Nordex is a 24-consultant finance compliance boutique specialized in DORA, MiFID II, EMIR and SFDR. In 8 months, we turned a referral-only commercial engine into a predictable outbound machine. 7 new clients signed, €340K of pipeline contracted, headcount doubled by month 12.
Nordex was born out of Big4. In 2020, three ex-KPMG partners left to build something sharper: a boutique where senior consultants never disappeared into pitch decks, where DORA and MiFID II briefs shipped in weeks, not quarters. By early 2025 they were 24 consultants strong.
Then the referral loop flatlined. Every warm contact had been activated. Banking clients who would have introduced them had already introduced them. The product deserved growth. The distribution machine didn’t exist.
And DORA was coming. The EU’s Digital Operational Resilience Act had an effective date of January 17, 2025, and every financial entity with 50+ FTE was scrambling for compliance partners. The window was open — but Nordex had no way to reach the CRO of a 300-person neobank who had never heard of them.
Julien, the founder, knew two things. Traditional SEO was a 24-month trench war. Hiring a VP Sales plus an SDR plus six months of ramp-up was a bet his P&L couldn’t absorb. He needed pipeline in weeks, not quarters.
We started August 12, 2025. Four months before DORA’s effective date. No VP Sales, no SDR, no CRM cleanup. Just a plan to get Nordex in front of 2,000 decision-makers who would need them within 180 days.
2,147 financial entities with 50-500 FTE subject to DORA, crossed with real buying signals: recent CRO hires, tech stack shifts, funding rounds. Triple-enriched via Ocean.io + Prospeo.
3 secondary domains warmed over 14 days, full deliverability compliance (SPF, DKIM, DMARC, BIMI). 4 personas mapped, 3 sequences drafted, 11 subject lines A/B-designed.
200 emails/day/domain, 3 touches per prospect, weekly copy iteration. Week 8: reply rate climbed from 9.1% to 18.4%. Week 12: 16 meetings booked.
Steady state: 18-22 meetings/month. 7 clients signed. Julien hired two new consultants to absorb the delivery load.
A narrow wave, ruthlessly targeted. DORA wasn’t a vague compliance pitch. We segmented by entity type, employee count, and hiring signals. The sequences talked to a CRO who had just hired a DPO. That specificity is what pushed the reply rate to 18.4%.
Founder-led copy, operator-led iteration. Julien wrote the first draft of every sequence. We iterated weekly based on reply patterns. By month 3 the sequences no longer read like outbound — they read like a peer writing to a peer.
Compounding, not dripping. Every reply fed the next week’s ICP refinement. By month 6 Nordex was getting inbound from prospects who had received an email 12 weeks earlier and finally had budget.
We had hit the ceiling on referrals. Every warm lead was already tapped. Eight months later, we’ve doubled our headcount, closed seven new clients, and I’m no longer the bottleneck in our growth.
20 minutes. No pitch deck. We look at your market, show you the playbook, and tell you if we can help.
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