"I Can Do Anything" Is a Terrible Pitch

I build AI-powered systems. I automate workflows. I embed with product teams. I teach people to use tools that didn't exist a year ago.

I'm genuinely good at it. It animates me. The satisfaction of giving people a product or skills they previously thought was impossible is immense. The thing I am working harder to navigate is the craft of the consultant. The positioning. The offering. The sell. Because, as it turns out, "I can do anything" is not a great pitch.

My prospective clients have a problem. "Anything" might encompass their solution, but it's very likely that it takes some knowledge and imagination to connect the two. If they can't see that connection, they can't buy it. On the other end of the spectrum, "anything" not only makes it harder for those potential customers to know who I'm for, but also for me to know who I'm not for.

How I Got Here

I have worked at tech companies big and small. I've been shipping software professionally for nearly two decades and with AI tools for the last few years. I have real clients and real results.

That work came through warm intros and relationships.

For so many, I'm offering lightning in a bottle. Once I'm able to get a small opportunity, I solve the problem, trust compounds, and the work expands. It's a great dynamic once you're in it.

But I still need to be able to manage my pipeline beyond essentially depending upon the kindness of others.

I can't control the supply of warm intros. I can't scale "someone I trust vouches for me." And I definitely can't pitch "I can do anything" to someone who doesn't already know me. So I'm doing what any good product person would do. Customer development.

My Current Theory of the Case

I'm working through an Ikigai framework: what I enjoy doing, what I'm good at, what the world needs, and what people will pay for. With everything in the AI space moving so quickly and still being so ill defined, it felt like the right lens.

I have a handful of potential directions I'm currently evaluating based on my experiences, conversations I've had and my notion of where this is headed.

1. Fractional technical leadership for non-technical organizations

An org has pain, doesn't have a technical team, and is drowning in manual work. I become their trusted technical brain. I identify waste, automate processes, rebuild systems.

Ikigai score: Strong across the board. This is my most validated offering. I have paying clients. The scope keeps expanding. But the engagements I've landed came through warm intros I didn't manufacture. I need to figure out how to create this dynamic on purpose.

2. AI-powered building (fast delivery using AI tools)

Someone needs software built and either doesn't have a team or their team is underwater. I build it fast using AI tools. Sometimes what they need isn't even AI. They just need solid engineering. But "AI" is what gets me in the room.

Ikigai score: Strong, but partially arbitrage. I'm fast because I know tools most people don't. That speed advantage has a shelf life.

3. Embedding with product teams to build AI capability

A product team knows they should be using AI but nothing has changed. I embed with them, work on real outcomes alongside them, and when I leave the capability stays.

Ikigai score: Mixed. I believe in this deeply. I've pitched it. Nobody's bought it. That's data I can't ignore but I also need to really commit to validating it.

4. Hands-on co-building sessions

I sit with someone and we build something real together. One friend expected his project to take a quarter. We finished in two sessions, and he deliberately didn't ask me for help between them because he wanted to prove he could figure it out. Another came in, we built one thing, and in the week since he's built four more on his own. A Chrome plugin, a CRM integration, an email CLI, an engagement scoring tool. He went from zero to solving his own problems. That's the pattern: I remove the first wall, and people keep running.

Ikigai score: This is where the joy is most visible. People love these sessions. I've done them for free and informally. One person told me unprompted to charge $500 for a 90-minute version and offered to help sell it. Whether that's a standalone business is an open question.

5. Packaged courses and educational content

Take what I know and put it into a scalable format. Courses, workshops, content.

Ikigai score: The market exists but I'm not sure it plays to my strengths. The most impactful learning I've seen happens when it's hands-on, practical, and tailored to someone's actual problem. I can produce educational content. But I see it more as part of a system that drives towards the other things I do than as a thing in and of itself.

The Honest Grid

Offering	Enjoy	Good At	Needed	Paid	Validated?
Fractional Tech Partner	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Most validated
Builder for Hire	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Partially
Embedded Product Partner	Yes	Yes	Probably	Unknown	Unvalidated
Co-Building Sessions	Most	Yes	Yes	Unknown	Loved, not paid
Online Courses	Maybe	Probably	Yes	Probably	Not started

Looking at that table is uncomfortable. The thing that pays the most has the hardest sales cycle. The thing that brings me the most joy isn't a business yet. The thing I've been actively pitching hasn't seen a nibble.

What the Framework Surfaced

A few tensions became impossible to ignore.

The trust bottleneck. Once I get a small opportunity, I deliver. The scope expands. Clients stay. But that first opportunity almost always comes through someone who already trusts me introducing me to someone who needs help. The question isn't "what do I sell?" It's "how do I get in front of the right people in a way that builds enough trust to begin?"

The pitch-reality gap. I've been telling people about the embedded product partner offering. I believe in it. I can articulate the value. Nobody has bitten. That means either the pain isn't acute enough, the framing is wrong, or I'm talking to the wrong people. I need to figure out which one before I invest more energy here.

Joy isn't revenue (yet). The co-building sessions are always a win. The stories I mentioned above are real. But I've been giving that away. I don't know if people will pay for it, what the right price point is, or whether it works better as a standalone offering or as a trust-building mechanism that leads to bigger engagements.

Capability without clarity is useless. I can do all five of these things well. That doesn't matter if I can't clearly communicate which one I do, for whom, and why they should care. "I can do anything" is only impressive in my head. In the market, it's noise. And as the market matures and specializes, it will be less and less true.

What I'm Testing Now

I'm not solving this by thinking harder. I'm treating these tensions as hypotheses.

Hypothesis 1: The embedded product partner offering hasn't closed because the buyer (Head of Product, VP Eng) doesn't see AI capability as their problem to solve. I'm going to talk to five people on my "fear list." These are prospects I've been avoiding. People where the conversation went quiet, or where I never followed up because the silence felt like an answer. I'm going to find out if it actually was.

Hypothesis 2: People will pay for co-building sessions if I frame them as outcomes, not education. "Build and ship in 90 minutes" is a different pitch than "learn AI tools." I need to test pricing and packaging.

Hypothesis 3: The fractional technical partner model can be replicated, not just stumbled into. There has to be a way to manufacture the trust-building dynamic without depending on warm intros. Maybe content is that mechanism. Maybe co-building sessions are. I need to find out.

Why I'm Sharing This

I'm sharing this because solving problems is the easy part for me. Give me a broken process, a product that needs building, a team that needs unblocking, and I can disappear into it and come out with something great. What's harder is stepping back and treating the business itself with the same rigor. Sharing publicly forces that.

It also lets me lean into something I already have. Every client I've landed came through my network. That's the constraint I'm trying to solve, but it's also evidence that I have a wonderful community of friends, colleagues and collaborators who trust me enough to make those introductions. I don't want to frame that as only a weakness. I want to build on it.

This is Part 1. I'll update as the data comes in. I'll share what my conversations reveal, whether people actually pay for co-building sessions, and whether I figure out how to manufacture trust at scale.

If any of this resonates, I'd love to hear from you. Especially if you're:

• A product or engineering leader who knows your team should be using AI but hasn't figured out how to start
• Running an org without a technical team and drowning in manual work that feels like it should be automated by now
• Someone trying to adopt AI tools personally and hitting a wall between the hype and actually getting something done

In exchange, I'm happy to share what I've seen work and what hasn't, both for individuals trying to build with AI and organizations trying to adopt it. Not to sell. To learn. And if what I'm learning is useful to you, even better.