Every stuck company is running from a truth it dares not name. I find it and make it your unfair advantage.
It's consensus-driven, paint-by-numbers theater that feigns insight but delivers bloated decks, corny archetypes, and documents that sit in drawers.
The standard process validates rather than questions. No one reads between the lines of the research.
Your newfound 'clarity', 'alignment', and 'differentiation' aren't necessarily rooted in reality.
Nothing really changes. Six months later, you're still hitting the same walls. Losing deals you know you should win. Fighting for survival rather than success.
ROGUISH asks a simple question: What if the beliefs you've been protecting are the ones holding you back?
I surface those shadows, name them, and sharpen them into the edge only you can own.
THE FIVE SHADOWS ↓
SHADOW 1
What the market is lying to itself about.
████, an energy insight startup, showed households when energy was cleanest and cheapest in a consumer-friendly format. People said they only cared about saving money on their bills, so ████ sold savings and rebates.
The Edge: It wasn't about the savings. It was about control. Position as the provider of pure insight, not shame or restriction. Be the forecast that utilities license to buy back community trust.
SHADOW 2
How you think you're perceived vs. how you actually are.
█████, a productized laundry service, thought they sold convenience. Turns out homesick customers were buying surrogate care from their stay-at-home-mom gig workers.
The Edge: Recognize the real value. Embrace the odd-but-sweet relationship at play.
SHADOW 3
The forces you're reacting to but completely misreading.
Every luxury yacht charter claimed to be "#1." Tricked ████ into thinking that spot was taken. Truth: none actually looked, felt, or operated like #1.
The Edge: Become the institution everyone else is pretending to be—visually, verbally, and experientially.
SHADOW 4
What your team knows is true but won't say out loud.
██████, a disruptive recruiting startup, had a provocative name that drove responses but screamed reckless; misrepresenting their careful, hands-on approach. Wanted to rename.
The Edge: Keep the name, recalibrate the brand. Turn grabbed attention into earned trust.
SHADOW 5
Your entire approach is built on a lie.
█████, an impact investing app, promoted financial literacy and a bright future to Gen Z... a generation of Doomers who distrust institutions and reject optimism.
The Edge: Tap their nostalgia for a future that never was and offer investing as community rebellion against the elite.
I work with founders and execs of early-to-growth-stage companies who've already tried the usual approach and mirror-back-what-you-said-but-prettier rebrands, got nowhere, and are finally ready to try something different.
Intuitive, adaptive brand and business immersion.
I employ whatever method necessary to expose and integrate the shadows—not a predetermined checklist of workshops and surveys.
Whatever is required to make progress and that I think you'll actually use. Usually a memo and a toolkit. Always a clear diagnosis, an implementation plan, and defined pivot options to account for the unexpected.
Can include: positioning, narrative, messaging, business models, offer architecture, creative briefs, campaign concepts, etc.
My model is designed for results, not billable hours. We agree on a single, flat fee based on value paid upfront. The diagnostic takes 3-6 weeks, followed by 6 months of implementation oversight. No scope creep. No hidden costs.
We agree on a clear success metric before the engagement begins. You agree to follow the plan and my guidance throughout implementation without fail. If the metric isn't hit at 6 months, you get a 100% refund. All our work is strictly confidential.
I now see what I was missing all these years. Thank you.
FOUNDER, SEED-STAGE ENERGY INSIGHT STARTUP
This is an incredible experience for a business. You will not be disappointed.
CEO, PROFESSIONAL SERVICES FIRM
Asa brings a deep sense of empathy and undying curiosity that creates trust from day one.
SERIAL FOUNDER, CLEANTECH + CPG + AGTECH
Asa cuts through ambiguity with piercing questions while enriching the process with camaraderie and positivity.
CEO, CREATIVE AGENCY
Easy to work with, responsive, and offered true insight.
FOUNDER, SERIES A ALT-PROTEIN STARTUP
Asa is a branding & strategy guru. His ability to craft compelling brand stories is remarkable to experience.
CO-FOUNDER, SEED-STAGE FINTECH STARTUP
Let's skip the proposals and hour-long pitches. We can determine if there's a fit for us to work together in a single, 5-minute call.
You tell me what's stuck. I'll let you know immediately whether I'm the right person to help.
Book 5-Min Call
You don't. I don't claim to be omniscient or infallible. You know the facts of your business better than I ever will; my role is to see the pattern you can't and offer the courage to face it. The goal isn't for me to be "right"—it's to provide a diagnosis that works. The guarantee is my bet that it will.
