Not a values deck. Not a consulting menu. Just the patterns that tend to matter once the work starts.
Where I help most
I am most useful when there is more to figure out than there is to follow.
Usually that means an early-stage team with real customers, real ambition, and a messy middle between the two. The product exists, but the story does not quite hold together yet. The team is shipping, but not always compounding. Important work is falling between functions because everyone is busy and no one quite owns the gap.
That is where I tend to do my best work: close to a founder, close to the customer problem, close enough to the details that strategy does not drift into the abstract. If there is already a clean playbook and a clear lane to stay in, I am probably not the highest-leverage person for it.
Titles are shorthand. What matters more is the shape of the work — what is broken, what needs to be figured out, what calls for judgment rather than a playbook.
How I tend to work
I start close to the raw material.
That means customer calls, support threads, sales notes, product usage, half-made docs, uneasy founder instincts, and the things people say quietly after the meeting ends. I do not like working from abstraction for long. I want the evidence in front of me.
One example. At Risk Ledger I was the only product person until we were about fifty. Every time we tried to plan top-down — OKRs, roadmaps, frameworks — the plan drifted from what customers actually needed. The moves that compounded were always the ones shaped by whatever we had heard in the last three customer calls. That is the pattern I keep returning to.
I switch altitudes fast. One moment I am in a strategic conversation with a founder, the next I am on a customer call, reviewing designs, shaping a deck, or testing something close to launch. That is not me being scattered. It is how I spot the gaps between what the company says, what the customer needs, and what is actually getting built.
From there, I usually do three things quickly:
- reduce the problem into something the team can actually hold in its head
- name the tradeoff that no one has said out loud yet
- turn open loops into a sequence of decisions, not a pile of ambient anxiety
I write a lot because it is the fastest way I know to create clarity without forcing everyone into another call.
I care a lot about trust and momentum. Not performative urgency. Real forward motion. A good week should leave the team with less ambiguity than it started with.
What I need from a founder
I do my best work with founders who are honest early.
Tell me what is actually broken. Tell me where you are uncertain. Tell me what you are avoiding. Tell me where the politics are. Tell me what is true even if it is inconvenient.
I do not need perfect context on day one. I do need directness.
The other thing I need is room to act. If you bring me in to create clarity, I am going to pull on threads, ask uncomfortable questions, and close loops that look ownerless. That tends to work best when it is welcomed rather than surprising.
The best version of this relationship is usually simple: you are clear on the outcome, I am trusted with the messy middle.
What I do not do
I do not do roadmap theatre.
I do not enjoy creating the appearance of strategic certainty when the honest answer is that we still need to learn.
I do not believe process is a substitute for judgment.
I do not like shipping work that looks tidy in a review and falls apart in the hands of a customer.
I am probably not the right fit for roles where the main job is maintaining a planning machine, translating obvious things into more slides, or spending most of the week protecting people from clear decisions.
What I am looking for
A team where the people are the reason to join.
Great people I can feel in the first week. A bar that pushes me — colleagues who are sharper than me in their lane and direct enough to say so. Meaty B2B problems where the work compounds and the customer is real.
Stage matters less than the texture. Early enough that judgment beats process. Serious enough that the next stage is the point.
Right now
I am building in motion. Small products, close to the tools.
AI has changed the texture of making things for me. The gap between noticing a problem and testing a solution keeps shrinking, which makes judgment, taste, and restraint feel even more valuable.
Looking for a role where better decisions can turn into compounding motion.
If we end up talking
You do not need to have it all figured out.
An honest note is enough. Stage, what is broken, what you are hoping to hire for.
Email hello@mckenz.io. If it feels like a fit, I will send back what the first 90 days could look like — within 48 hours. No call first.
