Strategy & programme lead
Founding · 12y operator-side cannabis · ex agency-side adult
About Despite.
A marketing agency for high-risk and restricted-market businesses. We accept the briefs mainstream agencies refuse and execute the playbook calibrated for the categories where the standard playbook does not work. Operating as of 2026, by referral, across 18 verticals.
The filter is consent and harm, not legality. The work is calibrated per category. The architecture assumes that any single vendor in the stack might terminate the operator next quarter, and is built so that does not zero the business when it happens. The reporting is honest. The refuse-list is documented. This page is the dossier on identity, mandate, filter, capabilities, and team.
Start a conversation→- Codename
- Despite
- Established
- 2026
- Operating mode
- By referral
- Vertical coverage
- 18 categories
- Service lines
- 11
- Engagement modes
- Retainer · Project · Partnership
01MandateWhy we exist
Mainstream marketing agencies do not work in restricted markets. Their compliance teams will not sign briefs that name a Schedule III compound. Their content writers do not know what a SARM is. Their SEO playbook assumes a domain Google will not algorithmically demote, an ad account Meta will not silently throttle, a payment processor that will not freeze the funds, an email vendor that will not terminate on a banned-word match. None of those assumptions hold in the categories we work in.
The few agencies who do accept restricted-category briefs typically apply the same playbook anyway. They run white-hat SEO into a YMYL ranking ceiling, push paid traffic to creatives that will not survive Meta review, build email programmes on Klaviyo for categories Klaviyo terminates inside ninety days. The category context never enters the methodology. Six months in, the operator has paid for a programme that does not work, and the operator is the one who has to recover from the platform damage.
Despite was built by operators who watched that pattern repeat across cannabis, peptides, adult, online pharmacy, vape, and a dozen adjacent categories — and decided the only way to fix it was to build the agency the way the work actually has to be done.
02Filter10 categories · intake decision matrix
| Category | We work | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Consenting-adult businesses serving consenting adults | Yes | Adult retail, adult platforms, gentlemen’s clubs, escort directories. Filter is consent, not category. |
| Cannabis, CBD, kratom, and adjacent botanicals | Yes | Legal jurisdictions and gray-market jurisdictions both. Compliance work calibrated per region. |
| Peptides, SARMs, anabolic compounds, RC | Yes | Sold to informed buyers who have read the literature. Harm-reduction-aware content. |
| Psychedelic clinics, ketamine therapy, online pharmacy, harm-reduction services | Yes | Where the regulatory framework permits. Patient acquisition and clinical-grade compliance. |
| Vape, nicotine pouches, tobacco, and adjacent nicotine retail | Yes | PMTA-aware, FDA-aware, regional-policy-aware. |
| High-risk financial services (hard money, payment processors, B2B) | Yes | B2B lead generation in restricted finance. Not consumer payday lending. |
| Predatory consumer finance (payday, advance-fee, fee-stacking) | No | Buyer cannot meaningfully consent under economic duress. |
| Non-consensual content platforms or adjacent infrastructure | No | Consent failure is structural, not conditional. |
| Health claims that mislead about life-threatening conditions | No | Cancer cure claims, miracle weight loss claims, etc. Refused at intake. |
| Operations that traffic in identity fraud, weapons, or violent extremism | No | Refused without further conversation. |
03Operating principles6 commitments
- 01
The filter is consent and harm, not legality
Legality is a moving target written by lobbyists and decided by jurisdiction. We apply the consent-and-harm filter at intake; the legality status of any given category in any given jurisdiction is documented for execution but does not determine whether we accept the brief.
- 02
Calibrated per category, not generalised
Cannabis SEO is not adult SEO is not peptide SEO. Per-category PBN networks, parasite-ranking surfaces, YMYL signal calibrations, carrier filters, acquirer rosters. Generalised execution fails for category-specific reasons.
- 03
Architected for vendor failure
Any single vendor in the stack might terminate the operator next quarter. Multi-domain sender architecture, mirror sites on different stacks, redundant payment rails, ban-contingency social, recovery infrastructure pre-deployed.
- 04
Honest reporting, no rank guarantees
No one guarantees rankings in restricted markets. Anyone who does is selling fiction. We commit to deliverables, methodology, and reporting transparency. KPI dashboard locked at engagement.
- 05
Documented refuse-list per service
Every service page lists tactics we run and tactics we deliberately do not. Cloaking on the primary domain, AI-generated content as primary draft, rented email lists, aggregator stacking under shell descriptors — all enumerated, all refused.
- 06
By referral; word-of-mouth filtered intake
We do not run paid advertising for the agency. Operators come in through referral or through search on the categories we cover. The intake filter is heavier than the marketing filter; not every brief becomes an engagement.
04Team rosterAnonymised by request
SEO & content lead
Founding · 9y restricted-market SEO · PBN architecture
Paid acquisition lead
Founding · 11y paid media · cannabis & adult specialist
Payments & tech setup lead
Founding · 8y high-risk processing · ex acquirer-side underwriting
Email, SMS, deliverability lead
2026 H1 · 7y deliverability · restricted ESP environments
Reputation & ORM lead
2026 H1 · 10y comms · ex pharma crisis communications
Community & social lead
2026 H1 · 6y community ops · cannabis, adult, harm-reduction
eCommerce & CRO lead
2026 H1 · 8y restricted-ecom · Shopify and self-hosted
Names withheld at team and client request. Restricted-market work attracts adversarial attention; anonymity is a working condition, not a brand decision.
05Direct linesReply within 24h
Start a conversation.
Reach out and we will scope. Or write directly: contacts@despitemarketing.com.