Case Studies

Problem:

• Ex-lawyer founders built a job board making $100k/month but couldn't scale

• Being compared to generic job boards and winning only on price

• Transactional business model was unsustainable

 

Process:

We uncovered misalignment between their strengths and business model - they knew their community of ex-lawyers well but little about recruiting or hiring processes.

 

Solution:

Pivoted to serve ex-lawyers directly with career development subscriptions, aligning with their community expertise.

 

Results:

• Year 1: $1.2M → $4.5M

• Year 2: $4.5M → $9M

• Now: $13M+ recurring revenue with <2% churn

Problem:

• 21-person agency overwhelmed with work

• Revenue stalled under $5M/year despite satisfied clients

• Not profitable despite being constantly busy

 

Process:

Discovered they were trying to be everything to everyone, making it impossible to scale efficiently.

 

Solution:

Narrowed focus to SEO/PPC services specifically for women entrepreneurs who were dissatisfied with previous providers.

 

Results:

• 3x top line growth

• Significant profitability improvement

• Clear path for continued expansion

Problem:

• Technical founder built excellent AI product but struggled with sales

• Lacked focus on who to sell to

• Constant product roadmap debates and feature creep

 

Process:

Found misalignment between target customer and product strategy - building advanced features for larger customers while neglecting smaller businesses with more urgent needs.

 

Solution:

Refocused on smaller customers with higher pain points, simplifying product roadmap and sales approach.

 

Results:

When a competitor raised $65M, they messaged me: "I'm happy we did that exercise - our positioning is different even if the product is pretty much the same."

Problem:

• Data experts built a model to predict when employees turnover

• They struggled to gain traction with HR depts at large organizations

 

Process:

Found misalignment between target customer and solution - product only predicts who will churn but doesn't fix it and customers weren't well equipped/motivated to fix the problem.  So the information was just a nice-to-have.

 

Solution:

Redirected the same predictive capability toward client churn and partnered with service providers focused on reducing that churn.  Pinpoint accuracy of the data was a key differentiator and clients were highly motivated.  

 

Results:

• Year 1: $1.0M → $5.5M

• Year 2: $5.5M → $14M

• Sales cycles shortened from over 12 months to under 6 months