Operating system
Four moves, found in twenty ventures and run the same way in every sector.
We went back through more than twenty of our own ventures and innovation projects looking for what the wins had in common. The opportunity DNA turned out to be identical every time. This is the system that came out of that work.
01 / 04 · Assumption
Name it. The hunch comes first.
Before anyone opens the data, we spend an afternoon with the owner and the people who run the floor. Every instinct, gripe, and workaround gets written down as an assumption with a number and a range. Writing it first is the point: once people see the data, they remember having believed whatever it says.
02 / 04 · Signal
Find it. The records answer.
Then the records get their turn. Quotes, invoices, contracts, redemptions, routing: years of the business recording its own behavior. Agents test every assumption against them, and they also surface the gaps nobody in the room raised. Those are often the biggest, because nobody was looking.
03 / 04 · Alpha and holdout
Size it, then prove it. The gap, sized and explained.
A gap becomes an alpha candidate when it has a dollar range drawn from your own records and a reason it survived: the incentive that kept everyone playing the old game, or a habit that was rational for each person and expensive for the business. Then it has to hold up twice, found in one stretch of your history and confirmed in a stretch nobody looked at. History makes it credible. Only a live test makes it real.
04 / 04 · Mechanism
Build it. Built, not handed over.
We build what captures the alpha: a new company, an internal product, a pricing engine, or a workflow. The stop condition is written before the build starts, and the first weeks live are the test. When there is more than one bet worth making, they run as a portfolio, each one scaled or killed on evidence.
Two inputs
What the team believes, and what the records say.
People know what was never written down. The records show what actually happened. We collect both, then let simulated panels argue before anything is tested for real.
The room
The owner and operators, one afternoon, before the data. Every hunch gets a number.
The records
12 to 24 months of quotes, invoices, and orders, as one export. No system access.
The panels
Simulated buyers and skeptics argue with each assumption and choose what gets tested for real.
The clock
Ten days to know what’s worth testing. Ten weeks to have it running.
NDA signed. Nothing moves before it.
An afternoon with your team. Every hunch gets a number.
Agents test each hunch against your records and size the gaps.
The signed OID: three to five opportunities, or a plain no.
The build is architected at a fixed price.
Live in your operation, then scaled or killed on the numbers.
Guarantees
True of every engagement, every time.
Stop condition. In writing, before anyone builds. Stopping is never a matter of opinion.
Your staff. No one changes how they work unless the OID says so first.
Price. Fixed and stated before any money moves. Never hourly.
Ownership. What we build is yours. No license, no dependency on us.
Your data. Used for this engagement only. Never kept, sold, shared, or trained on.
No theater. No innovation lab, no workshop series. One room, one decision, written down, then something running or a written reason it stopped.
Start here
Where do you suspect the value is hiding? Tell us your hunch. Ten days later it comes back with numbers on it.
10 business days · $500, credited against any build