What you actually get.
A representative one-page Operational Friction Diagnostic. Same structure every buyer receives in 10 business days: a ranked friction inventory, the leakage sized in dollars, a 90-day sequenced fix plan, and an implementation envelope.
This is an anonymized, representative sample — composed to show the structure and rigor of the deliverable, not a real client's data. Client identifiers are [REDACTED] and every figure is illustrative. A real diagnostic uses your own systems' numbers, with the sizing methodology shown so you can challenge any line.
A. Engagement frame
| Company | [REDACTED] — services platform, [REDACTED] revenue band |
| Question on the table | "Headcount is growing faster than revenue and we don't know why." |
| Engagement | Operational Friction Diagnostic · 10 business days · $25,000 firm |
| Primary unit of work observed | Lead → qualified → closed → onboarded (one full cycle walked) |
B. Ranked friction inventory
The five pathologies, ordered by annual financial cost to the business. Sizing method shown per line so it can be challenged. Figures illustrative.
| # | Pathology | Finding (redacted) | Annual leakage | How it was sized |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Stack debt | [REDACTED] overlapping tools; 2 paid seats-tiers unused; 3 integrations maintained for a workflow retired in [REDACTED]. | ≈ $410K | Annualized license + maintenance of tooling with <15% active use, from billing exports. |
| 2 | Manual drag | Re-keying between [REDACTED] and the CRM; status chased by hand; onboarding assembled manually per account. | ≈ $360K | Hours/week on systematizable work × loaded cost, across [REDACTED] FTEs. |
| 3 | Process rigidity | Every non-standard deal routed to one principal; no documented exception path; throughput capped by one calendar. | ≈ $240K | Marginal cycle-time on exception volume × deal contribution, trailing 12 mo. |
| 4 | Functional silos | Marketing, ops, finance report three different "active accounts" numbers; weekly reconciliation before any decision. | ≈ $110K | Reconciliation hours/week across 3 functions × loaded cost. |
| 5 | Intelligence blindness | Dashboards exist; no decision protocol attached. Churn signal visible 40+ days before action, on average. | ≈ $95K | Preventable churn in the signal-to-action gap × average account value. |
C. Financial sizing — summary
≈ $1.2M / year, conservative case. The single largest line (stack debt, ≈ $410K) is the highest-confidence and the fastest to recover; the revenue-side line (intelligence blindness) is the lowest-confidence and is sized at the bottom of its range on purpose. The diagnostic sizes conservatively and shows its working.
D. 90-day sequenced fix plan
Sequenced by leverage and lowest dependency risk. Build-vs-buy named per fix.
| Window | Fix | Build / Buy | Expected recovery |
|---|---|---|---|
| Days 1–30 | Retire/consolidate the unused stack; renegotiate [REDACTED] contracts at renewal. | Buy (config + contract) | ≈ $410K/yr, high confidence |
| Days 15–60 | Systematize the re-keying and status-chase handoffs; CRM as system of record. | Build (founder's automation stack) | ≈ $300K/yr of the manual-drag line |
| Days 30–75 | Codify the exception path; remove the single-calendar bottleneck. | Build (decision protocol) | ≈ $180K/yr of the rigidity line |
| Days 45–90 | One reconciled metric layer; attach a decision protocol to the churn signal. | Build (measurement + protocol) | ≈ $150K/yr across silos + blindness |
E. Implementation envelope
A $75K–$125K Chapter 2 rebuild (scoped to the fixes above) against ≈ $1.2M/year in sized leakage — most of it recoverable inside two quarters. Conservative: even if only the top two lines land, the rebuild returns its cost well inside the first year. Mezura names the range and the assumptions; it does not promise a multiple.
That is the whole product: where the money goes, sized, sequenced, and costed — in 10 business days, for $25,000 firm. With a guarantee: if it doesn't produce that clarity, Mezura keeps working at no additional cost until it does.