Working with me

If you're visiting this page, it means you're likely a founder or VC interested in working with me. I'm going to use this document to describe how I choose projects and split my work between advisory work and consulting. If it all makes sense, shoot me an email at jason@jxnl.co. If you’d like to get a better idea of my background check out my resume.

  • Picking Projects:
    • I prioritize projects based on three two factors:
      • Impact: I seek projects that leverage my expertise and create significant impact for founders, and in return, equitable compensation.
        • If you know exactly what you need to build, I’m probably not the best person to help, if you need a peer to collaborate with plan and prototype, I’m your guy.
      • Exploring new industries: I enjoy pursuing opportunities that explore different avenues and industries. My goals here are to cross-pollinate my knowledge across many industries.
  • Advisor vs. Consulting:
    • I distinguish between advisor and consulting engagements:
      • Advisor: I dedicate a day or half a day per month to provide guidance and support to early-stage startups
      • Consulting: I operate on a retainer-based model. I don't like having every interaction to be an investment decision and tracking hours. Fees are a function of value derived and how they align with my learning. I like to keep a 30-hour workweek to give me ample time to educate myself and explore new ideas. I won't ask you to pay me to learn something.
  • Situational Assessment:
    • My consulting process begins with a situational assessment:
      • I try to understand what the needs actually are:
        • Objectives
          • What do you think the business needs?
        • Metrics
          • How can we decide if it was successful?
        • Values and benefits
          • What do I unlock for your business?
      • This assessment allows me to tailor my recommendations to address your specific needs and goals effectively.

By following this approach, I try to understand the root of what we need to do, how I can bring my expertise to the table, and how we measure success, and quantify the impact of the work. Heres an example

Next steps:

If you got this far, shoot me a short email to jason@jxnl.co about what you're looking for help on. Just note that until August, I'm in China and the VPN is kicking my ass, so video calls are a pain...

 

Here are some examples that have caught my interest:

  • I'm a founder building AI for trucking. I know you're not looking to found a company, but I'm looking for someone to help me vet a technical co-founder and get my team started on the right foot.
  • I am a technical co-founder looking for a technical partner to help drive some technical exploration/designs while I spend time fundraising and hiring our founding engineers.
  • I am at ABC VC and I'd love to get your thoughts on XYZ and help with some due diligence.
  • I am a director at XYZ, and we're interested in building our automation system with ChatAPI. I would love to get your help leading our overseas SW team to see if it's feasible before getting more headcount.
  • I'm thinking about starting a accounting startup and would love to talk to you about what is feasible with all this agent work coming out recently.