The roadmap nobody ships.
The AI initiative everyone believes in, still waiting behind the quarter. A year of decks, nothing in production.
Now taking cases.
For two decades I've been obsessed with using design, technology, and AI to solve problems that matter. For the last five years I led product and design at Virtuous, serving thousands of nonprofit organizations. Now my practice is open: everything I've learned across brand, design, product, marketing, and AI, brought to bear for a small number of mission-driven software companies. Bring me the problem that's resisted everything else. I'll investigate it like a detective, then build the fix alongside your team.
Real work ships at every milestone, or you don't pay.
Three ways in.
Pick your starting point- Start Here The Field Report Free. A full investigation of your operation, delivered with my findings on video.
- The Case One defined problem, solved and shipped, priced by the case.
- The Seat An operating partner, from monthly counsel to weekly embedded days.
01 · Sound Familiar
The cases I keep seeing.
Every growth-stage software company carries at least one. See if yours is on the wall.
The product that outgrew its story.
The positioning was written two funding rounds ago. The product moved on, and the market can't tell.
The demo that wins, the website that loses.
Prospects who see it live, buy. The site can't make the same argument on its own.
The value they never reach.
Customers buy convinced and renew unsure. Time to value stretches, adoption stalls, and both GRR and NRR quietly pay the bill.
The promise sales can't keep.
Customers arrive expecting one thing, the product delivers another, and your CX team inherits the gap.
The backlog that speaks the wrong language.
Customers keep asking for something. Between ticket volume, thin discovery, and no system for reading the signal, the roadmap keeps guessing.
The release nobody noticed.
The team ships real value and the market shrugs. No rhythm inside, no splash outside, no story carrying the work.
The team that outgrew its operating model.
More product managers, more process, less shipping. The AI era wants builders and a betting table, not backlog administrators.
The board's AI question.
Every meeting ends with it, and the honest answer so far is a shrug with slides. You need an answer that's real, specific, and yours.
Cases like these are often the result of accumulation. The solution is purposeful design.
02 · The Work
The work I take, and ship myself.
Most consultants sell a discipline. I take the whole case, and the work usually lands in one of six shapes. Every one of them ends with something your customers touch or your team runs on, not a document about it. The six look like different disciplines, but they're one act. A positioning, an AI system, an operating model: different materials, same craft, each one designed from the outcome back.
- AI shipped to production. Agents, copilots, and features your customers actually use, plus the internal workflows that make your team faster. Applied where it pays, not where it trends.
- Positioning, and the pages that carry it. The narrative, the structure, the words, and the build itself. Landing pages that make the argument your demo makes.
- Working prototypes. The thing itself, built in days, so decisions get made on evidence instead of feelings. Ready for the Betting Table.
- Onboarding and time to value. The path from closed-won to first value, rebuilt so adoption and retention stop paying for the gap.
- Launches that land. A release rhythm inside, a story outside, and a launch system your team keeps after I'm gone.
- A product operating model for the AI era. Discovery that reads the real signal, a betting table, and a roadmap that ships. Builders over backlog administrators.
03 · The Operator
Twenty years, multiple lanes.
I started in design and never left it. I just kept widening what it applies to, following the problems into harder rooms. I established a brand system for Florida's leading hospital, built products for companies like Google and Cisco, led an EdTech company through its exit to Pluralsight, and spent the last six years as the product and design executive for a nonprofit fundraising platform, helping carry it from a single CRM into an AI-forward platform trusted by thousands of organizations.
Along the way I've never been limited to a single perspective. Brand, design, marketing, product, engineering: I come at a problem from whatever discipline the case requires, because the hardest problems never stay in one lane.
Some of what I shipped in the last year alone, hands on the work, AI-native throughout:
- An AI research agent for frontline teams, taken from working prototype to production.
- AI features and internal workflows live in the product and in the operation, applied where they pay rather than where they trend.
- A positioning and messaging system carried through product, website, and sales narrative.
- Full brand and web builds, shipped end to end, strategy through code.
That combination is the offer.
Not a strategist who leaves before the work starts, and not just a builder who needs the answer handed to him.
Selected Clients
04 · Start Free
Start with the Field Report. It's free.
Holmes didn't guess, he deduced. He gathered his facts first, and half the time the case was solved before he left the armchair. That is the Field Report: a real investigation of your product, your funnel, your story, and your systems, before you've spent a dollar. It costs nothing and obligates nothing, and it is the fastest way to see how I work.
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A short set of questions in your own words: what you're seeing, what you've tried, where it hurts most. About fifteen minutes, and you can pause anytime.
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Thirty minutes, you and me. No deck and no pitch. I'll ask the questions your statement raises, and you'll know within the half hour whether I understand your world.
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Then I go to work on my own time. I pressure-test how your product actually works, walk your site and funnel the way a first-time buyer would, read your positioning against your market, and look hard at where AI could earn its keep.
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Findings ranked by likely impact, evidenced, and tied to the number you most want to move. Delivered in writing with a video walkthrough, personal and specific to you, along with one honest recommendation about what, if anything, to do next. It's yours to keep whatever you decide.
05 · The Method
The grand thing is
The grand thing is
to reason backwards.
That line is Holmes's, and he added that very few people ever practice it. He was right about consultants too. I wrote a book, Three Pipe Problems, about working the hardest cases this way, and every engagement in this practice runs on the same three moves.