No. Truth without finesse is just noise. My job is to make it usable. I disarm the room with compassion and candor so we can sharpen an uncomfortable reality into a competitive edge.
That's to be expected. This is why there's an explicit choice built into the process. After I deliver the diagnosis and plan, you have one week to decide:
1. Commit. You execute the plan for 6 months under my oversight. The full-refund guarantee stands.
2. Walk away. The engagement ends. I refund 25% of your fee, no questions asked.
Readiness isn't comfort; it's courage. If your team requires total consensus to move forward, this process will fail.
Sure. Most consultants pick a vertical so they can recycle the same deck across clients or claim industry expertise. Truth is, bullshit smells the same whether you're SaaS, CPG, or professional services. If you're stuck and willing to be challenged, we can work together.
Occasionally. Model is different—flat monthly fee depending on time commitment, no refunds. Pure advisement.
My industry sells feel-good narratives and consensus-driven processes that fail to challenge the beliefs holding companies back. They preach radical differentiation but all hide behind hourly billing and safe roadmaps that incentivize stalling.
ROGUISH is the antidote. It's a model built on accountability and a process that uses disciplined skepticism to reveal the core, resonant truths most branding exercises miss.
On the other side of the discomfort is the differentiation everyone's chasing but no one is willing to earn.
Thoughts as I go on my merry way.
CLIENT: Marketing firm for credit unions
SHADOWS: Market, Competition
What they thought: We help credit unions with brand strategy and marketing. Need a better process to differentiate from larger firms
What was true: Their clients were disappearing through consolidation, and the survivors needed something else entirely.
Built their business on growth marketing, member acquisition, brand refreshes. But the credit union industry was rapidly consolidating. Small credit unions weren't looking to grow, they were merging or getting absorbed. The ones that survived the merger were bleeding culture, staff, and member loyalty.
Their real value wasn't pre-merger brand strategy. It was post-merger integration: rebranding the combined entity, merging cultures without losing what made each one matter, keeping members from jumping to big banks during the chaos.
Everyone in their industry was still selling "growth marketing" to institutions that were being erased or brand management to established players that were in flux. Reposition: solve the post-merger identity crisis no one wanted to admit was killing their clients.
CLIENT: My own startup, QuestWorks
SHADOWS: Perception, Market, Competition
What I thought: We need to make remote team building less cringe by designing better experiences.
What was true: The cringe isn't the activity. It's the coercion. Mandatory fun will always feel mandatory.
Started a team-building company because I'd sat through enough coffee chats, icebreakers, and virtual pizza parties to know the industry was broken. Every experience felt performative—cringeworthy, patronizing, something employees endured rather than enjoyed. Completely incompatible with the younger workforce's social habits and expectations of modern workplace culture.
I thought the play was to design genuinely good experiences—things people would actually want to do. Make them thoughtful, remove the awkward facilitator energy, focus on real connection.
Missed the actual problem: it wasn't the quality of the experience. It was the structure itself. Scheduled team-building asks people to perform connection on command. The best teams bond organically—through shared challenges they choose to take on together.
The reframe: stop scheduling connection. Create the conditions for it. Multiplayer gaming works because strangers opt in to shared quests. No mandatory attendance. No performative ice-breaking. Just voluntary, bite-size challenges that reward collaboration.
Built it around that. AI-facilitated gaming experiences teams can jump into when they want, not when HR schedules it. Play on their terms. Grow through actual collaboration, not simulated trust exercises.
30% boost in collaboration in 90 days. Turns out, when you stop forcing fun, people actually have it.
Still my company. Still learning if I'm right.
CLIENT: Regional university
SHADOWS: Internal, Perception, Market
What they thought: People don't understand the breadth and depth of our programs or student opportunities. If they did, they'd choose us over others.
What was true: People thought of them as a backup, not a top choice. Tough to admit.
Regional public university. Safety school. Students applied when they didn't get in anywhere else.
Small class sizes, great professors, beautiful campus. But the reputation was stubborn. Recent rebrand didn't move the needle and internal surveys showed a stigma of shame.
I pitched: own it. Turn shame into pride. Their beloved mascot was a dolphin, so make the students dolphins too. Frame it as "you're a different kind of intelligent". Brilliant, but don't test well in traditional systems. Reframe "safety school" as "school for people who don't fit the box."
Put together some creative that I'm quite proud of—CGI dolphins being the first in their family to go to school, getting hired to work at Google ("Did you hear Google hired a Dolphin?"), showing up in a school counselor's office and doing the blowhole thing.
