The stupidly simple strategy framework

Here's how this framework applies to CorePlan. This is where I took the business thorough a pivot from Springtech to a pure SaaS play transforming the business and the industry to adopt and use modern SaaS - starting small then going large. Notice how Parts 1-2 (diagnosis) set up the insight in Part 3, which then unlocks the action plan in Part 4.

Phase 1: Diagnosis

Part 1: Situation
Mining companies have always struggled to get timely, accurate information about their drilling operations. Progress updates from the field took days or weeks, delays that made it impossible to make agile decisions or stay on budget. Meanwhile, the drilling contractors (the crews actually doing the work) were using paper forms, WhatsApp, and disjointed legacy systems, left largely out of the digital transformation conversation.

Every software vendor was building for the miners, hoping to force contractors to log into mining-focused solutions. But on the ground, these tools were ignored or only half-used. The actual data producers, drillers, were underserved and unhappy.

Part 2: Problem
Because the contractors weren't truly bought in or enabled, miners had little or no real-time understanding of where their money was going. Drilling costs could spiral, with issues and delays only surfacing weeks later. There was constant friction between drillers and mining companies; each blaming the other for mistakes, overspending, or mishaps. The industry accepted this as a "necessary evil" of exploration, but it created mistrust, wasted millions, and slowed down projects.

Phase 2: Strategy

Now I had the diagnosis. Time to find the insight.

Part 3: The Difference (The Zag)
Everyone thought the problem was a mining company problem, so they built for miners. We realised you can’t solve the miner’s data problem without first solving the driller’s workflow. Our insight: serve the contractor first, make drilling crew workflows seamless, intuitive, and valuable for them. If you win the driller, you unlock the data for everyone.

In other words, the market thought the answer was forcing contractors to use mining systems; we saw the answer was building a solution that drillers actually wanted to use. By empowering contractors, miners would finally get the data and transparency they needed. i.e the concept I talk about called Save the cheerleader save the world!

Part 4: The Path Forward

1. Focus on drillers. Design software that maps naturally onto drilling crews' daily routines: mobile-first, simple, and fast. Collect data once, at the source.
2. Build contractor-first value. Give contractors tools to manage productivity, automate admin work, and cut out the paperwork so they become advocates.
3. Connect stakeholders. Seamlessly feed real-time operational data back to both contractors and mining company teams, breaking down the "us vs them" divide.
4. Graduate to the platform. Once contractors are truly onboard, roll out dashboards and analytics for miners, finally delivering live, trusted drill progress and cost data at a glance.

See the difference? We didn't start by pushing software top-down to the mining companies. We found the hidden constraint (underserved drill contractors) and solved for them. That's what unlocked real-time visibility and changed how exploration drilling is run.

Sometimes strategy isn't about building a new product. It's about finding a new story for a different room.

Here is exactly how we launched Sidekicker in Western Australia when I was the General Manager ("first boots on ground").

Phase 1: Diagnosis

Part 1: Situation

Sidekicker started in Melbourne. Over there, the hospitality industry was addicted to temp agencies. The playbook was simple: "We are a digital, better, cheaper temp agency."
But Perth? Different beast.

In WA, mid-market venues hated temp agencies. They saw them as expensive, low-quality last resorts you only called if the stadium was full or you were truly desperate. The standard move for a Perth pub was to manage their own casual pool.
If I walked in pitching "better temp staffing," I would have been solving a problem nobody thought they had.

Part 2: Problem

But while they didn't use agencies, WA venues were drowning in a different problem: Talent Volatility.
WA is cyclical. Huge summer peaks, dead quiet winters. Plus, it runs on backpackers. A venue would build a killer team, and three months later, half of them would vanish to pick fruit or travel north.
Venues were stuck on a hamster wheel of recruiting, training, and losing staff. They couldn't keep a roster together for the peak season to save their lives.

Phase 2: Strategy

Part 3: The Difference (The Zag)

The East Coast strategy was: "Replace the Temp Agency." My WA strategy was: "Augment the Internal Roster."

