What we need from you, week by week

The process page describes four phases and what happens in each of them. It is written from our side of the desk. This is the other half: what we need from you, when we need it, and roughly how long each of those asks takes. If you are working out whether three weeks is realistic alongside actually running your company, this is the page to read.

Week one: a list you already have

The audit starts with the companies you lose to. Not the ones you admire, and not the ones a search result happens to put beside you. The three or four whose names come up when a deal goes the other way. Most founders can write that list in ten minutes because they already carry it around. We ask for it in writing because the version people say out loud and the version they write down are rarely the same.

Week one: access, not preparation

We want the things you already have rather than things you make for us. The proposal you sent that lost. The deck you are using now. The last two months of enquiries, with names removed if you would rather. Nobody needs to tidy any of it first. A cleaned up version of your own material describes the company you meant to build, and the audit is about the one a buyer currently sees.

Week one to two: two hours, and the person who decides

Positioning needs one working session with whoever can settle an argument about price. Two hours, once. If that person is you, this is easy. If it is you and a co-founder who quietly disagree, tell us before the session rather than during it. The disagreement is usually the most useful thing in the room and we would rather plan for it than discover it.

Identity: opinions in one pass

When the system comes back, we need your reactions in a single round rather than as they occur to people. Notes scattered across a week cost more than the notes themselves, because each one restarts the work and none of them can be weighed against the others. One consolidated response, even a blunt one, is faster for you and cheaper for us.

Build and handover: somebody who owns it afterwards

Name the person who will run this once we leave. They should see the guide before handover rather than receive it at handover. You own the files outright and there is no retainer holding any of it together, which is only an advantage if somebody on your side knows where everything is.

What we do not need

A brief. A moodboard. A colour you like. If you have them we will read them, and they will not change what happens in week one, because the audit answers a question about your buyers rather than a question about your taste.