I ran two cohorts of my $5K Accelerator. The whole lesson fits in one line:
🟢 Got leads, got a win.
🔴 No leads, no win.

Simple. Easy Measy Peasy (I just made that up) That's all in a nutshell. If you can bear reading another long email, here's a shortcut :

In short :

• The Epic Split in Business : The marketing opportunity cost.
• Revenue is a Vanity Metric : From €1m in revenue, 10 staff, 7% in profit → Multiple 6-figure profits, 2 founders
• The $10k Accelerator : The $5k Retrospective, Proof, Improvements, "The Leadless Squad"
• The Academy Workshops : Exclusive discounts up to 80% for this newsletter readers

The Epic Split in Business

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Most engineers when we run a business, instead of respecting the laws of physics (and business), we are constantly like Jean-Claude Van Damme “Defying the laws of physics” with the Epic Split for The Volvo Truck Ad.

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I think we believe we can be the Jean-Claude Van Damme of business “Defying the laws of physics” doing the Epic Split for The Volvo.

Some push it even further, taking pride in calling themselves “Serial Entrepreneurs” (🙋🏻‍♂️Guilty ! )

While actually, it’s worse... As engineers we should know better.
This should be called being a “// Parallel Entrepreneur”

There’s nothing wrong owning two businesses, even 10.
There’s a problem being operational in more than one.

First wisdom comes from “Chase two rabbits 🐰🐰 , catch none 💨”

Let's go back to when we have one business, but serving different segments.

💎 Here are few thoughts that helped me navigate the whole "Niching Down" Equation

• Niching down is not about who we decide to work with, but who we decide to attract more of
• Niching down is not an elimination of all other segments. It's a replacement that happens one client at a time.
• Niching down is not about not working with other businesses, but it's about realising they create a marketing opportunity cost (your case study about The pharmaceutical company doesn't increase your value in the eye of the Aerospace buyer)

Revenue is a Vanity Metric

Yes, we've built a service business to €1-1.5m in revenue. What's the reality ? 70% goes to subcontractors. 30% was our real-revenue.

From that we paid all operations. €300,000 with 10 people on payroll you don't go far in Central & Western Europe.

We were left, as 3 co-founders with 7-10%.

Here are the financial metrics I look at for a small B2B service firm :

1. Strategic Revenue (per year) : <€30k | €30-100k | €100k+ → Positioning (How much revenue comes from strategic deals)
2. Revenue per FTE (per year): <€100k | €100-250k | >€250k+ → Effectiveness
3. Net profit (per year): <€100k | €100-300k | €1m → Financial Performance

These are just references for boutique, <12 people, engineering services firms that want to get out of the vendor zone, heavy on T&M and labor arbitrage.

After covid our B2B service business went from

• People On Payroll 10 → 2
• Revenue Per FTE €110k → €300k
• Net profit : €70k → €250k

One of my goals next year is to help many technical founders close $100k+ in strategic revenue per year. What I call strategic revenue is paid-strategy, discovery, diagnostic ... it's typically the first step in a bigger engagement. That is shown separately, paid upfront and priced against an outcome, a result or a transformation.

The $10k Accelerator

Looking at the ROI of the technical founders who joined "The First $5k Client Accelerator" cohorts (2x), totalling 10 people.

The ROI based on Strategic revenue generated is about 2x.

And it leads to 3.6x to 8x ROI from the total revenue depending on each one's specific context.

It's is not bad considering :

• The cohort 1 seat was $2,500, The cohort 2 seat was $5,800 (+/- on going payment plans)
• It's the first year I am doing group coaching.

Full disclosure, the program did well at the "Convert", but not so well at the "Attract" part. That's something I am set to fix in the next 6 weeks and before the end of 2026

My 6-week Game Plan before I open registrations for the next Accelerator cohort : a 90-day Program starting in January 2027.

1. Build stronger proof so that I can call it "The First $10k Strategy Accelerator" by helping current members close $10k strategy deals
2. Open doors for a small group of technical founders "The Leadless Squad" to get better leads before 2027

Why $10k Strategy?

A strategic engagement for engineering firms is a de-risking mechanism before opening the door to bigger implementation projects in the 6 figures or multiple. It's the key to be ready when we get a lead that is a good first to start all our engagement with a paid diagnostic phase. It's the biggest lever in building the foundations for our most profitable million !

But the first step that is the main bottleneck for everyone I worked with is : Picking The Niche.
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The Academy

I will soon close my original "Engineers Can Talk" 🥲 community and create an "Engineers Can Sell Academy" 🎓 where I will host regular workshops and challenges to help technical founders in their early steps in the journey build strong foundations. More on this soon, but first here's the model. The first third is about "Surfacing" the niche, next we build our offer, then we network like pros !

Next Wednesday,Nov 11th, 2026, I am running a 3-hour workshop to help a small group of technical founders niche the hell down and start to get juicy🥤leads before 2027 starts.

Would you like to join us?

PS – I'm running a small pricing experiment for this workshop, click the discount link you want, if not available try the next one, if no 20% discount is available it's the full price of €100.
​Discount links : -80% | -60% | -40% | -20%​

"Niche" Oth