Two weeks. Fixed fee. A written read of your business.
The Read is an optional first step: a fixed fee of $5,000 to $15,000, sized to the business, that tests the fit before you commit to a longer engagement. The fee is credited in full if you sign a tier within 30 days. I take your numbers, your team, and your own account of what is wrong. You get back a document that says what is actually true, what it is costing you, and what to do first over the next 90 days.
"The thinking partner I didn't know I was missing · until nothing was the same after working together."
The benchmark set behind every Read is public: 8 trackers, 27 calculators, 226 rated ad-to-page pairs.
The Read: the same six questions, in the same order, every time.
An audit tells you everything that is wrong; The Read tells you which of those is binding. It is sold on its own too, with no commitment beyond it: about a third end at the readout. Two variants, because the data is different: the DTC Read for consumer brands and the SaaS Read for software and app companies.
The order is deliberate: economics first, founder last, because the founder lens only means something once you can set what you told me against what the numbers say.
Unit economics
CAC, contribution margin, payback, LTV by cohort, and how much of the revenue is bought with discounts. The same maths as the profitability and max CAC calculators, on your real exports.
Growth engine
Channel mix, the handoff from ad to page, the retention curve, and whether pricing and packaging are doing their job.
Product & offer
What is carrying revenue, what is dead weight, and where the roadmap and the P&L disagree.
Team & org
Who owns the number, where decisions stall, and how much of the operation is rented from agencies.
Cash & capital
Runway, inventory or burn, debt, the shape of the cap table, and what a raise or an exit would look like from here, read against The Index.
Founder
What you think the problem is, set against what the numbers say. Usually the gap between the two is the finding.
A fixed calendar, and the clock starts when the folder is full.
- Day 0Fee paid. The data request goes out the same day: a one-page list naming the exact export in the exact tool, plus a twelve-question intake sheet and a shared folder.
- Day 3Data folder complete. I confirm the size of the Read is as scoped. If the folder is late, the calendar moves day for day and you hear it in writing.
- Day 5Founder call, 60 minutes. Your intake answers are the agenda.
- Day 8Leadership calls, 30 minutes each, two or three depending on the size of the Read.
- Day 12Draft complete. Read once as you, once as someone trying to copy it.
- Day 14Readout, 90 minutes, live. The document, the one-page priority list, and the tier recommendation with a number follow the same day.
Sized to the business, and credited back if we keep going.
Fees are in US dollars. Sign any tier within 30 days of the readout and the full fee of The Read is credited against your first Taylor Sicard Consulting invoices. That makes the first month close to free: a $5,000 Read against a $6,000 first month of Consulting, a $10,000 Read against a $10,000 first month of Advisory, or a $15,000 Read against a $20,000 first month of Partner. The credit lapses 30 days after the readout and cannot be combined with the annual prepay discount.
Full-time, fractional, and agency alternatives usually run higher for less of the actual call; the comparison, with figures, is on the engagements page.
Conclusions and sequence, not a framework.
The findings document runs twelve to fifteen pages and opens with a single page that is the whole product: what is true, what it is costing you, what to do first. After that page comes your stated problem set against the evidence, then the lens findings, each with the number and the benchmark it was measured against. Then comes a 90-day sequence with an owner and a first step for each move, and a short section on the two or three tempting things I would not do. The last page names the tier I would recommend and the monthly figure, so nothing about the next step is a negotiation.
What stays with me: the working model and the benchmark set behind the comparisons. The document is written as conclusions, which is what is useful to you and useless to anyone trying to run it on another company. Benchmarks cite the published pages on this site, so every comparison is one a reader can check.
The last page of the document names a tier and a monthly figure. Sign within 30 days and the fee above is credited against it.
Consulting
A 60-minute call every two weeks and email between. Under $5M revenue, or seed-stage software.
Advisory
A weekly call, Slack, and the models I build and keep honest. Brands from $5M to $100M, software past $1M ARR.
Partner
Two calls a week, a seat in leadership meetings, hands on the work. Deals in scope.
Full terms, and how to tell which tier sounds like you, on the engagements page.
Questions before we talk.
Start with the thirty minutes.
Before any fee changes hands we talk: what is going on, whether The Read is the right first step, and roughly which size fits. If it is not a fit, I will say so on that call, and the call costs nothing.