Building a Company

Sales are getting harder.
AI is compressing the category
you compete in.
Both problems point to the same structural answer.

The companies that identify the underlying challenge their category forgot — and build the environment around it — stop competing on price and start becoming the kind of company the market understands and values very differently.

Explore a Reset → Not sure yet? Start with a Ceiling Check

If three or more of these are true, keep reading.

  • Deals are won or lost on price or features — not on a fundamentally different understanding of the problem
  • You're growing, but it feels harder than it should — pipeline is there but win rates won't move
  • AI tools are entering your category at lower price points and your competitive argument isn't getting sharper
  • Procurement shows up early. Discounting has become the default way to close
  • You know you're better than your competitors — but the market doesn't seem to know it
You're being shopped instead of chosen. That's not a product problem. That's not a sales problem. It's a category problem — and it has a structural answer.
The Reset
For Founders at $5M–$50M ARR
Format Written memo + working sessions
Duration 4–6 weeks
Investment $50,000
See the full engagement →
The Ceiling Check

Not sure if a Reset is right yet? The Ceiling Check is a focused diagnostic — where your company sits on both moves today, and whether there's a structural move available.

Investment $2,500
Start with a Ceiling Check →
The Framework

Two moves determine what your company becomes.

Every B2B SaaS company is operating inside a category that inherited a question it never chose. Most companies optimize the answer. The ones that escape do two things — in sequence.

Move 01
Identify the underlying challenge — not the question the category inherited
Every category was founded to solve a real business challenge. Over time the answer to that challenge becomes the category's identity — and the original challenge is forgotten. The companies that break out are the ones that return to the underlying challenge and build a new answer to it. That move is structurally unavailable to incumbents. It requires seeing the category from outside the frame you've been competing inside.
What this produces
Buyers stop comparing you to competitors and start evaluating you on your own terms. The conversation moves to the C-suite. Procurement shows up later. Discounting stops being the default close.
Move 02
Build the environment agents depend on — not a workflow they can replicate
AI is compressing multiples across every category where the product is a workflow — a sequence of steps agents can replicate by stitching together other systems. The companies that compound are the ones building environments: places where something irreplaceable accumulates that agents have to operate inside rather than recreate from outside. That accumulation has to be designed for — and it has to be organized around the right underlying challenge, or it compounds the wrong thing.
What this produces
Switching costs that are genuinely structural, not just contractual. A defensible answer to the AI compression question. And a stronger argument for why the company should be understood differently.

Getting Move 1 right (naming the right underlying challenge) without Move 2 (building the environment around it) names the right challenge while remaining structurally replaceable. The insight is correct. The environment isn't there yet.

Getting Move 2 right without Move 1 builds something defensible around the wrong underlying challenge. Real switching costs — but a ceiling that compounds rather than expands.

Getting both right is the only position that compounds without a ceiling — and the only position the market consistently values as something other than infrastructure.

Stage 1
Product-Market Fit
Early differentiation on features. Buyers evaluate you as a product. Sales is straightforward. The category question hasn't hardened yet.
Stage 2
The Ceiling
The company competes on business value but ladders down to product to justify it. Buyers still evaluate it against competitors on the same terms. Commoditization begins. AI accelerates this stage. Most companies live here permanently.
The Unlock
Both Moves Made
The company has identified the underlying challenge and built the environment around it. Buyers stop comparing and start choosing. Pricing power strengthens. The market begins to understand and value the company differently.

Every year inside the same category question is another year of lower-quality logos and discount-driven closes. It's a position the market rarely rewards for long.

The window to make both moves doesn't stay open forever. AI is compressing it from one side. Incumbents who eventually name the right challenge compress it from the other.

The Reset

A structured engagement that maps both moves — and builds the path to them.

The Reset is a company-specific engagement that identifies which underlying challenge your category was built to address, where your company sits on both moves today, and what it takes to make the moves that change what you are — and how the market understands your value.

01
Category map. The inherited question your category is organized around, where it came from, and where the ceiling is. The underlying challenge that hasn't been named yet — and whether you have a credible claim on it.
02
Two-move assessment. Where your company sits on Move 1 and Move 2 today. What the gap is. What it would take to close it — and whether the raw material already exists in what you've built.
03
New narrative. The belief shift that makes the move feel inevitable to buyers. Not a tagline — a new logic for the problem that buyers didn't have language for until you gave it to them. Portable enough to repeat without slides.
04
Proof architecture. What you need to make the new belief stick under real buying pressure. What you already have that counts. What needs to be built — and in what sequence.
05
Environment roadmap. A specific plan for what Move 2 looks like in your product — what needs to accumulate, how it gets designed, and what it looks like when agents have to operate inside it rather than around it.
The Reset — Engagement Details
Format
Written memo + working sessions with founding team
Duration
4–6 weeks
Investment
$50,000
Deliverable
Category map, two-move assessment, new narrative, proof architecture, environment roadmap
Who it's for
Founders at $5M–$50M ARR where the numbers don't match the effort — and who are ready to stop having someone else's conversation
Availability
Limited — a small number of engagements per year
Talk about a Reset →

A 30-minute diagnostic conversation first — to confirm the fit and the move. If it's not right, I'll tell you.

Talk about a Reset

Start the conversation.

Tell me about your situation. I'll respond directly — usually within 24 hours.

I read every submission. No auto-responders.

The Ceiling Check

Not sure you're ready for a Reset? Start here.

The Ceiling Check is a fixed-scope, $2,500 diagnostic that answers one question: is your growth problem an execution problem — or a category ceiling problem? Many founders never need a full Reset. The Ceiling Check tells you which situation you're in — and if a Reset is warranted, it gives you the foundation to begin one.

You send
  • Your latest pitch deck or positioning document
  • 12–24 months of basic growth metrics
  • 3–5 sentences on where growth has stalled
You receive
  • A two-move map of your category
  • Where your company sits on both moves today
  • A verdict: execution problem or category ceiling
  • 3–5 specific implications for next steps

Delivered as a written document within two weeks. No upsell built in — if the Ceiling Check shows you're in a category ceiling situation, we can decide together whether a full Reset is the right next move. That's a separate conversation.

The Ceiling Check
$2,500
Fixed scope · Two weeks
A diagnostic, not a consulting engagement. You get a specific verdict and specific next steps — not a framework to figure out yourself.

I'll reply within 24 hours with next steps.

About
Mike Brady
Founder · Good to Great SaaS

25 years operating inside B2B technology companies — from founding and funding a SaaS platform to running commercial strategy at a $40M agency to executing a category repositioning at Piano that moved $160K transactions to $1M partnerships. The two-move framework is the distillation of that experience applied to a specific problem: what determines whether a B2B SaaS company keeps fighting for growth inside a category ceiling — or becomes something the market understands and values differently.