The Diagnosis Library

We don't show logos. We show what we found.

Most of our work is done under NDA, so instead of names we publish the diagnoses. Since 2011 we have taken on a dozen or so clients a year, on purpose, and long engagements produce many findings: 74 case files so far, de-identified, each showing one problem we saw and the system we built around it. One file is one diagnosis, not one client. Start with what you are seeing in your own business, below, and find the entry that sounds like it.

Every one of them starts the same way: a founder who could not see clearly, making good calls from a bad view. Clarity is where we start. The real prize is the decisions you make once you can see, and a business that finally runs without leaning on you.

Pick the one that sounds like your business. We will show you what it usually turns out to be.

01

My ads cost too much to make sense.

The click price is the part you can see. It is rarely the part costing you the sale.

Google said the ads lost money for years. The tracking was never set up.
Ecommerce / DTC apparel event accuracy 40% to 100%
He thought the cost was too high. It was the only honest number he had.
Marketing agency / founder-led services cost reframed from a leak to a machine
The cost to win a customer fell about five times. The price never moved.
Direct-to-consumer / e-commerce cost to win a customer ~5x lower, no price change
The ten-thousand-dollar video lost to a free photo.
E-commerce / direct-to-consumer a near-free photo out-converted every produced asset
It was never the price of the click.
Legal / personal injury conversion rate +1,175%
Most of those clicks were never people.
Legal / personal injury ~$8,213 spend prevented in one read
The channel they rented stopped being worth renting.
Legal / personal injury changed the model instead of churning
They asked us to fix the ad account. The account was never the problem.
E-commerce / natural products the diagnosis moved from the ads to supply
They were sure the channel failed. The account couldn't say either way.
B2B SaaS a channel verdict that could not be tested, shown on the account itself
They were sure the channel was dead. The account had never kept score.
B2B SaaS a true diagnosis from the account's own data
We doubled their best results. Then we told them to stop.
E-commerce / DTC apparel teaching case (no headline metric claimed)

Or read every diagnosis, all in one place.

The chooser above narrows to one symptom. This is the whole shelf. Every engagement we have published, grouped by what the founder was seeing, so you can scan the lot and find the one that sounds like your business.

01

My ads cost too much to make sense.

11 diagnoses
Google said the ads lost money for years. The tracking was never set up.
Ecommerce / DTC apparel event accuracy 40% to 100%
He thought the cost was too high. It was the only honest number he had.
Marketing agency / founder-led services cost reframed from a leak to a machine
The cost to win a customer fell about five times. The price never moved.
Direct-to-consumer / e-commerce cost to win a customer ~5x lower, no price change
The ten-thousand-dollar video lost to a free photo.
E-commerce / direct-to-consumer a near-free photo out-converted every produced asset
It was never the price of the click.
Legal / personal injury conversion rate +1,175%
Most of those clicks were never people.
Legal / personal injury ~$8,213 spend prevented in one read
The channel they rented stopped being worth renting.
Legal / personal injury changed the model instead of churning
They asked us to fix the ad account. The account was never the problem.
E-commerce / natural products the diagnosis moved from the ads to supply
They were sure the channel failed. The account couldn't say either way.
B2B SaaS a channel verdict that could not be tested, shown on the account itself
They were sure the channel was dead. The account had never kept score.
B2B SaaS a true diagnosis from the account's own data
We doubled their best results. Then we told them to stop.
E-commerce / DTC apparel teaching case (no headline metric claimed)
02

I think I need more leads.

14 diagnoses
It looked like a marketing problem. It was four problems wearing one mask.
Specialty medical group four leaks named on the founder's own records
More leads would only have sent you more price-shoppers.
Specialty dental / prosthodontics positioning that makes the caliber legible and defends the premium
More spend stopped working. The problem was not the ads.
SaaS / online education / subscription a corrupted win caught before it set strategy
One channel problem was hiding three real ones.
Supplement e-commerce / health scoreboard reconciled, three problems named
The leads were not the problem. The bait was.
Medical-device distribution Diagnosis accepted; engagement advanced to a documented plan
They asked for more leads. The problem was four things wearing one mask.
B2B SaaS / category creation tracking gap found and the real problems named
They wanted more partners. Hundreds had already gone quiet.
Multi-location specialty practice 316 partners found dormant in their own records
The cases he wanted were already being referred. Just not to him.
Referral-driven specialty practice every referrer ranked by the cases they send and the dollars they produce
You did not need more leads. Your tracking was lying.
B2B professional services cost per deal cut by about half in one month
You do not have a lead problem. You have three problems wearing one mask.
Legal / family law one request for more, split into the three real problems behind it
You do not have a traffic problem.
Expert-led services / coaching community Teaching case · method, not a client metric
You do not have a traffic problem.
Expert-led / coaching reframe adopted live, before a dollar moved
You don't have a lead problem. You never defined the game.
Professional / expert-led services room adopted the reframe live
You don't have a marketing problem. You have three wearing one mask.
Mobile cash-pay house-call practice honest tracking uncovered three hidden problems
03

The reports look good but the money is not there.

