Investment & Strategic Advisory
High-stakes decisions don't fail because of missing data. They fail because no one asked the right question.
Commercial due diligence, market sizing, and strategic positioning — for founders, boards, and investors navigating decisions that don't have obvious answers.
WHEN IT APPLIES
Four inflection points where outside perspective changes the outcome.
This is not a retainer service. It's for specific, high-stakes moments where the quality of the question asked determines the quality of the decision made.
| Preparing for a fundraise
Investors will interrogate your GTM story, your market sizing, and your commercial trajectory before they interrogate your product. We stress-test the commercial narrative before you're in the room — so you're not finding the holes under pressure.
| Evaluating a commercial acquisition or partnership
The financial model says it works. But does the GTM thesis hold? Is the target's commercial position as defensible as it looks? We bring the commercial due diligence layer that purely financial analysis misses.
| Entering a new market or segment
TAM calculations are easy to produce and easy to overstate. We build bottom-up market sizing with territory-level analysis — so the board sees a credible number with a credible path, not a top-down estimate that won't survive a second question.
| Strategic positioning at a crossroads
Category pivot. Pricing model change. New ICP. These decisions have long lead times and longer consequences. We work through the commercial implications before the announcement — not after the market reacts.
WHAT WE BRING
Three things that don't come from a financial model.
Every engagement draws on the same three capabilities — applied to whatever decision is on the table.
Capability 01
Commercial pattern recognition
Experience across B2B SaaS and fintech markets, seeing enough GTM architectures, positioning failures, and market entry attempts to recognise patterns that don't show up in a single company's data. The question "have you seen this before?" usually has a useful answer.
Capablity 02
Analytical rigour without the model dependency
We build bottom-up market analyses, vintage comparisons, cohort breakdowns, and competitive landscapes with the same discipline as a dedicated research team, without the overhead. The output is decision-ready, not presentation-ready.
Capability 03
The question behind the question
Most advisory engagements start with one stated question and surface a more important one during the work. We're built for that. The value is rarely in confirming the thesis you came in with, it's in finding the assumption that was quietly wrong.
Engagement types
What a typical engagement looks like.
Every situation is different. These are the most common formats, each scoped to the decision at hand, not to a standard retainer structure.
Commercial due diligence
2–4 weeks · investors & acquirers
Independent assessment of a target company's commercial position, GTM architecture, ICP defensibility, pipeline quality, positioning strength, and competitive moat. Structured as a written report with an executive readout. Designed to answer the question a financial model cannot: is the commercial story credible?
Market sizing & territory analysis
2–3 weeks · founders & boards
Bottom-up TAM analysis with territory-level segmentation, number of addressable accounts, ACV assumptions by segment, priority sequencing, and a 12-month conversion model. Built to withstand investor scrutiny, not just to support a narrative already decided.
GTM readiness assessment
2–3 weeks · pre-raise or pre-scale
Structured review of whether a company's GTM architecture can support the ARR trajectory implied by the round they're raising or the growth plan they're presenting. Covers territory design, pipeline discipline, sales cycle assumptions, and marketing contribution, the commercial story behind the financial model.
Strategic positioning review
3–4 weeks · leadership teams
For companies at a strategic inflection point, category pivot, pricing model change, new segment entry, or competitive repositioning. We map the commercial implications of each path before the decision is made, including the assumptions that would need to hold for each option to work.
Board & investor advisory
Ongoing · selected engagements
Ongoing commercial advisory for boards and investment teams, quarterly reviews, ad hoc input on specific decisions, and a standing external perspective on commercial trajectory. Selective, we take on a small number of these at any one time to maintain quality and genuine engagement.
ANALYTICAL APPROACH
Three-layer analysis. In fixed sequence.
Every market or commercial analysis we produce follows the same sequence — because each step is an epistemic prerequisite for the next.
Step 01
Clean the reference frame
Normalise the data before drawing any conclusions. Without a clean reference, all comparisons are technically valid but factually unreliable, comparing against a crooked ruler. We establish the baseline before we interpret anything.
Step 02
Test for structural drift
Verify whether patterns hold consistently across cohorts, vintages, or segments or whether market conditions have introduced structural drift. Without this step, you cannot aggregate. You must segment. Most analyses skip this and produce confident conclusions from unstable data.
Step 03
Build interpretable narrative
Behavioural profiles with explanatory logic, not numbers without answers. The output is decision-ready: a clear statement of what the data shows, what it doesn't show, and what the decision-maker should do with it. No ambiguity about the recommendation.
WHAT YOU GET
Outputs built for decisions, not presentations.
Every engagement produces a written output, structured for the decision-maker, not for an audience.
01.
Commercial due diligence report
A written assessment of a target's commercial position, structured, evidence-based, and designed to survive hard questions from a board or investment committee. Includes an executive summary built for non-commercial readers.
02.
Market sizing
model
Bottom-up TAM with territory segmentation, ACV assumptions by ICP tier, and a 12-month conversion model. Built in a format your team can update, not a black box that requires the original analyst to interpret.
03.
GTM readiness assessment
Structured review of whether the commercial architecture supports the growth trajectory implied by the plan. Covers pipeline coverage, territory design, sales cycle assumptions, and the marketing contribution required. Red flags identified explicitly.
04.
Strategic options analysis
For positioning or strategic decisions, a structured comparison of available paths, with the assumptions each requires, the risks each carries, and a clear recommendation on which to pursue and in what sequence.
"The market is not the constraint. The quality of the question is."
Hergeth Consulting, Investment & Strategic Advisory
NEXT STEP
The right question at the right moment is the work.
A 30-minute conversation to understand the decision you're facing and whether we're the right fit to help you think through it.
No deck required. Confidentiality assumed from the first conversation.