Today The first lever Solved The closed case
Before anything gets built, we define what solved looks like: the number a board actually watches, moved, and the story that should be true two quarters from now. We name it together, in writing, before the work begins.
From that outcome, we work out what has to be true to reach it, which lever moves first, and in what order. Only then do we choose what to build. Strategy before software, so you never ship a feature to solve a problem no feature can reach.
A simple dashboard tied to the number, from the first week. Evidence, not enthusiasm. At any point in the engagement, you know whether the case is closing. So do I.
We reason backwards from the closed case, then build forward to it
Most companies don't need more opinions. They need someone to find out what's actually true, and then build accordingly.
06 · Outcomes
Commercial problems,
Commercial problems,
commercial outcomes.
This is creative work in service of revenue, not the other way around. The cases I take are the ones that move the numbers a board actually watches:
- New ARR from positioning and packaging that finally match what the product became.
- Net revenue retention from onboarding and adoption done right.
- Win rate from a story your sales team can actually tell.
- Contract value from products your customers understand and choose.
- Velocity from AI applied where it pays rather than where it trends.
- Pipeline from positioning the right buyers actually stop and read.
07 · The Engagements
Three ways to work.
Every case begins with the free Field Report. When it points to work worth doing, there are two ways to do it, both priced by the case, both fixed before we start, and both ending with something shipped.
The Field Report
A real investigation of your product, your funnel, your story, and your systems, before you've spent a dollar. Findings ranked by likely impact, delivered in writing with a personal video walkthrough, and one honest recommendation about what, if anything, to do next. It's how almost every case here begins.
Free
The Case
One defined problem, taken from decision to shipped. An AI feature in production, a repositioning carried through product and site, an onboarding rebuilt end to end, a launch done right. Fixed scope and fixed price, agreed against the outcome before we start, usually closed inside a quarter, with my hands on the work alongside your team.
Priced by the case
The Seat
An operating partner on standing terms, shaped to what the company needs. That might be counsel: a weekly working session, async review of anything, a voice in the decisions that matter. Or it might be embedded: a day or two each week inside the company, building. The shape can change as the company does.
From $7,500/mo
Every price is set up front, invoiced simply, and covered by the same four guarantees below.
08 · The Promises
Every engagement carries the same four guarantees.
In writing, up front, and the same for every case.
It ships, or it's free.
Every engagement is built around real milestones. Something real ships at each one, or you don't pay.
Gates you can stop at.
The work moves in stages. You see progress at every one, and you can stop at any of them.
Evidence, not enthusiasm.
A simple dashboard tied to the number we named, from the first week.
An honest no, early.
If your case isn't mine to take, I'll say so in the first conversation and point you toward people I trust.
09 · Why This Work
Why mission-driven software.
I could run this practice for any software company, and I'm choosing the ones that build for the mission-driven world. Part of that is credibility: I know your buyer with a depth no generalist can match, because I've spent my career living with their budgets, their boards, and the way they actually make decisions. Mostly, though, it's conviction. The tools that serve the servers deserve the best product thinking available, and this is the work I've dedicated my career to. The book calls it designing for the other side of the screen, and this practice is that idea carried into harder rooms.
So the practice gives back by design. A portion of every engagement funds pro bono cases for nonprofits. As your product gets sharper, an organization that could never afford this kind of help receives it free.
10 · The Intake
Bring me the problem.
There are two ways in, and the door is the same. For almost everyone the best first step is the free Field Report: a real investigation of your operation, no cost and no obligation, and the fastest way to see how I work before you commit to anything. If you already know you want more, The Case or The Seat, or you simply want to reach me directly, you're in the right place too.
For The Case, The Seat, or anything else, get in touch below.
11 · FAQ
What are the costs?
The Field Report is always free. The Case is priced against the outcome, most start from $7,500 and up, always scoped and aligned with you before we start. The Seat starts at $7,500 a month depending on standing counsel or embedded needs. Every paid engagement carries the same guarantee: real work ships at every milestone, or you don't pay.
Why is the Field Report free?
Because it's how every case should start, and most firms charge five figures for a worse version of it. The Field Report is the investigation the method demands, and it's the fastest way for both of us to know whether this is my kind of case. I take a handful each month, I do the work personally, and the findings are yours whatever you decide.
When you say design, do you mean how things look?
No, though the looks come with it. In this practice, design means the deliberate act of working backwards from an outcome to the thing that produces it. A positioning gets designed. An onboarding gets designed. An AI system, a launch, an operating model: designed or accumulated, those are the only two options, and most companies are running on accumulation. I also do the visual craft, at a level most consultancies can't, but that's the last mile of the work.
How is this different from a fractional executive?
Most fractional roles advise from the sidelines. I investigate like a detective and build like an operator, and I keep the practice deliberately small so it stays that way.
What do you actually build yourself?
Prototypes, AI features and workflows, positioning and messaging systems, product surfaces, and the occasional site. If your customers touch it or your team runs on it, I've probably built one.
Will you work with our existing team?
Yes, and gladly. The goal is always to leave your team stronger and faster than I found them.
Why a private practice?
Because the work is better this way. A small number of companies, chosen carefully, with enough of my attention to actually close the case.