A founder who built something special
Cathal grew Rooftop from a box room to a 14-person studio with blue-chip clients. So much ran through him because he is genuinely that good. The prize was getting it out of his head so it could scale beyond him.
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Rooftop Twenty Two: an already brilliant agency, built to grow beyond reputation alone.
A Dublin performance-and-creative agency with 14 people, their own studio, and a client list that includes some of the biggest names in Irish business. The work has always been excellent. Now the positioning, value-based pricing and AI-built systems match it, so growth is driven by design rather than word of mouth.
50+ Retainer clients
14 In-house team
Dublin Own studio
About the client
Rooftop Twenty Two
Rooftop Twenty Two is a Dublin performance-and-creative agency founded by Cathal O'Reilly in January 2020, started from a box room with a laptop and no clients. Six years on, it is a 14-strong team with its own Dublin studio, a Business All-Star accredited agency working with some of the biggest names in Irish business.
They offer a genuinely full-service mix: SEO, paid media, social, email, design and web, with photography and video produced in-house, which is rare for an agency this size. Every client to date has come through reputation and referral, with deep relationships across furniture and interiors, hospitality, professional services and healthcare. That trusted, sector-rich client base is exactly the foundation this work is built on.
Notable clients
The Irish Defence ForcesBreast Cancer IrelandGuinness Cork JazzMidlands Park HotelGourmet Food ParlourThe 1933 Furniture CompanyTC MatthewsAntaris Consulting
Why they came to Move at Pace
We wanted a partner who has actually scaled an agency, not a vendor selling us a system. Someone who works with agencies everywhere and knows what best practice really looks like.
Already brilliant
A great agency with room to grow.
Work so good it sold itself
Every client came through reputation and referral, the ultimate proof of quality. The next level was simply a pipeline that matches the standard of the work.
Delivering more value than they charged
The work was consistently excellent and often underpriced. Pricing on value just lets the numbers reflect what clients already get.
The real opportunity
Rooftop had outgrown the habits that built it. A strong reputation and a loyal, in-house team had taken the agency a long way. The opportunity was to let the commercial engine, the pricing and the systems catch up to the quality of the work, and to get the business out of the founder's head and into a structure that could run and grow on its own.
The insight
Where the value was waiting.
Specialise where they already win
The book was quietly concentrated in a handful of sectors. Turning that into deliberate positioning and a sector-led search presence opens inbound demand the agency was leaving on the table.
Price on value, productise the offer
Moving from hours to clear, value-based products makes the work easier to sell, easier to deliver and easier to scale. Pricing can reflect the result, not the time spent.
AI and systems as first-mover margin
Rebuilding web delivery and operations on a modern, AI-built stack compresses delivery from weeks to days and protects margin while competitors still work the old way.
The work
What we did, phase by phase.
Late 2025 The diagnostic
We started by getting an honest, evidence-based picture of the business, so every decision after it could be made on data rather than instinct.
- Full business diagnostic across operations, sales and finance
- Founder time audit to see where Cathal's hours were really going
- 12-month cashflow forecast to plan from
- Client and service matrix to map upsell across the whole book
Strategy day The reset
The leadership team came together for a full-day strategy session to agree the direction and commit to it, including a clear line in the sand on how the agency prices its work.
- Leadership alignment on objectives and priorities
- Agreed the move from hours-based to value-based pricing
- Defined the sector specialisms to lead with
- Set a focused, structured hiring plan
Live Positioning and demand
Built and launched a marketing engine so new business no longer depends on referrals or the founder's diary alone. The sector front door and outbound are in market.
- Sector landing pages and a search-led front door for inbound
- Founder-led content, filmed in-house
- A targeted, named outbound prospecting list
- Activating the board and wider network as a referral channel
Live Systems and AI
Rebuilt delivery and operations on a modern stack. The agency now moves faster and keeps more of its margin as it grows.
- A modern, AI-built web stack to replace slow legacy delivery
- A single source of truth from quote to project to invoice
- AI tooling across the team, with guardrails and training
- Clearer ownership so the founder steps out of the day-to-day
The impact
What's changed, already.
What's changed
- A clear, evidence-based picture of the business now driving every decision
- Now pricing on value instead of selling hours
- Sector positioning live across the brand and the new website
- A modern, AI-built web stack live, cutting delivery from weeks to days
- A founder-brand and outbound engine in market, opening a pipeline beyond referrals
These changes are implemented and working. As an active engagement, the impact keeps compounding.
"Connor is a really, really good business coach. From the initial conversation right through to ongoing support, he says the right things. It's great to have that sounding board, someone who has walked your shoes and been there. Thank you, Connor, for everything you've done for Rooftop, and for me too."
Key takeaways
What made this work.
Reputation starts you, systems scale you
A referral-led agency can grow a long way on trust. To grow on purpose, it needs a pipeline and processes that do not depend on one person.
A great client base is a positioning asset
The sectors Rooftop already serves best are the clearest route to specialisation. The positioning was hiding in plain sight inside the book.
Founder-led, not founder-dependent
The founder stays the face of the brand. The goal is to take the operations, the sales and the escalations off his desk so the business can run without him.
The lesson
A healthy, well-liked agency can still be fragile if it runs on referrals and the founder's head. The work here is not about fixing what is broken. It is about building the engine and the systems so the business can grow on purpose, and so the founder has real options about what comes next.
This is a live, ongoing engagement, shared with the client’s permission. Every business is different, and individual results vary based on your market, effort, and conditions.
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