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Diagnostic — Volume 07, Issue 03

A 30–minute strategy diagnostic, taken seriously.

A working conversation with the principal — on the positioning question you're currently sitting with. Not a sales call. Not a discovery deck. A focused half hour that ends with a written recommendation, regardless of whether we work together.

What it is

It is not a discovery call.

The diagnostic is a 30–minute working session, held by video, with the principal. You arrive with one positioning question — the one that's actively blocking a decision, a hire, a launch, or a sales motion — and we spend the half hour pressure­testing it. You leave with a written summary: what we discussed, where I see the constraint, and a candid recommendation on whether a full engagement would help, and at what shape.

There is no qualification script. No agency deck. No “let me introduce my team.” It is the same half hour I would bill a retained client for if they walked into a Tuesday review with a stuck decision. The only thing we don't do in 30 minutes is build the strategy itself — that work lives in the 14–day engagement, if it's a fit.

  • 01
    No pitch. If a retained engagement is the right next move, I will say so plainly. If it isn't, I will say that too — and point you somewhere useful.
  • 02
    No deck. The conversation is the work. I take notes; you get them after.
  • 03
    No junior handoff. I run the diagnostic personally. Every time.

What to bring

Three things. That's it.

The diagnostic is most useful when the inputs are tight. You don't need a brief, a market study, or a slide. Bring these three and the half hour will hold.

  1. I.

    A single positioning question

    The one that's actually blocking you. Not the strategic-plan version — the version you'd put in a one-line Slack to a sharp friend. The narrower, the better.

    — e.g. "We are the obvious choice for ops leaders at $20–$100M SaaS, but the website reads like a horizontal platform. Which do we fix first?"

  2. II.

    A rough ARR band

    Enough to anchor the recommendation in your real operating context — not for qualification, and not for tiering. A range is fine; an estimate is fine.

    — e.g. "$8–$14M ARR, 60% mid-market SaaS, 40% enterprise pilots."

  3. III.

    One competitor you are watching

    Not the loudest one. The one whose moves you actually study — the one whose narrative is starting to shift the way your buyers talk about the category.

    — e.g. "Linear in the project-management conversation; Arena in the materials-science one."

How it runs

What happens in the room.

Three movements, roughly ten minutes each. The rhythm is deliberate — it is the rhythm I use in a paid engagement, just compressed.

  1. 01

    00–10 min — Listen

    You talk. I take notes.

    You walk me through the positioning question, the ARR band, and the competitor. I ask the things I'd ask a paid client on day one — what the sales team is saying on the calls, what the board is pushing back on, where the founder's instinct disagrees with the deck.

  2. 02

    10–20 min — Pressure­-test

    The constraint, named plainly.

    This is where most strategy conversations go soft. I won't. I will name the constraint I see in the framing — whether it's a category problem, a narrative problem, an ICP problem, or a sequencing problem — and show you where the assumption is load-bearing.

  3. 03

    20–30 min — Recommend

    A written summary, not a close.

    We close with a candid read on the next move: whether a 14-day core engagement is the right shape, whether something smaller would do it, or whether the work isn't ours. You leave with the summary in your inbox within two business days — written, not transcribed.

Intake

Request a diagnostic.

Four fields. Email confirmation follows within one business day — usually the same morning, with a small number of time options for the half hour itself. No calendar embed, no auto-routed SDR queue.

Format
30 min, video
Led by
Dimitri Kushnaryov, principal
Fee
Complimentary — no follow-on obligation
Follow-up
Written summary in 2 business days

If a diagnostic isn't the right shape — if you need a one-hour board read, or a single-document positioning teardown — mention it in the question field. We will route accordingly.

By submitting you agree to be contacted about this diagnostic. We do not add you to a drip, share your intake, or sell your details. Email confirmation only.

After you submit

What happens next.

Within one business day — usually the same morning, never longer than 24 hours — you will get an email from [email protected] with three or four time options for the half hour itself. Pick one. A calendar invite arrives with a short pre-call note — nothing else.

If a diagnostic turns out not to be the right shape for what you need, I will say so in the reply and point you somewhere useful. The intake is not a routing form — it goes to me directly.

Prefer email? Reach the principal directly at [email protected] · +1 (512) 555-0184.