Basic Philosophy

One of the most important lessons I have learned (sometimes re-learned) throughout my career is that I shouldn’t accept the premise that I need to operate within a system that feels broken.

That being said, I have two big concepts that I want everyone to understand before they consider working with me.

Focus and Energy > Time

The industry at large tends to quantify output as a measure of time. Hourly rates are somewhat of a standard and most consultants end up scoping the work they are pitching or being asked to do based on the amount of time it will take them.

This doesn’t work for me for a few reasons:

• There are things that I can do incredibly quickly because I’m me. This is the result of my experiences, developed muscle memory, and my unique neurological processing of information.
• There are things that take time, but are not difficult, complex, or valuable.
• I have the ability to hyper focus which means I may be able to do a week’s worth of work in a 4 hour session. If I do that, I have no focus or energy left for anything else.
• The people I want to work with don’t care about time, they care about value. They don’t want to see hours logged, they want to see quantifiable impact.

Partnerships and Engagements > Clients and Projects

I’m not running a services agency or a standard consulting business. I’ve gone down this road because there are people I care about and products I believe in that need help to reach their full potential.

I partner with those people and connect with them around a shared investment in their success.

I identify opportunities and engage teams to help them capitalize on them as effectively and efficiently as possible.

Roles I Can Play

Strategic Driver (DRI)

Every team eventually faces a bottleneck of tasks with limited time and resources. Leveraging my extensive experience in product, program, and project management, I can step in to steer strategy, lead teams, and drive execution. I typically reserve these engagements for partners I’ve previously collaborated with, ensuring a solid foundation of trust and communication.

Fractional Leader

Growing teams require seasoned leadership. Many companies mistakenly view leadership as a full-time role. As a fractional leader, I can mentor your team, streamline processes, and shape the roadmap to prioritize high-impact opportunities. This is an ideal solution for startups or businesses grappling with growth, particularly when they’re not yet ready to bring leadership in-house.

Strategic Advisor

If your company’s daily operations and overall direction are well-established, you might benefit from an experienced perspective on specific challenges or opportunities. As an advisor, I offer strategic analysis and guidance, helping to keep teams aligned and accountable for maintaining momentum and achieving their goals.

Minimum

I maintain a minimum of $5,000/month for any engagement, ensuring I can devote sufficient time to add substantial value or make progress towards a specific goal. This fee is in addition to any negotiated value via ownership, equity, stock options, etc.

My fees are not calculated based on hours spent, but rather on a comprehensive evaluation of the focus and energy required to deliver value, while meeting my partners’ expectations for pacing, responsibilities, and outcomes.

Required: Onboarding and Strategy

Every new engagement requires substantial learning. To deliver the value my partners expect, I need to understand the product, customers, market, business, and team. Onboarding can be a standalone project, culminating in a strategic analysis that includes:

• Competitive analysis from various perspectives – marketing, product experiences, pricing, etc.
• Product analysis of onboarding and core experience.
• Engagement analysis based on user feedback, support requests, and product data.
• Top opportunities identified during my analysis, focused on your primary goals.
• Immediate problems/issues to be addressed.

Ongoing Partnerships

I favor ongoing engagements that foster a sense of shared investment in the company and product’s success. This allows us to implement more complex strategies and tactics, and to work together on analyzing and optimizing for impact and growth. For ongoing engagements, I require:

• Clear goals to achieve or progress towards.
• Regular alignment around priorities and approach.
• Asynchronous communication and collaboration tools.
• Access to analytics platforms to measure progress and impact.
• Appropriate allocation of supporting resources.
• Monthly fee – payable monthly, bi-weekly, or weekly via direct deposit.
• 30-day (mutual) notice for cancellations and/or extensions.

Opportunity-focused Engagements

Before establishing a long-term role, I insist on collaborating in some capacity. This could be through an in-depth onboarding engagement or a specific project, initiative, or “trial”. For project engagements, I require:

• Onboarding as a step in scoping and validating the project.
• Fixed fee structures paid out based on agreed milestones.
• Collaboration on the project’s strategy in relation to the goals/outcomes we hope to achieve, or vetting.and approval of the strategy.

Adaptability > Process

At the heart of my approach is flexibility and adaptability. I prioritize smart solutions and value creation over rigid processes. My roles are not siloed, but rather fluid and interchangeable, allowing me to pull elements from different engagements to find the right solution. I encourage you to embrace this same flexibility. Together, we can tailor our collaboration to best serve your unique needs and objectives, ensuring we maximize impact and value. Let’s embark on this journey of growth and success together, leveraging our collective strengths to drive your startup to new heights.