Questions.

More than a specialist contractor and a fraction of what a firm charges for people this senior. We don't publish a rate card, because the work isn't a product and pretending otherwise would mean quoting you before we know anything. What we do instead is agree the number in writing before anything starts, and then not move it. Ask in the first conversation and you will get a straight answer rather than a proposal process.

Not before we have looked, and you should be wary of anyone who can. Until we understand where the constraint sits we would be guessing, and a deliverables list written by someone guessing is how consulting gets its reputation. What we can tell you is the order. A complete analysis first, for a fixed fee, so both of us know what we are dealing with. Then three or six months of work on whatever that turned up, with a conversation every week and us accountable for whether it lands.

An experienced commercial hire is the right answer surprisingly often, and we will say so when it is. The difference is time and range. A hire takes three months to find, three months to land, and covers one discipline. We are in the work the following week and we cover strategy, proposition, pricing, product, go to market and money between us. The other difference is that we are trying to make ourselves unnecessary, which is not usually a hire's incentive.

That happens often and it is fine. Ground Truth is always both of us, because the point of it is range. An advisory agreement is weighted to whoever the work actually needs, which is usually obvious within a fortnight.

A board governs and advises. An adviser advises. Neither of them owns the work. The gap we usually fill is between a decision being made in a board meeting and that decision actually existing in the company three months later, which is where most good decisions quietly go to die.

We cost roughly what a good development contractor does and a fraction of what a firm charges for the same seniority, which is the wrong end of the argument anyway. The real difference is accountability. A contractor is directed. We are accountable for the outcome, we will tell you when your instruction is wrong, and we will not wait to be told what to do next.

You will get it in writing and you will get a session to argue with us about it, and sometimes you will win that argument, which is the point of having it. We would rather be wrong in week two than defend a position into month six. We have no house view we are trying to sell you.

Below about a million in revenue the questions are every bit as real and the answers are worth less, because there is less business for them to act on. Deep tech is the exception, because there the commercial questions decide the first year. Ask us either way. It takes one conversation to find out and that conversation is free.