Diagnostic Product · 5 Days

SPRINT
GTM Reset

Interest turns into stalled deals. Buyers engage but don't commit. The motion works sometimes, but not reliably. The root cause is almost always one of six conditions — and it's rarely the one you think.

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What You Leave With
01
The Bottleneck
The root cause, not just the symptom, identified precisely.
02
The Trigger
The moment in your buyer's world where urgency becomes real.
03
The Decision
A concrete next move you can commit to.
04
Buyer Patterns
The signals and statements that tell you a deal is real.
How It Works

Four sessions. Five days.
One clear constraint.

Before we speak, you send two call recordings, your sales materials, and your investor deck. Everything gets reviewed before the first session — so we start at depth, not orientation. No ramp time. No small talk about what you do. We go straight to what's actually happening.

Session 1
Speed

Most founders arrive thinking they have a pipeline problem. By the end of Session 1, most realize that's not it. We go through your calls together and map what's actually happening — where buyers are engaging, where they're going quiet, and where the motion is breaking down. You start seeing patterns in your own calls that you've been too close to notice.

The shift that usually happens here: you stop thinking about getting more meetings and start thinking about what needs to change in the ones you already have.

Session 2
Problem + Niche

This is the session most founders find the most uncomfortable — and the most useful. We pressure test whether your problem framing is creating urgency or just interest. There's a difference between a buyer who says "that's really interesting" and one who says "that's exactly what we're dealing with." Most founders are consistently getting the first reaction and calling it a good call.

We also work on the mirror — the ability to describe your buyer's situation in language they recognize before they've told you anything. Not a pitch. Not a story. A reflection of what they already know to be true but haven't heard named precisely.

Niche gets pressure tested here too, because problem and niche are almost always linked. If your ICP is too broad to make a specific promise, your problem statement will be too. Both break for the same reason.

Session 3
Results + Implementation

Can your buyer describe the outcome you deliver — specifically, in their own words — without you in the room? That's the test for Results. Not whether they were impressed, but whether they walked out with something they could repeat to their CEO in an elevator. If they can't, the deal is already at risk.

Implementation is about the fears nobody names out loud. In 2026, the buyer across from you isn't just evaluating ROI — they're running a personal risk calculation. What breaks if this goes wrong? Who has to manage it? What do I tell my leadership if it doesn't work? These questions are in the room whether or not anyone asks them. Founders who address them before they surface close faster. Founders who wait see deals die quietly at exactly the moment they should be accelerating.

This session usually surfaces the single most fixable late-stage break in your motion.

Session 4
Trust + Decision

If deals only close when you're personally in the room, you don't have a motion — you have a dependency. Session 4 looks at whether the process is transferable, and what would break the moment someone else ran the call. Most founders already know the answer. This session makes it explicit and fixable.

We close with synthesis. By this point the primary constraint is named — not as a list of things to improve, but as the one rate-limiting step that, once addressed, makes everything else move faster. You leave with that constraint identified precisely and one concrete next move you can commit to before the engagement ends.

SSpeedCreates attention
PProblemCreates urgency
RResultsCreates belief
IImplementationCreates safety
NNicheCreates repeatability
TTrustCreates permission
SPRINT In Action

What it looks like when it works.

Client Result · nexwise

"After working with Dave, I stopped pitching our product as a fix for broken e-commerce shops and started framing it as a removal for strategic constraints that executives can bring to their board. That changes everything about how a conversation goes, how people perceive our solution, and how a cycle unfolds."

Mathis Stolz
Mathis Stolz
Co-Founder & CCO, nexwise

Mathis came to the SPRINT selling nexwise as a fix for broken e-commerce shops. After five days, he reframed the core problem as a strategic constraint: scarce product expertise causing companies to quietly walk away from revenue.

He identified that his two closed deals succeeded largely on the strength of his champions — not a repeatable motion. He left with a sharper ICP, a clearer problem statement, and a framework for qualifying which pipeline deals were real.

He is now building the motion before making his first sales hire — and working closely with Dave to build the foundation of nexwise's revenue engine.

What's actually causing stalls right now

The patterns showing up across founder calls this week — not from 2022.

After 250+ founder conversations — most of them in the last year — the same three things are killing deals right now. Not pipeline. Not product. Not market timing. These three.

The wow problem

"That was really interesting. Let's talk again in a few months."

Founders are getting strong demo reactions and calling them good calls. They're not. Interest and urgency are different outcomes — and most founders can't see the gap until someone shows them the pattern across their own calls. The demo is landing. The urgency isn't.

The AI mandate problem

"Every executive has a mandate to use AI. They're all taking meetings."

Pipelines are full of education calls dressed up as sales calls. Buyers show up curious, get a great walkthrough, and leave more informed. That's not a deal — that's a podcast. Founders are confusing a crowded calendar with purchase intent, and the two have never been further apart.

The wrong problem problem

"We need more pipeline. Let's hire two more reps."

The reason founders think they're stalling is almost never the actual reason. They drive to more pipeline when they have an execution problem. They hire when the motion isn't repeatable yet. They fix the symptom and leave the cause untouched. Every month spent on the wrong diagnosis is runway that doesn't come back.

Common Questions

What founders ask before booking

How is this different from hiring a consultant?+

Most consultants share perspective based on what they saw two years ago at their last company. Dave is talking to founders every day. The patterns in a SPRINT aren't pulled from memory — they're pulled from conversations that happened this week. That's the difference between advice that fits your moment and advice that fit someone else's.

What if I already know what my problem is?+

That's actually the most common thing founders say before a SPRINT. And in about 80% of cases, the thing they were certain about turns out to be a symptom — not the cause. The value isn't confirming what you think. It's finding what you've been building around without realizing it.

What do I need to prepare before we start?+

Two recent call recordings, your current sales materials, and your investor deck. That's it. I review everything before our first session so we don't spend time on orientation. We go straight to what's actually happening in your deals.

Is $4,500 the right investment at my stage?+

The question is what it costs to keep doing the wrong thing. Most founders who come into SPRINT have been stuck for two to four months. At seed or Series A, that's not just runway — it's a quarter of investor patience. Five days to find the real constraint is cheap relative to another quarter of fixing the wrong thing.

What stage are you typically working with?+

Seed and Series A B2B SaaS founders, typically $500K–$10M ARR. You have a product, you have some customers, and the motion works sometimes — but not reliably. That's the sweet spot. If you're pre-revenue or pre-product, the timing probably isn't right yet.

What happens after the five days?+

You leave with a named constraint, a concrete next move, and a clear picture of what to focus on first. Some founders go on to work with me on Founding AE hiring once the motion is cleaner. Others take the diagnosis and execute on their own. Either is fine — the goal is that you know what to do next, not that you need me to do it.

Related Reading

Articles on GTM, pipeline, and founder-led sales

Pipeline
The Two Sales Traps That Stall Founder-Led Companies
Pipeline
Curiosity vs. Purchase Intent
GTM strategy
Scaling Without Clarity
ICP & messaging
Selling Features vs. Creating Tension
Founder-led sales
Founder-Led Sales: When It Works and When It Breaks
Pipeline
Sales Pipeline Momentum Is the Only Metric That Matters

Still guessing what's stalling your deals?

Five days to find out. Book a call to see if SPRINT is the right fit.

$4,500 5-day engagement · Constraint diagnosis + execution plan
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