discipline.
You Own What I Build
Code, docs, accounts, credentials. If your team cannot run it without me, it is not finished. No hostage-taking dressed up as a retainer.
Start with a conversation
A free 30-minute intro call. No charge, no pitch. And when you're ready, the $250 Setup Session credits toward a Business Reframe if you go further.