Every constraint, named precisely.
Not a list of problems. The one primary constraint, identified explicitly, with the reasoning that rules out the alternatives. A diagnosis is useless if it is vague.
Private Advisory · Oslo · By Application Only
Something is wrong. We can name it.
You can feel it. You've felt it for months. The business isn't moving the way it should, you've tried to fix it, and it hasn't worked — because you've been treating the symptom, not the disease. We find the disease, and we name the way out.
"In the middle of the journey of our life, I found myself within a dark wood, where the straight way was lost."
Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita / mi ritrovai per una selva oscura, / ché la diritta via era smarrita.
Dante · Inferno · Canto I
The Work
Most founders
Most founders
treat the symptom.
Every business carries many problems at once. At any given moment, exactly one of them is the primary constraint — the single bottleneck that, once removed, makes everything downstream easier. The rest is noise.
Founders stay stuck not for lack of effort, but because they have diagnosed themselves — and the diagnosis is almost always wrong. Not from a lack of intelligence. Because the constraint is structurally invisible from inside the business.
We see it from outside. We name it. We build the path forward. That is the only thing we do.
"The diagnostic almost always disagrees with what the founder believed the problem was. That disagreement is the entire value."
The Discipline
One constraint, named.
One constraint, named.
One path, defended.
Every finding, defended in person.
We will not deliver a conclusion we cannot stand behind in a room with you. The debrief exists for you to challenge it. If you prove it wrong, we revise it.
Every diagnosis we doubt, withheld.
If both partners cannot agree on the constraint with conviction, you receive that honesty instead of a guess. We would rather say "we need more" than name the wrong thing.
Partner-validated. By application only. Confidentiality is the default, not a feature.
The Dimensions
Five places
Five places
the constraint hides.
We examine five dimensions of every business. The constraint lives in exactly one of them at a time. It is rarely the one the founder is looking at.
-
01
Positioning
How the market understands what you do, who it is for, and why it matters. The most common primary constraint below institutional scale. You have a positioning problem and you are calling it a sales problem.
-
02
Offer
Whether the structure, pricing, and shape of what you sell matches how buyers actually decide to buy. You can have the right product in the wrong shape and never know it.
-
03
Acquisition
Whether you have a repeatable engine that brings qualified buyers in — or founder hustle that cannot be handed to anyone else. Most founders mistake activity for a system.
-
04
Activation
The path from interest to delivered value, where new customers either stick or quietly vanish. The leakiest point in most founder-led businesses — and the least examined.
-
05
Operations
The founder-dependency map — what only you can do, and what would have to be true to change that. The constraint that quietly kills every business that scales before naming it.
The Product
A partner-validated diagnostic document. The primary constraint named. The wrong diagnoses dismissed with reasoning. The 30–60–90 day path forward, written down. For some clients this is the whole engagement. For others, it is the first day of one.
The Process
From the dark wood
From the dark wood
to the straight way.
Every step is deliberate. Fit is determined before price. Price is named before the first call. Nothing begins until you have agreed to it in writing.
-
01
Application & review.
You submit the intake. Both partners review every application personally — fit, engagement depth, and the fee the work warrants. There is no rate card. Every applicant hears back.
Day 0–3
All notified -
02
Terms, in writing.
Accepted applicants receive a written offer: tier and fee. Accept, decline, or ask. Declined applicants receive the reasoning and what would change the answer.
Day 3–5
Written offer -
03
Intake & construction.
Sixty minutes with a partner. The diagnostic is built, challenged internally by both partners, and validated. We will not sign a finding we cannot defend.
Day 6–12
Validated -
04
Delivery & the road after.
The document, and a 45-minute debrief built for you to challenge it. Diagnostic clients complete here. Consulting clients begin here, with portal access.
Day 13–14
Final / first day
Engagement
Two depths of work.
Diagnostic · single engagement
One document. One constraint named. One 30–60–90 day plan. The relationship completes at delivery. The document is yours. What you do with it is your decision alone.
Diagnostic + Consulting · ongoing
The diagnostic first — then we stay in the room. Monthly re-diagnostics as the business changes. Structured calls when decisions arrive. Async access between. The diagnostic is included every month.
There is no rate card. The price reflects the business impact, not the hours. It is set after we review your application, shared in writing before any work begins, and may be declined with no obligation on either side.
Dante's journey begins lost in a dark wood. It ends — after the descent, after the long climb — in arrival. His Divine Comedy is built in three parts, each of thirty-three cantos. The thirty-third is the final canto of both Purgatorio and Paradiso: the moment the climb completes and the way becomes clear.
The diagnostic is the descent — the honest look at what is actually wrong. The path is the climb. The arrival is the business you were trying to build before you got lost.
— The mark and the number belong to the firm. The meaning is older than the firm.
Honest Questions
Answered plainly.
01 Why is there no pricing on this site?
Because the price reflects the business impact, not the hours. A struggling founder and a profitable scaleup don't pay the same fee for the same document. The fee is calibrated to the business it serves, set after we review your application and shared in writing before anything begins.
02 What is the difference between the two engagements?
Diagnostic: one document, one engagement, complete at delivery — you execute the plan yourself. Consulting: the diagnostic is delivered first, then we remain in the room for at least twelve months with monthly re-diagnostics, structured calls, and async access.
03 Who sees the information I share?
The two partners. No third parties. No subcontractors. No analysts. We sign a mutual NDA before the intake call if you require one. Your information is never used outside your engagement.
04 What if I disagree with the diagnosis?
Tell us. The debrief is built for exactly that. We will defend the analysis, hear your evidence, and revise the document if you prove the finding wrong. The diagnostic is a written argument, not a verdict handed down.
05 How long does the application take?
Fifteen to twenty minutes, answered honestly. Both partners read every application personally and respond within three business days — whatever the outcome.
06 Do you take equity instead of fees?
In specific cases, yes — for businesses where we see genuine upside and want a stake in what gets built. It is not offered as a discount mechanism. It is offered when we want to own part of the outcome alongside you.
The Choice
You have two choices.
Stay where you are. Keep guessing at the constraint. Keep working hard on the wrong problem. Stay in the dark wood.
Submit the application below. Let us name what's actually wrong. Find the straight way out.
- 01Founder
- 02Business
- 03Self-Diagnosis
- 04Stakes
- 05Context