It’s not working is it?

It often doesn’t work. It’s usually the language. When the language stops working, the thing you are building ceases to fit its name. It gets uncanny. The outlines go soft. The questions get harder. The stitching comes undone.

That’s when you say: I don’t know what this is anymore. I can’t remember who I am.

And then you remember that you are walking along a road, but you haven’t seen a street-sign in forever. Your phone has been dead for what feels like days. All of the convenience stores seem to be out of maps and no one feels like talking.

So, we find a patch of grass outside. And we sit. And we listen. And we ask nothing. At first.

Because none of this needs fixing. There is no easy lesson to be learned. This isn’t the time for teaching. Or for giving advice. It’s enough just to look.

The work is seeing. Naming. Carrying. Figuring out where you are in the story. Coming to terms with the fact that the story is still progressing. Evolving. Continuing to frustrate you. Throwing things in front of you that you never expected. Things you don’t deserve.

Suddenly you notice that there are others sitting here in the grass. Some of them are building companies, too. Some are artists. Some of them have seen what comes next.

And they don’t just think that they’ve seen it. No, they’ve seen it clearly and honestly and as sure as day.

But to hear them talk about it, you’d think they saw a ghost. Because all of them are haunted. Some by the things they want to make. Some by the things that want to be made. And some by the things that have been made and that can’t be put back in the box.

We help them manage these ghosts. That is the work.

Scope of Engagement

So what does this look like?

Well, though every engagement is different, typically it starts with a conversation. This is to understand where you are coming from. Where you want to go. Where you thought you’d be by now. And where you actually are.

You may be a founder who can't explain what you are building. You may be an engineer who can’t understand why “they” can’t understand you. You may be an artist, a designer of systems and ideas that scare you. You may feel petrified at cocktail parties or family gatherings when anyone asks you what you do.

Over the first month, we focus on setting up habits of mind that allow for an increase in situational awareness. This may include time management, finances, networking strategies, and messaging. Depending where you are in your journey, it may include a deep dive into what you are building and what you know about your customers.

A typical 90-day engagement will see language and vision come together to complement one another. On the one hand, the strategies needed to meet the opportunity. On the other hand, the tactics required to make the most of the moment. This may involve a fundraising campaign. It may involve the testing of a revenue operations plan. It may be all about a series of short design sprints. Or it may involve advanced customer discovery and quick iterations of product messaging.

In this work, you are the musician and we are the producer. Our role is to coax the greatest performance out of you and to help you realize your vision.

We work with a few clients at a time. If you’ve read this far and any of this resonated with you, you already realize that we should probably talk. So, if the work you're doing doesn't fit anywhere else, write us.