Sales trajectory · Moat · A.I. · for tech CEOs
A new sales trajectory. A deeper moat. A clear path to the A.I. future.
Helped Legitmix achieve 600% sales growth.
“Thanks to Adrian, the fog has lifted, I’m now navigating towards success, and the metrics prove it.”
Adrian Scott, Ph.D.
Founder of Ryze · Investor in Napster and On24 · Ph.D. in optimization
600%
sales growth at Legitmix
−100%
advertising spend, same company
1st
Silicon Valley institutional round
Invested in or advised, with exits
On24 (IPO) · Starmine (Thomson Reuters) · Plaxo (Comcast) · Giganet (Emulex) · BuyDirect.com
Founding investor in Napster · Founder of Ryze
Case study · Legitmix
From flat sales to 600% growth, without paying for ads
Before
A lot of effort and money going into product features and marketing campaigns, with little to show for it.
What changed
Adrian joined the board and reframed the question from what to do to what to learn, then put frameworks and metrics in place to turn data into decisions.
After
- 600% sales growth
- Advertising spend down 100%
- Product became the industry standard for the first ICP
- The company’s first Silicon Valley institutional funding
“Adrian asked the simple question: what do I need to learn to succeed. This simple question was an epiphany for me. … Thanks to Adrian, the fog has lifted, I’m now navigating towards success, and the metrics prove it.”
Case study · Enterprise A.I. company
Sales doubled, and a media moat is being built
+100%
Sales growth
A new sales trajectory for an enterprise A.I. company.
Media moat
Build-out underway
Thousands of subscribers, thousands of views
An owned audience and body of content that keeps compounding, and that competitors can’t simply buy.
“Love it. This is it. Things are getting so clear now.”
Stalled tech companies rarely have one problem. They have three, and they’re connected.
Outcome 1
A new sales trajectory
For when revenue is flat, lumpy or still depends on the founder, and effort on features and campaigns barely moves the numbers.
Outcome 2
A moat that keeps widening
For when your pitch sounds like everyone else’s, deals get discounted, and investors keep asking, “What’s your moat?”
Outcome 3
Your path in the A.I. future
For when you can’t yet say what A.I. means for your market, product and team, or which A.I. features a competitor could copy in a weekend.
The approach
Focus where it matters most.
Tailored to your goals, strengths, and resources.
Examples of what we might work on in a call:
- Sales pitches that create certainty
- Marketing content informed by psychology
- Moat-building tactics
- Practical Agentic A.I. Flows
- Team mgmt that frees up energy and increases velocity
Immediate wins. Long-term priorities.
Why the A.I. advice is different
Most advisors talk about A.I. I work with it at the level of the code and the math.
Code-level
I build with LLMs directly, so advice is grounded in what models can and can’t do today, not in vendor demos or headlines.
The math behind it
Training a model is an optimization problem. My Ph.D. is in nonlinear optimization, so I know where the leverage and the limits come from.
Durable, not copyable
That lets us separate A.I. features any competitor can ship in a weekend from the ones that compound into a moat.
I work with very few companies at a time
So it matters that we’re a fit before we start.
A good fit
- A tech company
- Revenue isn’t reaching your goals yet: you want more, and you know the company is capable of more
- A CEO who can decide and execute swiftly
Not a fit
- Pre-launch products still looking for any paying customer
- Looking for a part-time sales manager to run the team
- Wanting a report rather than a change
Work with me
Two ways to work together
Both options are tailored to your company. The difference is how much of my energy goes to your company alone.
Group working call 3x a month + private monthly 1:1
CEO Group
The method in a small group of peer CEOs working on the same questions.
- Group working call, three weeks per month
- Hot-seat problem solving on real numbers
- A private 1:1 each month on your own company
- Peers who are bending the same three curves
Limited availability
Weekly 1:1
1:1 Advisory
For CEOs facing a fundraise, a sharp turn or a fast-moving A.I. shift in their market.
- A weekly 1:1 working session
- Your numbers, moat and A.I. plan, every week
- Board and fundraising preparation
By application
Why me
I’ve been the founder, the investor and the engineer
So I look at your sales the way a board member, a buyer and a builder would, all at once.
- Founder
- Built Ryze from 2001, the business network that helped start the social networking boom.
- Investor
- Founding investor in Napster; investor in On24, which went public; investor or advisor in Starmine, Plaxo, Giganet and BuyDirect.com, all acquired.
- Board
- Board member and executive advisor who helped Legitmix go from flat sales to 600% growth.
- Ph.D.
- Mathematics, nonlinear optimization, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, at 20.
- A.I. builder
- Code-level understanding of LLMs. Building A.I. products now, with a small team that helps startups build out technology and agentic flows.
Ready to change the curve?
Start with a short intro call. We’ll look at where revenue comes from today and whether we’re a fit.
Or get an intro from a mutual friend.