The Proposal

Kenneth, at the close of the Snapshot I told you this is where the terms would live: what it costs, how the tiers work, and how we'd align incentives for the long run. Here it is.

I've kept it as lean as the Snapshot, built to read in the same sitting, with the deeper conversation saved for Houston. The Snapshot was about whether I see your world clearly and can build in it. This is about the terms: what I'd be to you, what's included, what it costs, and how I'd tie my own outcome to yours so we're building toward the same finish line.

As you saw, a Founder's Operator beside you. I operate the platform, advise the firm, and hold the whole system together, pointed in one direction. The regulated work stays entirely yours. That's the seat no one has had the time to take.

The Snapshot named the vision; here's the work, by engine, at a level you can scan. Named boldly, committed conservatively: baselines first, in the first thirty days.

Each piece of this work carries a real market price, and I would rather set it before you than leave it unsaid. A fractional operator for the platform is its own retainer. A firm advisor is another. Tech modernization, the workflow build, the AI work, packaging a new service line, an executive coach, each is something founders pay for separately, from people who have never met one another. Sourced that way, the first quarter alone climbs to many tens of thousands across the three engines, before anyone has brought the pieces into a single direction.

As one operator, I would steward all three engines toward the same end, so their wins compound rather than scatter. One person accountable for how the platform, the firm, and your name build into each other, rather than three vendors each tending a slice and none of them seeing the whole.

Some of the return is already on your books. The engineer and the content creator you have carried for years become real output the moment they are directed toward one plan. I do not add that cost. My work is to help it finally pay.

Strategic Tax Planning leads the rest: the expertise you already hold, packaged and priced as the premium work it is, offered to a handful of the clients already in front of you. A quiet reactivation of dormant agents back into the directory. The hours the workflow fix returns to you and your team. Steadier pricing on work you are already doing. No single line is dramatic. Together, and kept conservative, they make the case on their own.

The honest numbers come after the first thirty days, once I have taken the measure of where each engine stands and the real baselines are in view. Building that first-year model on your actual data is one of the early deliverables. I would rather set the vision clearly now and let the numbers settle on solid ground.

The near-term math is here. The longer arc, where this could go and to whom, is in the Horizon. Together they answer one question: what is the right price for someone helping you build something worth acquiring?

First the logic, then the figures. What I'm describing isn't a consultant on a schedule. It's a senior operator embedded in your business, owning a platform and advising a firm. The tiers differ in depth and hours, not in care.

Cash pays for the work. Equity is how I make sure I'm building for where this goes, not just the month in front of us.

The grant is in the Enrolled Agent Marketplace entity only, never CKO. The firm is regulated and that ownership isn't transferable; tying advisory equity to it would be neither clean nor correct. The Marketplace is the venture-scale engine, the one that carries the story to capital and to the acquirer who keeps a founder on.

The terms are deliberately founder-friendly. A two-year vest with a six-month cliff, so I earn it by staying and delivering rather than by signing. And double-trigger acceleration on a change of control, the clean structure a sophisticated acquirer expects to see on a cap table.

Three commitments, in writing, from day one, all on process and output, the things I control. The Snapshot named them; here they are as terms. I won't guarantee a market outcome, and you should be wary of anyone who would.

1. A complete strategic diagnostic of all three engines within thirty days.
2. Three operational AI workflows live inside CKO within ninety days, with documented metrics, the specific workflows chosen during the diagnostic.
3. A written, signed-off strategy for all three engines within sixty days, yours to keep, regardless of what comes next.

Once we are working together, the first work I would put in your hands is your Founder Authority Roadmap: your personal domain secured, your LinkedIn brought up to the standing the ten thousand people already following you should see, a proper photoshoot arranged, a few quick-win assets, and a ninety-day plan to launch the show.

It is the foundation of the authority engine. The fuller build belongs to a later season, once the ground beneath it is sure.

The first step is a focused engagement that sets firm ground beneath everything after it. I look across all three engines and bring you a clear picture of where each stands and what it opens up, then draw up the plan and the first thirty days for your judgment and your blessing.

The Strategic Discovery Engagement is $5,000. Should you take up the retainer in the same season, it applies in full against your first month, the balance due as we begin.

A rhythm, not a flurry, and a standing promise that you're never waiting more than a day to hear from me. Every session documented, action items tracked. That cadence is how strategy turns into things that actually happen.

Travel for the quarterly off-sites is reimbursed at cost by your company, capped at $8,000–$12,000 a year. The trip to Houston this week, to talk it through with you in person, is mine.