Strategy, product and investment decisions where the answer isn't obvious. I help you cut through the noise, widen the thinking, and get your team creating, not just agreeing.
I work with founders, executives and investors across strategy, business design and capital. Co-founded one of the first Airbnb-for-cars marketplaces - a sharing-economy pioneer; led business design at IDEO.
I invest my own capital in public equities and advise startups.
An ongoing retainer.
I can second your own executives into a design team I lead, and stay until the work becomes a real part of your business. Two examples from client work.
London, New York, Asia
A four-phase engagement on the future of news, sponsored by the CEO. Eight of the publisher's executives - from marketing, operations, technology and finance - joined my design team. The outcome: a new internal division built on knowledge graphs, repurposing news and data across the business. Several team members were promoted off the back of the work.
Australia
Commissioned by the CEO after the company's market value had fallen more than 90% in a decade, the ask was a growth story for its private-equity backers. Instead of designing for the company, we designed with it: the joint team focused on a growing segment, blue-collar tradespeople, and built a workflow app around how they work. The work outgrew the engagement - spun out as a subsidiary, with members of the client team joining and the sponsor putting money behind it. The useful answer was a product, not a presentation.
Specialty coffee, roasted to order, sold through an agent-first shop.
A destination funnel for a boutique operator of luxury residences.
AI design for a multi-year oral-history archive, with UConn's i3 lab.
Email a one-paragraph pitch, get back a draft seed deck in ten slides. A live experiment in where AI drafting helps and where it doesn't.
More than 140 essays on judgment, taste and markets.
A 12-week visceral-fat plan for South Asian men, with paying users.
A product or AI idea needs a customer, business-model and adoption test. You get the assumptions, the cheapest useful experiment, and a go or no-go view.
The argument is clear but the organization isn't moving. You get the choices, incentives and decision rights that need to change.
The deck sounds plausible but the logic needs pressure. You get a stronger narrative, its weak points, and the questions to prepare for.
When I'm on your request, you get my full attention and two decades across corporates, startups, design and investing.
We agree what you'll get back, and when, before work begins. No open-ended engagements.
You'll always know what I'm doing and what you'll get back. No mystery, no black-box consulting.
Clearer choices. Explicit assumptions. A next step you can act on.
One you can actually repeat and act on.
With articulated assumptions you can test, not vague conviction.
For boards, investors, or customers. Tailored to sound like you, enriched by lived experience.
Fewer circular debates. More clarity on what actually needs to be optimized.
A confidential, experienced brain in the loop on the hard questions.
Limited to a small number of clients, so there's room for real thinking and ongoing context, not just calendar slots.
Over time I learn your market, your team, your history and your patterns. Each request gets faster, deeper and more useful. Part of the fam rather than a transactional advisor.
A flat monthly retainer, agreed before work begins. Pause anytime - our relationship is forever.
Three essays from Pulp Conversations:
What are customers choosing once the capability is good enough?
How do you judge the people you invest with?
The story of Limitless.ai.