We test your opportunity against market evidence, model the economics, challenge the assumptions and build a practical plan for what comes next. You leave with a Clarity Report, an editable Financial Model and a recommendation: proceed, reshape or stop.
Before you commit, you need to understand whether the business can pay you properly, what it will take to deliver and how much money you could have at risk.
TLS founder Rob Jordan helped build the delivery organisation behind a national public-sector transformation bringing together around 300 projects. He developed estimates and delivery approaches, then presented and defended them in government assurance reviews focused on value for money. Assumptions about people, costs, timescales and risk had to withstand independent scrutiny and the practical demands of delivery.
While contracted to IBM, Rob led test automation work within the programme. His experience spans global transformation, enterprise AI implementation and building his own consultancies, software and service businesses. That gives him practical experience of both planning the work and carrying responsibility for delivering it.
Your Clarity Report and editable Financial Model bring that experience to the decisions in front of you. We examine your offer, pricing, customer acquisition, delivery capacity and costs together. You can explore what happens when sales take longer, delivery needs more effort or you bring forward a hire, including the effect on cash and the income available to you.
If you proceed to Build, the agreed plan becomes the specification our specialists implement. Once you are trading, actual results feed back into the model and the weekly review helps you decide what to change next.
An attractive idea can still rest on fragile assumptions. We make those assumptions visible, test what we can and show you where uncertainty remains.
The value of the work is the decision it supports. These engagements led to different actions, including a decision to stop before committing to a build.
Two products were competing for attention. We assessed the opportunity and pricing, then recommended a priority. The founders said the work gave them the clarity to commit.
The founder had an offer they believed in. We structured it, examined the pricing and challenged the market assumptions. They subsequently landed a client and hired to support delivery.
The founder was preparing to build. Research into competitors and their failures changed the decision. Our modelling estimated that stopping avoided approximately $144,000 in planned expenditure and around a year of work.
A Clarity Report, an editable Financial Model and a reviewed recommendation. The work connects the commercial opportunity to the economics and the practical decisions ahead.
Assess demand, relevant competitors and substitutes, including evidenced pricing where available. We record sources and make information gaps and assumptions explicit, so you can see what supports the case.
Explore revenue, costs, delivery capacity, cash requirements and downside scenarios. Change the assumptions and see what the business needs to achieve.
Identify how the plan could fail, which assumptions matter most, the warning signs to watch and practical defences.
Define or refine your premium offer, target customer, pricing and positioning. Connect the proposition to acquisition priorities, success measures and a credible route to market.
Put validation actions and build priorities in a useful sequence. Assess where AI could improve capacity or service, the costs and data it requires, and the human oversight needed. Know what to test before implementation.
Your engagement includes a collaborative review and one refinement round. We work through the findings, strengthen the offer, update affected financial assumptions and agree the next step, including a recommendation to proceed, reshape or stop.
You bring the idea and your experience. Rob leads the work with you, turning the unanswered questions into evidence, numbers and practical next steps.
$5,000 USD
Includes the six deliverables above, a collaborative review and one refinement round. Scope and timing are agreed before work begins.
Includes the offer-shaping work covered by the Business Blueprint. You can start here without buying the Blueprint first. If you have already paid $297 for an applicable Blueprint, that payment counts towards the $5,000 total.
Assumptions, estimates and our professional interpretation are clearly labelled so you can distinguish them from verified facts.
Your part: complete the intake, provide the relevant information and access to people who understand the business, and attend the review. Missing information may affect timing or confidence in the findings; our responsibility to correct our work remains.
If you want us to build: Clarity is included in our typically $25,000 combined engagement. Eligible payments already made towards Blueprint and Clarity count once towards that total. Credits apply to the same business proposition while the earlier work remains applicable; we confirm the credit and remaining scope before you proceed. New research or a substantially different direction is scoped separately.
Discuss your business plansTell us what you want to build or change. We’ll discuss where you are, what needs testing and whether TLS is the right partner to help.
Bring the decision you are facing, the information you already have and access to the people who understand the business. We agree the scope and timing before work begins.
Interview and intake establish the opportunity, objectives, constraints and assumptions. We identify the questions the work needs to answer.
We research the market, examine alternatives, model the economics and develop the risks, marketing priorities and execution plan.
We review the findings together and help you work through any change of direction. One refinement round is included; further research or a substantially different business direction is scoped separately. You retain the report and model with no obligation to commission the build.
The report and model are yours to use. You can implement the recommendations yourself, work with another provider or ask us to build the agreed infrastructure.
Clarity is also the first phase of our Clarity & Infrastructure Build engagement. If you proceed, your Clarity fee counts towards the total while the findings and agreed scope remain applicable. We translate the approved commercial plan into a funnel architecture and build specification, with responsibilities, success measures and acceptance criteria. Preparation has its own agreed timetable.
Your premium offer sets the architecture. The build turns that offer into a working acquisition, delivery and management system, so enquiries have somewhere to land and clients have a defined path from first contact to delivered work. We build and launch within two weeks once the specification, content inputs and required access are approved and ready. Specialists work in parallel on your agreed funnel, CRM, follow-up, tracking, AI workflows and integrations, with Rob overseeing testing and acceptance. Advertising approval remains subject to the platform. Fourteen weeks of governance, refinement and operating support follow the build. In Test, real trading tests the assumptions and actuals feed back into your Financial Model. In Improve, the weekly 7 Keys review uses those results to refine the plan and agree the next action. This loop continues as the business develops, with the Operating Partnership available as an optional continuation. You receive your configured systems, SOPs, team training and handover. After the fourteen weeks of included support, you can choose a separate Operating Partnership, starting at $5,000 per month, with its own agreed scope and start date.
For coordinated change across established teams and systems, explore Organisation Transformation or discuss your project.
Explore the Build engagementThe free One-Page Business Case gives you four questions, a template and a worked example to complete yourself.
Get the free Business Case →The $297 Business Blueprint shapes the opportunity, offer stack, indicative pricing, simple revenue scenarios and validation actions. Its payment counts towards Clarity for the same proposition while the work remains applicable.
Explore the Business Blueprint →Choose Clarity when a launch, investment, new offer or change in direction needs deeper evidence, financial modelling and an actionable plan.
Discuss your business plans →Rob Jordan brings more than 25 years delivering complex programmes, including the last 13 leading digital transformations across more than 150 countries, in public and private sectors.
The Lazy Startup applies that experience to the business you are building: specifying the work, testing assumptions and connecting commercial decisions to practical execution. You get a considered recommendation and the reasoning behind it.
Based in Dubai, Rob also brings local context to UAE market-entry and growth decisions. Where relevant to your plan, we help you prepare for conversations with specialist partners and suitable investment contacts.
Rob leads the business architecture and remains your accountable strategic contact. For the Infrastructure Build, we assemble the specialists required by your agreed scope, covering systems and integrations, AI automation, acquisition copy and campaign setup.
The team works in parallel under one delivery plan, with clear responsibilities and acceptance criteria. We configure and optimise your CRM and workflows, document the operating procedures and train your team. Platform selection is part of scoping.
You retain your configured systems, business data and operating documentation. Your 7 Keys dashboard belongs to your business, supported by the TLS framework and experienced challenge.
Tell us what you want to build or change. We’ll discuss where you are, what needs testing and whether TLS is the right partner to help.
Discuss your business plans