The structure of an engagement,
written in the order it will be lived.
What follows is not a service catalogue. It is the operating instrument itself — defined vocabulary, defined cadence, defined outcomes. Read it the way you would read a term sheet. If the language feels precise, we are probably speaking the same one. If it feels excessive, the practice is probably not for you.
Engagement model and retainer structure — revised quarterly, last edit the second week of this month.
The four working parts of the retainer, defined.
Every engagement is structured around the same four components. They are written here in the order a founder encounters them, so the shape of the work is legible before the first call.
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01
The Diagnostic.
The first ninety days. A paid Clarity Sprint on the front door; on signature of the retainer, that diagnostic is repeated at depth across the operating system — revenue engine, org topology, capital cadence, decision rights. The output is a written Operating Diagnosis with twelve to eighteen ranked interventions, each tied to a measurable KPI. No intervention ships without a baseline, an owner, and a ninety-day check-back.
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02
The Cadence.
Two ninety-minute working sessions per month, scheduled on a fixed weekday so the operating week absorbs the rhythm. Sessions are working sessions, not status meetings — agendas are written the day before, decisions are logged in the room, and every session ends with a written next-step note circulated within four hours.
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03
The Artifacts.
Between sessions, work continues asynchronously through Operating Memos — short, structured briefs that isolate a single decision the founder is facing and present three options with a recommendation. Memos are written to be read in nine minutes and acted on the same day. They are the primary written record of the engagement.
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04
The Exit.
The standard engagement is six months, with a single renewal by mutual agreement. The exit is designed to be a clean handover: a written Operating Playbook, a thirty-day transition window with the incoming operator or operating team, and a sixty-day post-engagement check-in. The aim is that the company runs the system without me before the engagement formally closes.
A public qualification rubric, so neither of us wastes a call.
Roughly seventy percent of inbound inquiries are declined before the first conversation. The criteria below are written openly so a founder can self-select against the rubric — the goal is to reduce wasted Clarity Sprints, not to maximise them.
- A founder-led company past $10M ARR with a defined but stressed operating system.
- A Series A, B, or C capital position — or an operating partner representing one.
- A willingness to slow down two days per month in order to move faster the other twenty-eight.
- An existing executive team of at least four, including a finance lead I can work with directly.
- A genuine decision-making seat: the founder or CEO is in the working sessions personally, not a deputy.
- Six-month patience. The work compounds; the first visible KPI movement typically lands in weeks four through eight.
- The company is pre-product, pre-revenue, or below $2M ARR — the leverage is not yet there.
- The brief is for an agency, fractional-CFO service, or interim executive placement — that is not the work.
- The founder or CEO is not the buyer and will not be in the room — the engagement will not start.
- The decision is driven by a board deadline rather than an operating problem — timelines that short produce theater.
- The company is in active fundraising or pre-IPO restructuring — the cadence assumes a stable operating week.
- The expectation is a keynote, a workshop, or a one-off advisory call — the practice is structured, not episodic.
The monthly working cadence, numbered as chapters of an operating quarter.
A six-month engagement is twelve sessions, twenty-four memos, and one written Operating Playbook at exit. The rhythm is designed to map onto a founder’s operating week — not to displace it. The shape of a single month, repeated, looks like this:
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Week one
Memo, in.
A single Operating Memo lands in the founder’s inbox on a Monday morning, isolating the month’s operative decision. The memo is read in nine minutes and reacted to in writing by end of day Wednesday.
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Week two
Session, one.
The first ninety-minute working session of the month. Agenda was written the day before; the room is the founder, me, and the finance lead. Decisions are logged in writing before the call ends.
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Week three
Memo, out.
A second Operating Memo, written in response to what surfaced in session one — the second-order decision the founder did not yet know they were facing. Owners are named. Baselines are logged.
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Week four
Session, two.
The second ninety-minute working session. The cadence closes on a written next-step note circulated within four hours. The operating week absorbs the rhythm; the company does not stop for it.
If the rubric above reads as a contract you can sign,
the next step is a paid 90-minute diagnostic.
The Clarity Sprint is a private working session — not a sales call, not a discovery demo. You leave with a written diagnosis of one operating decision you are facing now, whether or not we ever work together again. The roster is deliberately capped at fourteen companies; intake opens when a seat does.
— Nicholas Khoo, San Francisco, this quarter.