8
2019
New York City
Media
12
Underdog
Eden Collective was founded on a contrarian belief: growth doesn’t come from worshipping at the altar of “performance media.” It comes from designing media to perform. We don’t buy media—ever—which keeps our incentives clean and our guidance impartial. Instead, we build the operating system: strategy, measurement, and a learning agenda that compounds results and reveals what truly drives growth.
The industry forces false choices. Boutique specialists are affordable but narrow. Holdcos boast tools and scale, but non-enterprise brands rarely get sustained senior attention—and almost everyone’s economics lean toward bigger budgets and higher-margin channels. Meanwhile, privacy headwinds erode the very attribution signals that make click-chasing look smart on a dashboard but meaningless in a boardroom.
Our answer is a conflict-free, hub-and-spoke Collective: a senior cross-functional core that designs the plan and the proof, then orchestrates independent channel specialists—no markups, no rebates, no hidden ties. If the math says rotate a partner, we do.
Eden Collective isn’t filling a gap in the market — we are redefining it. We built a strategy-only firm with no financial bias, no hidden agendas, and no distractions. Media is not performance for performance’s sake, or brand for brand’s sake. It is the operating system that connects creativity to commercial outcomes.
We’ve never been interested in playing by the polite rules of agency culture. At Eden Collective, expertise is revered, debate is fuel, and curiosity is a given. We hire people who would rather ask the uncomfortable question than nod along — because better answers are born from friction, not consensus.
Our vibe? Unapologetic nerds who can shred a model in the morning, then make it make sense by lunch. We’re the team you want at the bar after work, not because we’re picking up the tab, but because sharp conversation is our happy hour.
What binds us is simple: entrepreneurial instincts that challenge convention, curiosity that refuses easy answers, humility to admit what we don’t know, and collaboration that thrives on diverse perspectives colliding.
And it’s a culture shaped by who we are: female-founded, female-majority, with an average age of 40. Deep experience sits alongside digital-native instincts, producing fewer blind spots and sharper answers. Founder Alison Monk’s recognition — including Inc. 500 Female Founders and AdExchanger’s Top Women in Media — underscores the ethos here: building others up while pushing the work forward.
It’s not culture for culture’s sake. It’s the operating system that makes our work smarter, sharper, and more effective.
Eden Collective is in demand. We’ve grown 25% year over year and are on track to accelerate by 50% in 2025. What began with 2.5 people in 2019 grew to five by 2023, and today we are in the market for our thirteenth employee. Every inch of that growth has been organic and referral-driven. And when we step into a competitive pitch, we don’t just hold our own — we win. Most recently, we unseated global independents to lead media strategy for a widely respected supplement brand.
Our momentum is matched by client loyalty. Jackpocket partnered with us for 3.5 years until their acquisition by DraftKings. The Farmer’s Dog has trusted us for more than five years, scaling their investment with us from $10 million to more than $100 million. These aren’t transactions. They’re long-term partnerships where we are seen as foundational to growth.
We’ve been profitable since day one. Entirely self-funded. No outside investment. No shortcuts. Just a model that works — for us and for our clients.
We’re also the agency that other agencies call. Collaborating with Pereira O’Dell on media measurement for Zelle. Partnering with Corner Table Creative to deliver a fully integrated creative and media solution for Sweetgreen. Independence keeps us conflict-free. Collaboration makes us indispensable.
Eden Collective began as a rebellion. I spent years inside companies ruled by quarterly earnings and investor returns, where I was told to “lower my bar” and prize efficiency over excellence. I watched tech bros peddle sloppy buying and shallow measurement, dressing it up as platforms. I watched holding companies tuck in smaller clients to pad profits, then starve them of attention. It was an industry that rewarded shortcuts and disguised bias as scale.
As a woman in those rooms, long before the “me too” era, I was told I was too bossy, too direct, not presidential. What that really meant was that I refused to play small. I believed clients deserved more than dashboards and excuses. I believed there was room for an agency built on strategy, not transactions. One without investors or earnings calls dictating the work. A firm that would only ever be accountable to the client’s business. Great work keeps clients. Retained clients sustain the business. That simple equation became our foundation.
The name Eden carries that intent. It represents a place of clarity and integrity. It is also my daughter’s name, a tribute to the women of the next generation. May they never be told to lower their bar.
For us, independence isn’t a tagline. It means no holding company, no investors, no outside money. No shortcuts to growth. That choice forces rigor.
Media is not a business you can freelance. It requires real fixed costs — data, measurement, channel expertise — and it’s easy to spread thin and fake it. We refuse. Instead, we’ve built discipline into our DNA. We focus on a very specific client segment: late-stage startups at the inflection point of moving from pure performance to brand building. We only pitch when we believe the odds are at least 50% in our favor. We overdeliver to cement a reputation for excellence. We invest ahead of need and play the long game, because slow and steady wins — and de-risks.
The industry worships scale. We believe scale without purpose is just bloat. Independence forces discipline. Discipline creates excellence. And excellence builds enduring growth.
Anyone can buy growth. We earn it.
Independence is no longer a simple label; it sits on a spectrum. Agencies backed by private equity face the same financial pressures as holding companies: investor targets, quarterly earnings demands, and growth mandates that choke off innovation in favor of profit. Roll-ups and federations promise scale, but too often clashing P&Ls pit disciplines against each other, making it harder to deliver cohesive strategies in the client’s best interest.
At Eden Collective, we believe independence at its purest means something else entirely: no outside investors, no inorganic roll-ups, no shortcuts to growth. We have been profitable and self-funded since day one, and every step of our expansion has been organic. That commitment allows us to focus on what matters most — never compromising client outcomes for someone else’s financial agenda.
Our role in the future of independence is to prove that founder-owned, strategy-led, and conflict-free agencies are not only viable, but vital. Independence isn’t a constraint. It is the condition that makes excellence possible.
