Who I Work With
Two kinds of organizations. One set of problems.
Both are running harder than they should have to.
I work with agencies and studios that can't figure out where their margin went, and small businesses that can't figure out why nothing runs without them in the room. The problems sound different. The fixes share a lot of DNA.
Fix How You Deliver Work
Agencies, studios, and anyone who bills for time and delivers work to clients.
See if this is you →Fix How You Run Your Business
Small and mid-sized businesses dealing with the foundational chaos.
See if this is you →Fix How You Deliver Work
Agencies, studios, and the people who bill for their work.
I spent twelve years running Happy Cog, a 45-person digital agency that did $32 million in revenue across 100+ clients. I know what a utilization report looks like when it's lying to you. I know what a SOW looks like when it's going to blow up in week four. I know the moment in a project when scope creep stopped being the client's fault.
Sound familiar?
- Your utilization number looks fine but your margin is shrinking every quarter.
- Projects go over because nobody flagged the scope problem until the invoice.
- Your best people are the least billable because everyone needs them in every meeting.
- You win work at a number that makes sense, then watch it evaporate by week three.
- Estimates are built on gut feel and past projects that weren't really comparable.
- Discovery always goes over. You've accepted this as normal.
- Your SOWs protect the client. They don't protect you.
- Resource planning happens in someone's head, usually yours.
- You have a project manager but you're still the one holding everything together.
- The retainer clients feel stable until one of them leaves and the math stops working.
What I actually do about it.
I come in, read your numbers honestly, map how your projects actually run versus how you think they run, and fix the structural problems — SOW discipline, estimating, resource planning, utilization tracking, and the handoffs where margin disappears. No strategy deck. No recommendations document. Things change.
Tell me what's breaking →Fix How You Run Your Business
Small and mid-sized businesses running on workarounds.
You started the business because you're exceptional at what you do. Nobody handed you a playbook for running it. At some point the wheels started coming off behind the scenes — not because you're doing it wrong, but because the tools, processes, and systems never got built properly in the first place.
Sound familiar?
- Everything runs through you because there's no system that works without you in it.
- Files live everywhere and nowhere. No one can find anything.
- You're running the whole operation on a personal Gmail address.
- Passwords are on a sticky note. Hardware hasn't been updated in three years.
- Scheduling a meeting with more than two people kicks off a thread.
- Money slips through. A subcontractor bill sits. You forget. Now it's your problem.
- Your emails are landing in spam and you don't know it.
- You know every project because it all lives in your head. That works until it doesn't.
- You hired someone and it made things more complicated, not less.
- You've been meaning to fix all of this for two years.
What I actually do about it.
I come in, figure out what's actually broken versus what just feels broken, and fix it — the tools, the processes, the website, the custom software you wish someone would build. Scoped up front, priced flat, no agency overhead. I've been doing this for 35 years and I know what matters.
Tell me what's breaking →Either way
One person. No agency overhead. Thirty-five years of this.
Most clients describe it as having a seasoned COO on call — someone who's seen enough to know what matters and what doesn't. I embed quickly, identify the real problems, and start moving within the first week.
Years in design, operations, and agency leadership
People on the team I built, ran, and sold