The Insight: I realised I couldn't sell "on-demand staff" to people who hated temp agencies. So I pitched Sidekicker as Blended Workforce Technology, an already established angle Tom and Sam were using but sparcingly because of the lack of need in eastern states.

I didn't tell them to fire their staff. I told them to build a "Second Layer" a pre-vetted, pre-familiar extended bench they could access instantly. It wasn't about filling a panic shift; it was about stabilising their business against the WA churn.

Part 4: The Path Forward

1. High Quality Supply: WA had high unemployment for transient workers, so we had a flood of applicants. We did the opposite of "growth at all costs." I put up a velvet rope. We made the interview process brutally hard. By ruthlessly curating the talent, we ensured that a skeptical venue’s first shift was flawless.
2. Go Big or Go Home with Demand: I ignored the "long tail" of small cafes. I focused entirely on securing "Founding Partnerships" with the big, iconic venues. These anchors gave us the volume to keep our high-quality talent happy and working.
3. The "Second Layer" Rollout: We taught these venues to roster their core team first, then use Sidekicker to manage the peaks. We weren't the emergency button; we were the overflow valve.

Most people think "Strategy" is copy-pasting what worked in one city to another.
If I had done that, we would have failed. The product was the same. The market reality was completely different. And that meant the strategy had to change.

To show you I’m not just making this up, here is the exact strategy I wrote for my own advisory practice before I launched.

Phase 1: Diagnosis
Part 1: Situation

We have a massive wave of first-time founders entering the arena. Some are technical wizards, others are deep subject matter experts, and some are sales veterans. But they all share a common blind spot: they view a startup through the single lens of their expertise. The coder thinks code wins; the salesperson thinks closing wins.

To fill the gaps, they rely on low-fidelity information—generic blog posts, ChatGPT, or "advisors" who are just sales trainers in disguise and have never actually built a company from scratch. They try to assemble a business by following generic "scale-up" advice for a "start-up" problem.

Part 2: Problem

This leads to the "Frankenstein" approach. A lot of founders just go and hire an experienced salesperson—or worse, a junior BDR (because they're cheap!)—hoping they'll just "figure it out." Or they pivot to "doubling down on social" or "going Product-Led Growth" without any real strategy.

They start burning cash on agencies and random advisors, and it's all downhill from there. They get stuck in the "Death Valley" between $0 and $1M ARR. They burn through their runway without ever finding true Product-Market Fit or a repeatable revenue engine. They don't fail because the idea was bad; they fail because they tried to delegate the hard work of company-building to people who didn't care as much as they did (or simply didn't know how).

Phase 2: Strategy

Part 3: The Difference (The Zag)

The market tells you to hire a 'Specialist- like a Head of Sales, a Growth Hacker, or a Fractional CMO to fix this. But a junior BDR can't build a strategy, and a 'Growth' agency can't fix a product problem. I realised that specialisation is fatal at the early stage. You don't need a silo; you need a system."

My Insight: I bring the pattern recognition of a Seed Executive who has scaled businesses across Mining, Media, Hospitality, and Marketplaces. I know that B2B wins often come from B2C principles (Customer Success and Support) and that "Enterprise Sales" is useless without the Marketing air-cover to support it.
The market sells "advice." I offer an integrated architecture connecting the dots between Product, Sales, and Fundraising that most founders miss.

Part 4: The Path Forward

1. Be startup friendly: For early-stage (<$200k ARR), I enter as a Founding Partner for equity i.e if you win, I win. For growth-stage (>$200k ARR), I work on a fractional basis to professionalize the engine.
2. Deploy the 'Full Stack' Engine: Instead of hiring a junior BDR to "figure it out," I'll help you install a comprehensive framework covering Enterprise/Mid-market sales, Marketing, Customer Success, and Support. I leverage my background in high-volume B2C and complex B2B to build a revenue engine that actually works.
3. Prepare for Capital: Revenue is oxygen, but capital is fuel. Having led a $3.2M round myself, I guide the fundraising strategy—crafting the pitch, selecting the right investors, and navigating the diligence process so we don't just raise money, we raise smart money.
4. Build to hand it over. Once the engine is humming, together we hire and train your full-time leadership team to take the keys and drive what we built.