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01 · Diagnostic · 2 weeks

Find out what the leaks are actually worth.

Two weeks. I map your customer lifecycle end to end — first touch to renewal — and come back with every leak found, priced in pounds, and sequenced by payback. Most founders discover the expensive problem isn't the one they were about to spend money on.

Timeline2 weeksStart to delivered findings
You give meRead access to your systems, three or four short conversations with the people who run each stage, and whatever data you already have
You get backA lifecycle map, a priced leak register, a sequenced plan, and an explicit list of what I'm not recommending
(01)

Why this comes first

Almost every founder-led business I meet is about to spend money on the wrong stage.

The loudest problem is rarely the most expensive one. Conversion is visible and gets the attention, because everyone watches the pipeline. Meanwhile the same business is losing a multiple of that in the months after a customer signs, where nothing is instrumented and nobody is looking.

Nobody has priced the alternatives. Fixing onboarding, fixing routing and fixing pricing are three very different projects with three very different payoffs, and most businesses choose between them on instinct.

You shouldn't buy a build you don't need. The diagnostic exists so that the decision to build anything is made against a number. Sometimes the answer is that the engine is fine and the problem is your pricing — and that's a cheaper conversation to have in week two than in month four.

(02)

What I actually do

Not a survey and not a workshop. I go into the systems and follow real customers through them.

Map the lifecycle as it really runs. Every stage from first touch to renewal, documented as it actually operates — including the steps that only exist because one person remembers to do them.

Follow real records end to end. I trace a sample of leads and customers through every system they touch, which is how the gaps between tools surface. This is where most of the surprises are.

Instrument what can be measured now. Where the data exists but nobody has assembled it, I assemble it — conversion by stage, time to first response, activation rates, churn and refund patterns, cost to serve by segment.

Price each leak. Every gap gets an estimated annual value, with the assumptions written down so you can argue with them. A leak you can't put a number on isn't a finding, it's an opinion.

Sequence the fixes by payback. What to do first, what it's worth, what it costs, and what can wait — including the things worth doing that have nothing to do with me.

(03)

How the two weeks run

Days 1–3
Access and orientation. System access, a walk through how the business actually sells and delivers, and short conversations with the people who own each stage.
Days 4–7
Trace and instrument. Real records followed end to end, data pulled and assembled, the stages that can be measured now measured.
Days 8–11
Quantify. Each leak sized and priced, assumptions documented, findings pressure-tested against what the team knows to be true.
Days 12–14
Deliver. The map, the priced leak register and the sequenced plan, walked through live so you can push back on it in the room.
(04)

What you walk away with

A lifecycle map of how your business actually acquires, converts, onboards, retains and expands a customer — the real one, not the one on the whiteboard.

A priced leak register. Every gap, what it's costing annually, and how confident that estimate is.

A sequenced plan. What to fix first and why, with the payback on each.

An explicit “what I'm not recommending” section. The things you could do, that I don't think are worth it, and the reasoning — so you stop paying attention to them.

No obligation to build anything. Plenty of diagnostics end with a plan the in-house team executes. That's a good outcome.

The point

You should know what a problem is worth before you spend money solving it. Two weeks and a number is a cheap way to find out — and it's the difference between a build that pays back and one that just ships.

Get in touch

Start with the number. Then decide what to build.

Thirty minutes. No brief required. We'll work out where your customer lifecycle is losing money and whether it's a problem I can fix — and if it isn't a fit, I'll tell you inside the first ten minutes.