The Six Lenses
Our diagnostic frame for how a business currently operates and where it’s failing the AI era. Applied in every Readout.
About the firm
A new firm, built for a new moment.
Bledsoe & Co. is a consulting firm for operator-founders running $1M–$10M businesses through the AI-era rewrite of their category. We diagnose first, recommend the path that fits, and build it alongside your team.
Why this firm exists
Three things happened to the consulting industry over the last twenty years that made it worse at its job.
Big strategy firms stopped building.
Decks replaced implementation. Strategy became an output, not an outcome. Most of what gets delivered ends up in a drawer.
Boutiques got methodology-locked.
Every firm has one answer and sells it to everyone. If you sell AI transformation, every client needs AI transformation. The diagnosis bends toward whatever the firm is already set up to sell.
Solo operators became influencers.
The best operator minds left firm structures and built audiences. They teach useful things at scale. They don’t build with you inside your business.
Bledsoe & Co. was built for the gap that created: executive-grade diagnosis, operator-grade strategy, and actual building, in one firm, with a team, engagement by engagement. Honest about which of three paths fits. Built for the AI-era version of the category, not retrofitted from a pre-AI firm model.
How we work
Diagnosis before recommendation
Every engagement starts with The Readout. No exceptions. The firm is built around the commitment.
Recommendation we’d stake the firm on
If the right answer is a path we’d rather not sell, or a firm we don’t work at, that goes in the diagnostic. That’s the agreement.
Build alongside, not instead of
We work with your team, not around them. When the engagement ends, your people run what we built.
Fixed scope before kickoff
You’ll know the timeline, the deliverables, and the investment before the engagement starts. No change-order games.
Who runs this firm
Mike Bledsoe
Founder
Nineteen years building businesses. Consulting operator-founders since 2013. Built and sold Barbell Shrugged. Ran a B2B SaaS serving CrossFit gym owners. Currently building AI-first operations for creative real estate investors.
Bledsoe & Co. is the firm built to deliver that work at scale, for the AI-era version of the category. Mike leads strategy and diagnosis on every engagement.
He also co-hosts the Full Stack Founders podcast with Ted Phaeton.
Additional team members will be named here as the firm’s delivery capacity expands.
Our methodology, briefly
The Two Debts
Tech debt and operational debt, both quantified. Most firms talk about the first. The second is usually larger and almost always unnamed.
The Three Paths
Optimize, Re-architect, The Parallel Build. The structured outcome of every diagnostic.
Mike writes about this work publicly at bledsoe.life/writing. Unlocked, no gate. The thinking is free. The delivery is where the investment goes.
Book The Readout
Two weeks. Five sessions. One honest recommendation.
A written diagnostic with a specific path recommendation. Starts at $10,000.
Book The Readout