Everest versus doing it alone
You will get there alone. The question is what it costs you on the way.
Every founder in Everest was already a capable operator who could have worked it out eventually. What they bought was the three years it would have taken, the margin leaked while learning, and the decisions nobody around them was qualified to challenge. Here is how the options compare.
Five ways founders try to break the ceiling
Swipe sideways on a phone to see every column.
| Everest | Do it alone | General business coach | Mixed peer group | Hire a COO | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Knows IT services economics | Only IT services and SI founders | You do, partly | Rarely | One or two in the room | If you hire well |
| Benchmarks from firms like yours | 150+ firms, nine Keys, quarterly | No | No | Anecdotal | Their last firm |
| Works the numbers weekly | Yes, EBIT Dial every week | When you remember | Goals, not numbers | Monthly at best | Yes, inside the current model |
| Changes pricing and positioning | First 90 days | Slowly | Generic | Opinions | Not their role |
| Builds the leadership layer | Role Reset Framework | Trial and error | In theory | No | Becomes the layer |
| Time to a measurable result | One 90 Day Sprint | Two to three years | Varies | Varies | Six months plus the hire |
| Cost | See programs | Leaked margin and time | Monthly fee | Annual fee | Senior salary plus equity |
What doing it alone actually looks like
It looks like competence. The firm grows, the work is good, and the founder is the busiest person in it.
Rates drift because nobody forces the conversation. A client becomes 40 percent of revenue because the work kept coming. The best consultant leaves for a global SI and the founder blames the salary rather than the missing career framework. Marketing happens in the quiet months. The leadership team has titles and no guardrails. And every quarter the founder promises to work on the business as soon as this program ships.
Three years later the firm is bigger, the margin is thinner, and it is worth less per dollar of revenue than it was. Not because the founder was wrong, but because nobody with the right experience was in the room to say so at the time.
What changes inside Everest
- Nine Keys scored on day one, so the work starts on the weakest Key rather than the favourite one.
- A weekly session, a weekly set of numbers, and a cohort of IT services founders who will notice if either slips.
- Three levers per Key, each with a seven day action, drawn from what has worked in 150+ firms rather than what sounds right.
- Ian in the room: 28 years in IT professional services, his own firm built and sold, six client exits worth $230M combined.
- A 90 Day Sprint that ends with a comparison against the baseline, not a feeling about progress.
- Everest Basecamp for firms under 10 staff, Ascent for 10 to 40, Summit for 40 to 200 with an executive team. Compare the three.
Founders who stopped doing it alone
We stopped guessing about growth and started working a plan.
The mastermind put me in a room with founders solving the same problems a year ahead of me.
When you really need to execute, having someone give you exactly the next steps saves a lot of time and money learning the costly mistakes yourself.
The questions behind the comparison
- Why not just hire a COO and skip the coaching?
- A good COO is worth hiring, and most Everest founders hire one by year two. A COO runs the firm you have. Coaching changes the firm you are building: the pricing, the positioning, the leadership design and the founder’s own role. The two are not substitutes, and a COO hired before those decisions are made inherits the wrong firm.
- I am already in a peer group. Is Everest different?
- Peer groups are valuable for perspective and company. Most are mixed industry, so nobody in the room can tell you whether 61 percent utilisation is a crisis or a quiet month. Everest is only IT services and SI founders, works a defined method, and measures the numbers every quarter.
- What does it cost compared with doing nothing?
- Doing nothing has a price too; it is just not on an invoice. Four points of gross margin on a $5M firm is $200,000 a year. A client at 40 percent of revenue knocks a multiple off the valuation. Everest Basecamp is priced for a firm under 10 staff and Ascent for 10 to 40; the programs page sets out what each includes.
- Can I do the 90 Day Sprint on my own with the guides?
- You can, and the guides are written to be used that way. What most founders cannot supply alone is the weekly accountability, the benchmark numbers from firms like theirs, and someone who has made the call before telling them which lever not to pull. That is what the program adds.
Find out what alone is costing you.
The scorecard takes six minutes and names the Key. The strategy call puts a number on it.