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An AI commercial operations and GTM practice | for early-stage founders

The Commercial Diagnostic

You can feel it.
We can name it.

A seventy-two-hour commercial diagnostic for early-stage founders, pre-seed through Series B. We run your CRM, billing, and pipeline through the AI diagnostic and name what's broken. GTM and Ops, separate tracks, one methodology.

Start my diagnostic
Take the free assessment first
A hand-drawn bell curve on crumpled graph paper, plotting a rise and fall across 50 data points.
the drop
you can feel

The gap

The product works. The business doesn't.

Something went sideways between “the product works” and “the business works”; you can feel it. A pipeline that doesn't close. Pricing that doesn't land. A GTM motion that exists on paper and produces nothing in practice. You can't name the thing.

Building feels like progress. Selling feels like rejection.

That's not a skill gap; it's a structural one. The commercial layer is a different build from the product, and most founders never got a manual for it. The diagnostic names the thing as a root cause, not a symptom. And you get a prioritized 30-day roadmap that tells you what to fix first, before you spend another dollar on the wrong problem.

Is this the right tool?

The right tool, at the right time.

This is the right tool if…
  • ✓You’re pre-seed through Series B and the commercial side hasn’t kept pace with the product.
  • ✓You’re spending on channels or hires that aren’t moving the needle, and you can’t tell why.
  • ✓You can describe the problem but not the cause, and the cause is leaving money on the table.
  • ✓You want a clear, prioritized step-by-step for the next 30 days, not another strategy deck.
This is not the right tool if…
  • –You need a full-time commercial hire, a rebrand, or a six-month transformation program.

The diagnostic will tell you what you actually need first. It's almost never the six-month program.

The products

Choose your entry point.

GTM is everything customer-facing. Ops is the machine that drives the internal business. Pick the track that feels most urgent, or cover all bases with the combined run.

GTM Diagnostic

Looking outward
$1,000

How you’re presenting to the market, and whether the market can hear you (correctly). Positioning, pricing logic, commercial narrative, sales motion fit, prospecting, distribution, competitive awareness, buyer narrative, ICP, sequencing, and AI adoption and efficiency savings.

The average SaaS startup has spent six hours on pricing strategy. Ever. We usually spend more.

What you send
  • ·The intake form
  • ·Positioning / pitch deck
  • ·Pricing page or last proposal
  • ·3–5 recent outbound emails
  • ·Website hero + /about URL
  • ·ICP definition, if written down
What you get

Written 30-day GTM roadmap, which includes (but isn’t limited to), a primary diagnosis, 4–8 issues ranked by impact, root causes per issue, week-one quick wins, metrics to watch and the processes to surface them. Plus, a video debrief, either live or pre-recorded.

Ops Diagnostic

Looking inward
$1,000

Your commercial infrastructure. Team and hiring sequence, tool stack, ownership of the number, pipeline data quality, reporting, founder bottlenecks, CRM, onboarding-to-retention, cash flow visibility, AI adoption and efficiency savings, and the operational debt compounding faster than the technical one.

The first commercial hire is usually wrong because the brief was wrong.

What you send
  • ·The intake form
  • ·Current tool stack (a list is fine)
  • ·Pipeline / deal log export
  • ·Team structure or org chart
  • ·6–12 months MRR / revenue data
  • ·Any existing process docs
What you get

Same format as GTM. 30-day roadmap, focused internally: infrastructure, data ownership, tooling coherence, team structure, operational debt. Plus, a video debrief, either live or pre-recorded.

Combined

best value
Both tracks, one roadmap
$1,750

GTM and Ops problems are almost always connected. Fixing your positioning while your CRM data is broken doesn't hold; addressing both tracks at once means the roadmap sequences everything correctly. The combined diagnostic runs both GTM and Ops diagnostic processes simultaneously, and delivers one integrated plan.

Better value than two separate diagnostics. A more complete picture.

What you send
  • ·Everything within GTM and Ops, in one intake
  • ·One submission, one go
What you get

Integrated 30-day roadmap, both document sets digested together, correct sequencing of GTM vs Ops work. Plus, a video debrief, either live or pre-recorded.

The 72-hour timeline

Three days. Seventy-two hours. No theatre.

No six-week kickoff. No decks. No discovery calls. The clock starts when we have everything, and it doesn't stop until a roadmap lands in your inbox.

Day 0intake
H-0
Materials received
Intake form, CRM export, pitch deck, pricing page.
H+0:15
Clock starts
Seventy-two hours, counted from here.
Days 1–2in the lab
H+2
Pattern pass
22 levers, scored against your data.
H+18
First hypothesis
Three to five candidates for primary diagnosis.
H+36
Pressure test
Run the hypothesis against eighteen years of precedent.
H+48
Draft roadmap
Sequenced week one, weeks two to four.
Day 3delivered
H+60
Final polish
Plain English, no jargon, no filler.
H+68
Roadmap delivered
PDF and a live editable doc, both yours.
H+70
Video debrief
Forty-five minutes, live or pre-recorded.
H+72
Monday plan in hand
Week one named. Weeks two to four sequenced.
The clock starts when we have all your materials. No exceptions.

A sample diagnostic

This is what a page of your roadmap looks like.