Some stakeholders loved it. The more risk-averse tanked the score so hard it killed the proposal. Consensus won out, picked safe bet firm. 18 months later their website hasn't changed a bit. Hm.
Learning moment for me. I am not for committees.
But I would have bet my fee that it would have worked. So, that's what I do these days.
CLIENT: Regional healthcare provider
SHADOWS: Perception, Internal, Market
What they thought: We need to communicate our impact better.
What was true: No matter how much good they did, people still disliked and distrusted them.
Community health org in red political area. Medicare-funded. Wonderful, impactful work.
Unspoken accusations surfaced in the hard conversations: "government handouts."
Not only did they face insurance provider stigma (well-earned, in most cases) but they used 'liberal-coded' language—"equity," "access," "underserved communities"—in a place where "bootstraps" and "self-reliance" were cultural currency.
Community saw them as outsider charity enabling dependency.
The reframe: "Homegrown Healthcare"—locally run, locally funded, by and for the people who live there. Same services. Different story.
"Access to care" became "neighbors helping neighbors." Highlighted local partnerships, local staff, local board.
CLIENT: Mid-Size Law Firm
SHADOW: Core, Competition
What they thought: We need to specialize or pick a vertical to have a coherent brand.
What was true: The through-line wasn't what they did. It was who they served.
30 practice areas. Impossible to differentiate. Constantly adding new services to attract business. Almost never the top choice. Entirely referral-based.
Looked at the emotional context instead of services. Dug into their favorite and most profitable client relationships. Pattern across every practice area: people protecting something they built or were trying to build. Always dreamers.
"We protect dreams" unified everything without shrinking the service offering. Reshaped their messaging, client selection, and pricing.
Gave clients a reason to choose them over the specialist down the street.
Client: Mycoprotein ingredient startup
SHADOW: Competition, Market
What they thought: Offer plant-based ingredients to establishment meat makers in alignment with modern sustainability initiatives.
What was true: Sustainability coordinators had no decision-making power and were largely performative. Factory farmers care more about costs and quality than going green.
They were pitching fermentation mycoprotein to meat makers the same way every other alt-protein company did—sustainability, ethics, environmental impact, flavor. All the things that made sustainability coordinators nod and CFOs ignore.
Reframe: don't sell sustainability. Sell better margins and better meat. Good optics was the bonus.
The fermentation process became "brewing"—like beer and cheese. Familiar, artisanal, a craft the meat industry could understand. Positioned the ingredient as making their existing product better and cheaper, not replacing it with something foreign.
Stopped trying to change minds. Started speaking the language of people who actually wrote checks.
CLIENT: My buddy
SHADOWS: Market, Perception
What he thought: If he just had better lines, tighter photos, or pickup artist tactics, women would respond.
What was true: Women feel inherently unsafe on dating apps, and the subconscious desperation to impress kills attraction by feeling dangerous.
He was drowning in red pill garbage. Convinced himself women only wanted status and looks. The dating advice industry sold him technique—negging, peacocking, The Game. All performance. All desperation in a different costume.
Even being "nice" doesn't make women feel safe. When you're too accommodating and superficially polite, she assumes something's hidden. Flip to cocky jerk and she sees that coming, too. Get all 'clever' and it reeks of needy.
The actual problem: online dating is dangerous for women. Every interaction is a risk assessment. Men optimizing for "getting a response" are optimizing for the wrong metric. The question isn't "what do I say to get her attention?" It's "how do I make this safe for her?"
The reframe: stop performing. Create space for choice instead of engineering outcomes. Low pressure. Invite her into something absurd or shockingly genuine—something that signals you're doing your own thing, not auditioning for her approval. Let her opt in.
If she doesn't, that's her choice. She wasn't into your real vibe anyway. Stop trying to manufacture attraction and just create the conditions for it.
Most women he matches with have no idea how to respond to him other than incredulity and, crucially, curiosity. The smart, funny, open-minded ones he's really after are filtered for immediately. Turns out if you play to lose and you might just win what's right.
I built Rizzmaster (yes, really), an AI texting assistant, around this idea. Just for him. There are others out there, but they suck.
I'll admit, the bot struggles despite it's monstrous prompt. It's trained on a culture that thinks playfulness is 'lol tacos are so random' 'I need a therapist' kitschy nonsense, and that vulnerability is manipulative.
Maybe it's just my wife who finds me funny and I'm dooming my buddy. He's still the only one who uses it. And usually he comes to me anyway, then makes me argue with RM when it's wrong.
Oh well. No good deed goes unpunished.
I was using the em dash long before ChatGPT was a twinkle in Altman's eye. And I'm not stopping now.