23 diagnoses
67 leads they paid for never reached the case system.
Legal / family law 67 paid leads found missing
Every conversion on the dashboard was fake.
B2B professional services 100% and 68% of conversions found fake
He had been burned once. A promise was never going to move him.
Financial advisory / professional services skeptic to "I see how it would work"
Name your last three wins. Now open each record.
Services / agency wins finally carried a real source
The ROAS looked great. The bank account disagreed.
E-commerce / DTC apparel real blended ROAS 2.02x to ~2.9x
The analytics said four sales. The store said eleven.
E-commerce / DTC supplements a 2x undercount caught before spend moved
The audit made the numbers look worse. That was the point.
B2B components distribution reported success rate corrected, double digits to under 1%
The booking rate looked perfect. No one was booking.
Mobile cash-pay house-call practice cost per booked patient ~$250 to ~$76
The conversion rate dropped to under one percent. That was the win.
B2B parts distribution / lead generation reported conversion rate 11% to under 1%, the honest baseline
The conversions were not real. A page refresh counted as two bookings.
Mobile cash-pay house-call practice true cost per patient down about 70%
The dashboard showed conversions. Almost none of them were real.
B2B professional services conversion data exposed as almost entirely fake
The demo requests were coming in. The analytics had stopped counting them.
B2B SaaS ~2 months of dropped demos recovered as countable leads
The orders looked strong. Only one in three had money behind them.
High-ticket outdoor structures / made-to-order manufacturing ~1 in 3 orders had cleared payment
The orders were climbing. The bank account was not.
High-ticket ecommerce / made-to-order manufacturing only about 1 in 3 orders had real money behind them
The phone was ringing. The cases were not coming.
Legal / personal injury scoreboard moved to signed cases
The pixels were counting sales that never happened.
B2B professional-services training cost per deal cut in half in one month
The same number, counted three ways.
Multi-location specialty medical one number that finally meant one thing
They asked us to grow the one number they were already winning on.
B2B data services / lead generation the plan re-pointed at the number that pays
Two systems that could never agree on the same month.
Online education / subscription SaaS a six-figure monthly budget reconciled to one number
We built it so they could leave. Then they did. It was clean.
B2B SaaS clean exit inside the first month, no lock-in
We checked the dashboard against the bank. The two never agreed.
Cross-industry portfolio reported vs real money reconciled
Your ads were counting the wrong moment.
Ecommerce / DTC apparel real blended return 2.02x to about 2.9x
Your marketing is working. That is the problem.
Specialty dental a validated, data-backed diagnosis and a re-sellable method
04

My website is not turning visitors into clients.

8 diagnoses
The clicks were real. They just didn't trust you yet.
Specialty dental / orofacial pain located the wall downstream of the click
800 visitors. Almost no form fills. The funnel was not broken.
B2B professional services corrected diagnosis (teaching)
The best idea was the one nobody would buy.
Solo-founder methodology / digital products a model pivot to high-ticket
It was never the website. It was the path.
Custom-home / construction website conversion rate +442%
Stop selling the house. Sell the first step.
Custom-home / construction a first step a not-yet-ready buyer could say yes to
You do not need a website. You need an asset.
Specialty dental / surgical specialist a face-lift reframed into an independent, measurable asset
Your best salesperson asks questions. Most homepages just talk.
Custom-home / construction a homepage that asks before it points
Your best work is the wrong thing to sell first.
Solo-founder methodology / digital product offer reordered, demand tested before the big build
05

We have hit a ceiling and I am carrying it.

11 diagnoses
She was told her business was too complicated. The real problem was aim.
Health / integrative practice Decisional clarity (no metric by design)
The marketing was working. The business still would not grow.
Medical technology the constraint was downstream, not the marketing
The marketing worked. The business still stalled.
Medical / cash-pay specialty practice the constraint named, the work handed back intact
He kept improving the offer. The pipeline kept stalling.
B2B data services / lead generation Teaching diagnosis · the founder named as the real ceiling
He was sure he needed more traffic. He was the bottleneck.
Coaching / expert-led community correct diagnosis adopted, named live
She thought scaling meant ten times the people. It did not.
Legal / family law founder moved from operator to system author
The ads were not the ceiling. The founders were.
Health / DTC supplement cost to win a customer ~5x lower in testing, no price cut
The marketing was never the problem.
Specialty medical practice a correct diagnosis on the founder's own numbers
The smartest person in the company was the thing holding it back.
Online education / subscription structural, decisions moved off one desk
You cannot hire your way out of a growth plateau.
Founder-led services three problems under one mask, named
You did not fall in love with the mission. You fell in love with the app.
Consumer community / platform Governed pivot, founder bought in
06

My category will not let me advertise.

7 diagnoses
The ban was the smallest problem they had.
DTC natural products / health clean diagnosis, real ceiling named
The one thing he wanted to say was the one thing he could not print.
Financial advisory / wealth management skeptic moved to a clear yes (teaching, qualitative)
The platform banned the claim. The brand did not need it.
Health / wellness DTC blended return 3.22 across channels
The sentence that sold the product was the one they were not allowed to say.
Health / supplements a compliant page that says what the product is for
They took the claim. So we gave the message a channel of its own.
Health and wellness · DTC account back online, owned channel live
When you cannot promise the result, change what you promise.
Regulated health-device teaching diagnosis · plan documented
You cannot touch the price. You can still win the sale.
E-commerce / DTC accessories a full compliant offer at an untouched price

Recognize your own business in one of these?

The first step is seeing which problem is actually yours, on your own numbers, before anyone changes a thing.

Start with a Second Opinion