Lanthornthe values-first progress system
Work with me
I build companies a system of their own, so the business stops living in the owner’s head. Most of my work is with owners whose company has grown past the point where one person can hold it all.
Blake Busey. I have spent more than a decade building AI and robotics systems, most of it well before anyone was calling it AI. Army veteran. I run a company of my own, so I know what it costs to add one more thing to a week that is already full. I take on a small number of engagements at a time, and I am the person who actually reads what you send.
You probably got here from Lanthorn. Same thinking, bigger object. Lanthorn keeps one person pointed at what matters without holding it all in their head. This is that, for a business.
What actually happens
- We find the one thing worth fixing. Not a list of twelve. The single problem costing you most, which is usually not the one you came in worried about. The gap between those two is where the money is.
- I tell you what not to build. Most “AI problems” turn out to be something boring you already pay for and never switched on. Finding that saves you more than I cost.
- You get the fix, and the framework to scale it. Not a one-off patch. The automation around it, so solving it once means it stays solved as you grow.
- You get the process to do it again without me. The next problem, and the one after that, handled by your own people using the same method. Your context, your standards and your numbers written down in a form your people and your AI can both read.
- It has to run without me. If you can’t keep it going after I leave, I built you a dependency instead of a solution.
The shape of it, so nothing is a surprise:
- Ninety minutes, in person, at your place. Not a video call. I come and look at the actual business. Nothing for you to prepare and nothing to tidy up first.
- Then you take a walk. While I build, you spend about two hours over the week going where the work actually happens, watching one ordinary job end to end, and asking three of your people the same three questions. I give you the questions. You will find something that week, and it will not be the thing you told me about.
- Then I build it. About three weeks.
- Then I hand it over and you run it in front of me. If you can’t, it isn’t finished.
- Thirty days after that to fix whatever real life breaks.
- It is yours. No subscription to keep it working. Nothing switches off if you never speak to me again.
$10,000
Fixed, and paid before we start. Not an hourly rate that grows while you watch it.
What it is not: ongoing consulting, someone to run your business, or unlimited revisions. One build, one handover, thirty days. I would rather write that here than have you find it out later.
Travel is included within a reasonable drive. Further than that and I will tell you what the travel adds before you decide. I also tell you if I don’t think the work is worth it for you.
Why this is not an assessment
Plenty of people will score your business. You get a report with letter grades, a list of priorities, and a call every quarter. It is genuinely useful and it is also a photograph. Between the photographs you are alone with a PDF.
This is the other thing. What you end up with is not a document about your business. It is a system that runs inside it, every morning, built around how your week actually works. It knows your numbers, your standards and what you decided matters, and it keeps knowing them after I am gone.
That is also why the handover is the part I am strict about. A report cannot fail. A system that nobody can run absolutely can, and that would be my fault, not yours.
Who this is not for
- Anyone who wants a chatbot bolted on. You already have one. It isn’t the problem.
- Anyone hoping to automate the relationships. Catching a lead should be automatic. Calling one should not.
- Anyone who wants their judgment replaced. The whole point is to protect your judgment from everything crowding it out.
- Anyone shopping on price. If the cheapest quote is the deciding factor, we will both be disappointed. This is worth doing properly or not at all.
- Anyone who’d rather learn to do this themselves from scratch. That is a real option and a good one, and there are excellent courses. But it costs you twenty hours before you have built anything. This is for people whose problem is that they do not have twenty hours. You still end up able to do it yourself. You just do not start from zero.
I take one of these at a time. I run a company of my own and I keep a hard limit on my week, so there is a real queue rather than a pretend one. If I am booked I will tell you when I am not, and I will not pretend otherwise to hold your interest.
Tell me what’s broken
No calendar link. No discovery call. No sequence of emails. You write me a few lines and I read them myself.
Not ready for this? Lanthorn is free and stays free. You keep everything you make with it either way.