A redacted page three from a real Tincture diagnostic. Primary diagnosis at the top. Three issues below it, ranked. Week-one actions on the next page. The real document names names, quotes your pipeline, and runs to about fifteen pages.

We redact, we don't perform. Black bars are where your company, your numbers, and your CRM names would be. Click the page to see a GTM sample.

GTM DiagnosticTincture · Confidential
Prepared for
Primary diagnosis
Your pricing page is optimized for the wrong buyer. The free tier is doing the work your mid-tier should.
Issues, ranked
01
→
02
→
03
→
Week one
Page 3 of 18
Ops DiagnosticTincture · Confidential
Prepared for
Primary diagnosis
Pricing is anchored to a cost you no longer carry. The free plan is capturing fewer than forty percent of the value you deliver.
Issues, ranked
01
→
02
→
03
→
Week one
Page 3 of 18

The deliverable

What lands in your inbox.

The roadmap is a working document, not a strategy deck. Fifteen to twenty pages, plain English, sized to what your current team can actually do. Everything in it is actionable within 30 days.

Delivered as a PDF and a live editable doc. Yours to keep, yours to mark up.

01   Primary diagnosis

What’s actually broken, named plainly. Not “your GTM needs work”; the specific lever costing you the most revenue right now.

02   Issues ranked by impact

3–5 specific findings in the order you should address them. Sequence matters. Fixing the wrong thing first wastes the month.

03   Root cause for each

Not just what’s broken, but why. Symptoms don’t stay fixed unless the cause is named.

04   30-day action plan

Specific tasks, specific sequence. Week one is quick wins. Weeks two through four build the foundation.

05   What to measure

Concrete metrics so you know the roadmap is working. Not “track your pipeline.”

06   What to skip for now

The findings that matter but don’t come first, and why. Knowing what not to start is as important as knowing what to fix.

What founders say

“Forensic knowledge in all things GTM with a hugely strategic brain. Your team and your business will be better with her in it.”

— JB, Marketing Director

“No question too small, no task too large. Delivers as promised, and more.”

— TG, Marketing Lead

“Commercial savvy and marketing experience that anyone would be lucky to have on their side.”

— SCW, Strategy Director
Halftone illustration of two hands pouring sand, on a pink background.

Insights

The methodology, applied.

Specific thinking on the commercial layer, published as we go.

See all insights
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AIMay 13, 2026

How to run a four-agent dev team as a non-technical founder

If you're a non-technical founder, you don't need to hire a dev team to ship software: you need to learn to run one. Four AI agents in one Claude Code conversation, each with a bounded role, can build and ship a production website (including the CMS). The only skill you need is the skill of giving good briefs.

Read this
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OpsMay 10, 2026

Lean startup team scaling: the $500K ARR per employee pattern

Lean startup team scaling means hitting meaningful revenue milestones with far fewer people than historical SaaS norms, by combining AI-augmented engineering, self-serve distribution, and disciplined hiring.

Read this
Bixonimania hoax
AIMay 07, 2026

Bixonimania and AI accuracy: why format beats truth

Bixonimania is a fabricated psychiatric disorder invented by a Swedish researcher to test how large language models handle authoritative-looking but false information. The hoax paper, dressed up as a legitimate clinical preprint with absurd funding sources, was ingested and repeated as fact by multiple major AI systems and even cited by a peer-reviewed journal before retraction.

Read this

Diagnostic vs Fractional

Start with a map. Hire the guide later.

Diagnostic
You are here
  • ·72 hours
  • ·Fixed at $1,000
  • ·One roadmap, yours to implement
  • ·No ongoing commitment
Fractional
If you want a guide
  • ·Weeks or quarters
  • ·Monthly retainer
  • ·We sit beside the team and implement
  • ·Start anytime after the diagnostic

Pricing

Round numbers. Transparent pricing.

The diagnostic costs $1,000. The average seed-stage startup spends $15,000–$30,000 on GTM motions that don't work before they understand why. A strategy consultant charges $300–$500 an hour; at that rate you'd spend $4,500–$10,000 to reach the same clarity over three to four weeks.

A brass T-junction pipe fitting next to a US dollar coin, illustrating transparent pricing
GTM Diagnostic
Ops Diagnostic
Combined
Price
$1,000
$1,000
$1,750
Tracks
GTM only
Ops only
Both
Roadmap
30-day GTM
30-day Ops
Integrated 30-day
Debrief call
45 min
45 min
75 min
Delivery
72 hours
72 hours
72 hours

Not ready for the diagnostic? The free assessment is ten questions, ten minutes, and gives you the primary diagnosis to start with.

The guarantee

3
actionable findings
you haven't already
identified

Three things you didn't already know, or your money back.

No conditions, no questions. That guarantee is specific because it's real. If we've done the work and only named things you already knew, the diagnostic hasn't earned its price.

money back, no drama

FAQ

Common questions.

Most founders aren't sure. Start with the free diagnosis (ten minutes) and pick the track that feels most urgent. If we think the other track is where the leak is, we'll tell you before we start work. Or run the Combined and skip the coin-flip.

Get started

The roadmap is 72 hours away.

Start my diagnostic
Take the free assessment first
Fixed at $1,000 · 72-hour delivery · No ongoing commitment.
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