About
The seat next to yours.
Any car can go fast in a straight line. The race is won in the corners, and that is the only place I am useful. Entrepreneurship is a rally, and you need a navigator you trust while conquering the course.
Two things this looks like, and is not
It is not a disguised sales call. A disguised sales call gives you a diagnosis shallow enough that the only way to act on it is to hire the person who gave it to you. This one gives you the whole read, and a real answer to what to do next, whether or not that answer involves me.
It is not paywalled discovery. Paywalled discovery charges you for the part that tells you what is wrong, then charges again to fix it. Here the diagnosis is the free part, on purpose, because a diagnosis you cannot act on is not worth selling.
What it is: the actual work, at the front, before any conversation about money.
People arrive with the wrong problem.
Every first call on record has gone the same way. Somebody arrives naming their problem, and by the end it is a different problem.
“Came in asking about product-led growth. It was positioning, and the growth question could not be answered until that was settled.”
“Came in trying to satisfy investors who wanted a bigger number. The investors were reading a service market as a size problem. She left the venture track that afternoon.”
“Came in positioning as a competitor to the biggest platforms in the category. He was a utility, and becoming a competitor was the wrong use of everything he had.”
Three for three.
How the work is priced
Priced on impact. Not on time, not on deliverables. Hours and artifacts are how I cost it internally, and they are never the justification. I am selling a result.
Never confuse activity with effort, and never mistake effort for results. No busy work, and no fluffy deliverables produced to justify a number.
Everything is prioritized on four things: sustainability, repeatability, reward, and necessity. No vanity metrics, unless the audience genuinely is the job.
I won't carry a failure
I take the work because I believe you are ready for it, capable of it, and actually need it. When that turns out not to be so, I end the engagement rather than run it out. You owe the kickoff and nothing after it.
If I decline to work with someone, it is because the timing is wrong.
The bench
Annie Ellegood carries all product and product-marketing work: GTM messaging sessions, and Product Opportunity Results, where she is the delivery rather than support.
Who this isn't for
- If you want someone to run it, that is not this.
- If you want a retainer, that is not this either, and nothing here rolls over.
- If you want to be told you are right, I would rather you spent the time elsewhere.
“I am not going to run your business, and I am not going to take the wheel. I am in the seat beside you calling the corner before you can see it.”