Insights & Field Notes

Sharp thinking, plainly written.

Brief, honest dispatches from inside our engagements — strategy, operations, and the lessons that compound.

Pricing

Tariff volatility and operating margin: a 90-day pricing playbook

Most pricing committees still operate on an annual cycle. In 2026, that's the wrong unit of time. Here's the 90-day cadence we've been running with clients exposed to cross-border cost shocks.

9 May 2026 · 2 min
Scaling

When to scale: the boring signal that beats every gut check

Scaling early kills more good companies than scaling late. Here's the unglamorous threshold we look for before we ever recommend the lift.

2 May 2026 · 1 min
Strategy

Why your strategy deck dies in week 6 (and how to avoid it)

Most strategy decks survive contact with the leadership team but die in the operating cadence two months later. The reason isn't bad strategy — it's missing operating infrastructure.

23 April 2026 · 2 min
Pricing

How to price your B2B service: a 4-step framework

Cost-plus pricing leaves money on the table. Value-based pricing sounds good but most founders can't actually do it. Here's the practical 4-step middle path that works for service businesses.

19 April 2026 · 3 min
Outsourcing

Outsource or in-house? The framework we use to decide for every function

Operators agonize over this decision per function and then make it on vibes. The framework below collapses it to four questions and a single matrix.

19 April 2026 · 3 min
KPIs

The KPIs that actually predict business health — and the ones that fool everyone

Most dashboards are graveyards of metrics that look impressive and predict nothing. Here are the small handful that actually move ahead of the P&L.

9 April 2026 · 4 min

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