Why I Charge $1,000 Per Minute When Consulting With Startup Founders

Last year, the termination of a mutually disappointing client relationship prompted a shift in the manner with which I deliver my consulting services.

I’ve stopped treating my clients like clients; I now treat them like dates.

While consulting for a mobile communications platform with 40M lifetime downloads and a paltry 250K monthly active users, I raised concerns about their refusal to project a defined voice. They didn’t want to “impose” on their users, but this uncertainty in turn made their users feel uncomfortable.

The brand didn’t express character so the users couldn’t establish trust.

This could be compared to renting an Airbnb, but once the host has let you in and said “make yourself at home” they went back to watching Netflix and acknowledged your presence no further. What was intended as a hospitable grant of freedom becomes mentally draining in the vastness of its meaning.

Should shoes be removed? Are pantry snacks fair game? Can joints be smoked inside? Will roof sex with Tinder dates at 2AM be frowned upon?

As suggested by Aristotle in Politics,

“Man is by nature a social animal; an individual who is unsocial naturally and not accidentally is either beneath our notice or more than human. Society is something that precedes the individual. Anyone who either cannot lead the common life or is so self-sufficient as not to need to, and therefore does not partake of society, is either beast or God. ”

While it’s unlikely my client’s users were fans of greek philosophy, it was obvious the mobile app they had downloaded wasn’t made by a God.

The CEO had allowed the VP of Marketing to hire three different agencies; a production agency, a crowdfunding agency, and a public relations agency.

Leaders in their respective fields with portfolios of case studies that matched the premium rates at which they billed; each agency had been gifted a degree of creative freedom and were empowered to leverage their expertise.

Individually, each of their strategies had merit, but together they overlapped and created conflicts that undermined the brand’s conveyance of stability.

Their technology was supernaturally capable, but the verbose nature of their communication imbued the notion that they had something to prove.

Gods are laconic, they were loquacious.

Referred by the tingling suspicions of their lead investor, my assigned role was that of an overarching strategist and I was told to “jump in where you can add value”; effectively the “make yourself at home” of the startup world.

Like the all too familiar experience of a Tinder date with someone who “only downloaded the app because their friend made them”, our conversations felt confined to the topical. They treated me as an outsider and offered me no way in. Despite months of painfully redundant meetings, I was still lacking the most basic insights regarding team member roles, project budgets, etc.

Recognizing the futility of my efforts, but not yet understanding the reason, I told the CEO, “you need a consistent message and if its not to be of my construction, I’ll step out to facilitate the removal of further conflict.”

That week, I accepted an invitation to (my first) Burning Man.

The radical departure from societal norms facilitated by Burning Man enabled me to reconcile the failings of my past relationship with new perspective. I was kept outside because we hadn’t established trust before I entered their space. No matter what I did, I was perceived as an invader.

Romantic partners are able to navigate socially challenging situations, not when their objectives are met, but when they feel their voice is heard.

Neither the legalese of our consulting agreement nor the bullets of our project outline served to clarify the language in which we communicated.

Objectives—and the realities in which they can be attained—will shift with the tides of the market, but communicational styles remain the same.

This reminded me of a remark my friend David Carrico had made regarding to the more traditional definition of intimacy,

“Intimacy can only be attained through the doors of vulnerability and a shared sense of safety is the skeleton key that unlocks those doors.” ~ David Carrico

The guarded nature founders have around consultants (and the costly hours they often bill) make it challenging to develop the intimacy needed to move beyond their postured presence and gain the insights that make big impacts.

Looking back on ten years of experience as a consultant, I recognized my most effective engagements to be the ones in which the client (and their teams) were socially the most comfortable—our relationships transcended that which was deemed “professional” as we became partners and friends.

Thus an experiment was constructed; the notion of ‘Courtship Consulting’.

Dates with founders start in a casual context on neutral ground; we’ll meet outside of the office, usually in a cafe we’re both visiting for the first time.

We explore each other with curiosity, not with expectations.

If we’re jiving, we might elevate the social commitment and recruit some of the team for a walk or dinner. As day turns into night, the coffee might turn into cocktails and conversations will begin to have vastly more color.

Sometimes we’re together for an hour, other times for an entire day (only once did a date result in a private jet to a foreign country). The duration of time we spend together is irrelevant, it’s the connection that matters.

I charge one thousand dollars per minute because — with the illumination of candor that’s been catalyzed by trust — it only takes sixty-seconds for me to identify where 10X improvements are to be made without 10X effort.

If you’ve got a startup and would like to go on a date, book me here.

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