The consultancy model has a structural problem: every engagement is billed once. The research we did for a Fortune 100 CX program, the journey framework we built for an enterprise software client, the brand architecture we developed for a federal IT firm — that work is done. The invoice is paid. The knowledge doesn’t compound.
That’s not a complaint. That’s the model. And for a long time it worked fine. But at some point you notice the same problems recurring across clients, the same frameworks being rebuilt from scratch, the same conversations happening in every discovery call. The work isn’t repeating because the clients are similar. It’s repeating because the problems are universal.
That’s the signal to build a product.
The recurring patterns
After enough CX strategy engagements, the pattern becomes clear: every organization has a research problem. They have interview recordings they haven’t synthesized. They have journey maps that haven’t been updated since 2022. They have personas that were built on assumptions and have never been challenged with real data.
The friction point is always the same: the gap between raw discovery material and structured, usable insight is enormous, and nobody in the organization has the methodology or the time to close it. Consultants can close it for them — once. But the problem recurs.
The Ledger exists because that problem deserved a permanent solution, not a recurring consulting engagement.
The Gauge exists because “let’s build personas” always becomes a workshop where people argue over demographics they made up instead of looking at data that already exists.
The Compass exists because “journey mapping” is almost always a six-week project that produces a static artifact that nobody updates. If the map could be generated as a starting point instead of built from scratch, the six weeks could be spent on the strategic questions instead of the scaffolding.
What building products changed
The most immediate thing it changed was the practice itself. Having tools that do the scaffolding work means we arrive at client engagements further into the problem. Discovery synthesis happens in The Ledger, not in a three-day workshop. Persona development starts with Census data, not a blank template. Journey mapping starts with a generated first pass, not a blank FigJam board.
The second thing it changed was the relationship with the work. Consulting engagements are discrete. You deliver, you close, you move on. Products are continuous. The Compass shipped with five features; it has roadmap items that will exist as long as the product exists. That durability changes what it means to solve a problem.
The third thing it changed was the ceiling. A consulting practice is bounded by hours. A product practice is bounded by distribution. Those are very different constraints.
The tradeoff
Building products while running a consulting practice is not free. The product work competes for time with the client work. Features that should be built aren’t because a client engagement took priority. Roadmap items slip. Bugs persist longer than they should.
The honest answer is that products extend the scope of the problem you can solve — but they don’t eliminate the constraint of time. You’re making a choice about what ceiling to hit.
We made the choice. The products exist. And the compounding has started.