For Upbound Group
Two of Upbound’s open roles, answered with the work itself — not a resume, but two live analytics products. Both are built entirely from Upbound’s public SEC filings and earnings calls; no internal or confidential data is used, and every assumption is labeled and adjustable. The point is simple: this is what the first 90 days would look like.
Director, CX Research & Market Intelligence
The accessible-finance arena — Acima, Rent-A-Center, and Brigit mapped against BNPL and cash-advance rivals. Three analytical lenses, a Voice-of-Customer signal hiding in the app-store ratings, an honest TAM/SAM/SOM, and a sourced dossier.
Senior Director, Customer Performance Analytics (Growth)
Inside the funnel — an interactive unit-economics & LTV model calibrated to Acima’s filed FY2025 results, a full-funnel leakage diagnostic, an experimentation readout with the stats that make it causal, cohort curves, and the SQL underneath.
On method
Both products tie out to Upbound’s filed numbers because the method is sound: the Acima unit-economics model reproduces the real $2.51B revenue and $295M operating profit at its default inputs, and every market figure carries an as-of date and a primary source. Built by Paul Brown.
Upbound posts no salary ranges — Texas doesn’t make it — but its own directors do: $132K–$176K reported base at the Rent-A-Center brand (Glassdoor). Load the midpoint with the ~25% an employer pays in payroll taxes and health insurance and either req costs about $193K a year — $93 an hour for all 2,080 hours, the first ~6 months of which are ramp before a new leader breaks even (Watkins, The First 90 Days). The hire will be great in the room. They won’t build the systems. I charge $250/hour and need about 120 of them — these two products are the free work sample. (For calibration: Affirm and Chime posted $217K–$325K for the same work in 2025–26. The comparison only improves.)
Director, CX Research & Market Intelligence
$132K–$176K reported director base, Glassdoor → ~$193K loaded → $93/hr · ramp to breakeven ~$96K
$30,000 · the 90-day build
~120 hours at $250/hr ships this role’s first year as working systems — a third of what the hire’s ramp alone costs. Then the bench: $3,500/mo, cancel anytime.
Senior Director, Customer Performance Analytics (Growth)
$132K–$176K reported director base, Glassdoor → ~$193K loaded → $93/hr · ramp to breakeven ~$96K
$30,000 · the 90-day build
~120 hours at $250/hr ships this role’s first year as working systems — a third of what the hire’s ramp alone costs. Then the bench: $3,500/mo, cancel anytime.
Or keep the req and arm it: the same build handed to your new director on day one pulls their breakeven from month 6+ to month two. And if the honest audit says the role is a few AI automations wearing a director’s title, I’ll say so and build those instead — that ladder starts at $5K. Everything shipped stays yours. Founding-build rate: the first 3 builds run $15,000 — half price — in exchange for a named case study; when the third ships, so does the rate.