Work with me directly
The Expensive Part Is Not the Information.
Everything you need to know about running your business is free and searchable, and that has not helped as much as everybody expected. Knowing what to do has stopped being the hard part. Working out which of the forty reasonable things to do first, and then actually doing it while the week is on fire, is the hard part. That is what this is for.
Which one you need
One label, three genuinely different jobs.
People use these words interchangeably and then end up buying the wrong one. The distinction matters because the fix is different in each case.
You are missing information
There is a specific thing you do not know: how this is normally structured, what the sequence should be, where this usually breaks, what it costs when it does. Somebody who has built it before looks at what you have and tells you.
This one has a clean ending. You get the answer and you go and use it. If that is what you need, it should not turn into a relationship with a monthly invoice.
You have the information already
Everything you need is in front of you and nothing is moving. More analysis will not help, and buying another course definitely will not. Something else is going on, and it is usually not laziness.
This is the one people are most reluctant to name, and the one where the largest amount of money tends to be stuck. It is slower and less comfortable than consulting.
The plan is right, the delivery is not
The strategy holds up and the execution is quietly coming apart in the middle, usually in a handoff nobody owns. From the inside it feels like a strategy problem, which is why so many good plans get abandoned and replaced with worse ones.
Most of my hours land here, and it is the least glamorous of the three by a wide margin.
You do not have to work out which one you are in. That is the first thing the call sorts out, and people are wrong about it often enough that guessing in advance is a waste of your time.
What this actually is
You are renting a judgment, not a process.
When we build something for you through I Ninja LLC, you end up owning a system: built, supported, documented and handed to your team. Coaching is the opposite kind of thing to buy. Nothing gets delivered, there is no platform at the end of it and nothing to hand over, because what you are paying for is judgment applied to your situation, and the value of that is entirely a function of whose judgment it is.
So it is fair to ask why mine should be worth anything. Thirty years of operating is part of it. The other part is that I have spent twenty-five years and mid to high six figures of my own money on learning how to think about this, and close to a hundred and seventy books since January 2025 alone. Not to resell any of it as a course. I did it because I wanted to know, and because nobody was coming to teach me.
It is capped and scoped on purpose. Open ended retainers are good for the person being paid and bad for almost everybody else, because they remove the pressure to actually finish anything. We agree what we are doing and roughly how long it should take. If it turns out to need less than that, it ends sooner.
Start here
Fifteen minutes, free, and genuinely only fifteen minutes.
Not a discovery call that is really a sales presentation. The point is to work out which of the three things above you are in, and whether I am any use to you. You will get a straight read on that, including the version where the honest answer is that you do not need anybody right now.
And if it turns out what you need is a system built rather than a conversation, that is still me and still this same call. You do not get sent away to start again somewhere else or handed off to a different process. We work out what the problem actually is, then decide whether it gets solved by coaching, by something we build for you, or by both.
There is no pitch at the end of it. If we both think it is a good fit, the next step is a demo where I walk you through exactly how the thing works, and that one is free as well. Nothing is sold to you on either call. You see it properly and then decide in your own time, with nobody sitting on the line waiting for an answer.
Bring the thing that is annoying you most. That is enough preparation.
You are booking with me, not a setter.
Ian M Lacovara. In technology since 1996, Trinity County, California.
This is also the call for the sales role and for partnerships
The same fifteen minutes covers both sides of the table. If you are here to find out what I could do for your business, book it. If you are here about the Sales Representative role or about becoming a Revenue Partner, book the same one. You do not need a different link, a different form or a different person, and nobody is going to tell you that you have come through the wrong door.
Say which it is when you book so I can come prepared, and if it turns out you are actually interested in both, that is a normal conversation rather than a complication. The same rule applies either way: there is no pitch, and no recruiting pitch either. If the arrangement does not suit you, I would rather you heard that from me in the first fifteen minutes than work it out six weeks in.
If the calendar does not load, a browser extension is usually blocking it. Email ianl@i-ninja-llc.com or use the contact form and we will find a time the ordinary way.
Be honest with yourself here
Three situations where I am the wrong person for you.
Wanting somebody to build it for you is not on this list, because that is not a mismatch. It just means the answer is a system rather than coaching, and we work that out on the same call. These three are different, and none of them cost you anything to discover, because the call is free either way.
- You want to be told you are right. Occasionally you will be. More often the useful part of a conversation is the part you did not want to hear, and if that is going to end things then it is better we find out on a free call than three months in.
- The business cannot survive the next ninety days. Coaching is the wrong instrument in an emergency. You need cash, a specific operational fix, or both, and that is a different conversation. Tell me that is the situation and I will say so.
- You are collecting mentors. If you already have three coaches and a mastermind, adding a fourth voice will not fix anything. The problem at that point is too much input, not too little, and I would rather tell you that than start working together.
What this is like in practice
The largest group of testimonials on this site is about this.
Eleven of the forty-two are not about a system or a credit file. They are about what it was like to work with me, which I did not expect when I counted them.
Ian is excellent! Listens and responds. Knows how to get to what you need and how to guide you to where you want to be. Can't recommend him highly enough, but I certainly will!
Ian did a wonderful job. Educated me and answered all my questions. Definitely will work with this company again!
Ian does a fantastic job, he goes right to work. Doesn't put you off like a lot of people do.
Straight answers
Before you book
What does it cost?
It depends on which of the three things you need and how long it runs, so a price list on this page would be a fiction. What I will not do is make you sit through a presentation to find out. Ask on the call and you will get a number and a scope, in that conversation or shortly after it. No obligation and no pressure, and if the number does not work for you that is a perfectly fine outcome. I would rather you knew early than be walked slowly toward it.
Is the fifteen minute call actually free?
Yes, completely free, and it is actually fifteen minutes. It is not a trial lesson, a strategy session that turns into a pitch at minute forty, or a qualification call run by somebody else. There is no pitch at the end of it. If we both think it is a good fit, the next step is a demo where I walk you through how everything works, and that is free too. Nothing is sold on either call. If we end the first one after eleven minutes because the answer was obvious, that is a good outcome rather than a failure.
How is this different from the courses I have already bought?
A course is one set of answers sold to everybody, which is why it is affordable and also why the hardest part is never covered. Courses teach you what to do. They cannot tell you which part applies to your business this quarter, and they definitely cannot notice that you have been avoiding one specific conversation for four months. I have bought a very large number of courses myself, so this is not a criticism of the format. It is a statement about what it can and cannot reach.
Do you work with people outside the United States?
Yes for coaching and consulting, which are conversations and travel fine. The constraint is time zones rather than geography, and I am in California, so somewhere in Europe or Asia means one of us is up early or late. Credit work is different because it depends on the United States credit system, so that part does not transfer.
Will you sign an NDA?
Yes, and I am used to working under one. I spent three years moderating language model output under an agreement that is still active, which is why there is almost nothing about it on the credentials page. Your business, your numbers and whatever you tell me on a call do not get used as examples anywhere, with or without a document in place.
Next step
Fifteen minutes is a small bet.
You either leave with a clearer idea of what is actually wrong, or you lose a quarter of an hour. I have taken considerably worse odds than that.