Before you invest in more salespeople, new markets or a larger pipeline, can you show what is already working, and why?
Winning customers proves that some buyers value what you have built. It does not prove that you can acquire the next ten in the same way. Before hiring, entering a new market or increasing spend, examine what is genuinely repeatable.
I research your business, market, competitors and alternatives before we meet. I bring independent context, commercial judgement and coaching skills, informed by 18 years at Microsoft and advisory work with software businesses. At Solgari, I helped its leadership develop and adopt a strategic shift towards positioning the business as the conversational data layer for AI.
My research may support or challenge your view of the market. We test it against your customer evidence. You own the conclusions and decisions.
I am testing this engagement with a few founders and will ask for feedback. We agree scope, pilot fee and timetable in advance. I aim to complete the work in two to three weeks, subject to availability and receiving agreed information. Further advisory work is optional.
What is the important commercial choice you expect to make over the next 3-12 months? What would make that choice costly if you were wrong? We will use that question to decide which parts of the business need closer examination. The framework below is a set of prompts, not a rigid agenda.
We identify the decision you want to examine and the existing information that may help. You do not need a new presentation. I will sign your confidentiality agreement before you share anything sensitive.
I review your positioning, customer and partner signals, competing products and alternative ways buyers solve the problem, relevant market developments and public evidence of differentiation. I also review any existing material you share, such as customer examples, pipeline trends or retention information. Where public evidence is thin, I say so rather than treating assumptions as findings. Research is intended to inform the questions, not substitute for your internal evidence.
We spend approximately 90-120 minutes examining the areas most relevant to your decision. We test what appears repeatable, where evidence is incomplete and what might challenge the prevailing view. You can challenge my interpretations as freely as I challenge yours.
I prepare the written Growth Health Summary and share it before our 30-45 minute follow-up. We use that discussion to explore what the evidence means for the decision you face.
Existing examples are enough to begin. Please do not send customer identities or sensitive financial information until I have signed your confidentiality agreement.
I start by examining the evidence for product-market fit. I then draw selectively on the seven stages of my Growth Loop to explore how your business finds, wins, serves and grows customers, and learns from the results.
What recurring, costly problem do your best customers share? What have they paid, used, renewed or referred? Have you repeated wins without bespoke work, exceptional discounts or disproportionate founder effort?
Which customer segments and use cases are you pursuing deliberately, and which are you declining?
Why would a buyer change, choose you rather than an alternative, and act now?
Where do qualified opportunities actually originate? How much depends on founder relationships?
What do conversion, deal duration, recent losses and stalled opportunities reveal?
How quickly do customers reach a valuable outcome, and how is that evidenced?
What do renewal, usage, advocacy and expansion tell us about sustained value?
What changed in the last 90 days because of what customers actually did?
Two questions apply throughout: What evidence supports that belief? What evidence might challenge it?
The fictional example below shows the kind of evidence and questions I would organise in the summary. Actual findings depend on the information available.
Should the founder hire two account executives to accelerate growth over the next six months?
A review of competitors and alternative workflows suggests differentiation may be strongest in one use case rather than across the broader market. This is a research hypothesis to test with customer evidence.
What evidence would justify hiring two account executives now, and what could be learned before making that commitment? What risks would you be comfortable accepting?
To be completed with the founder in the follow-up discussion. I will not make the decision on your behalf.
Contact me at paulmasonconsult.com with a few lines about your business and the decision ahead. We can start with a 20-minute conversation.
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