We make the other people in the room smarter

 

A team of educators and designers, we help organizations

discover what really matters to the people they serve—

and build the capacity to deliver it. 

 

Deep Research

Through interviews, observations, and experiments, we discover what drives your customers, constituents and other stakeholders. 

Organizational Transformation

Even the strongest teams rarely know how they get their best work done—or how to get better. We help your organization name those tacit skills, mindsets and understandings that operate under the hood, and create a shared roadmap for onboarding, feedback and strategy. 

High-stakes Storytelling

Whether you’re building a pitch for funders, a promise for customers, or a vision for your own people—we help you find where Why should the world care? meets Why do you?

Dan has a knack for finding people and organizations right at the moment when he can make a big impact. He helped our team work through our assumptions about what our company’s core business is, what it’s next stage of growth could be, and how to develop our people to thrive in that future.

Dan’s superpower is sparking those moments of clarity that help a team reframe its brand or value proposition—and then navigating the complex conversations that get the rest of the organization on board. He’s a gifted facilitator who knows how to work with many executive styles, and an asset to any company looking to sort its strategy!
— Tom Keefe, Principal, Oxeon Partners
An exceptional interviewer, Dan pushes, pokes, and probes (in the kindest way) until you have sorted out your thinking and come to a much more meaningful place than where you started.

Conversations with Dan leave me inspired.
— Fred Leichter, Director, The Hive
Dan has become our go-to expert for making our complex ideas clear. Whether we’re overhauling a pitch or refining an investor deck, Dan shifts our focus from individual trees to the entire forest. And as our story gets more compelling and concise, we’re driving deeper, more meaningful conversations with customers—and investors.
— Shawn Harris, Co-founder & CEO of Coworked
Dan’s one of the most gifted listeners I have ever met—and a natural teacher. He doesn’t just deliver recommendations, he works alongside us, so that after it’s over we’re still saying “How would Dan look at this?” or “How would he say what we’re seeing?”
— Barbra Rabson, President and CEO, Massachusetts Health Quality Partners
Dan’s our compass. He keeps us clear on the core value we’re offering—what our clients really want and what we really care about. He keeps us focused on the problem we solve better than anybody else out there, and plugged in to our reasons for doing what we do…so when we put ourselves out there—through the service we offer, or how we talk to prospects—we’re saying something true and authentic.
— George Boyar, fmr Chief of Staff, Mentor Collective
We’re a literary organization full of great writers, but we’ve struggled for years to get our brand right. It felt impossible to find a single message that captured all the different parts of who we are, why we matter, and why our stakeholders should care.
Dan helped us peel back the layers to get to what we really mean. The whole team is thrilled with our new branding: it’s honest, authentic, and aspirational.
— Eve Bridburg, Executive Director, GrubStreet
Dan has an uncanny ability to ask the right question. When he’s coaching me or the teams I lead, Dan helps us see the situation we’re in more clearly, identify the obstacles that are getting in our way, and recognize the opportunities we could take advantage of. I leave our conversations feeling like I’m focused on the goals that can make the greatest impact, right now.
— Emilee Harris, fmr. Director of Middle School Math, KIPP NYC
 
Dan is our secret weapon for storytelling—a spellcaster who helps CEOs boil down their stories from maple sap into sweet maple sugar. Techstars has dozens of talented mentors, but none are better than Dan at helping CEOs craft a narrative that gets straight to the heart of what makes their company unique—that captures the impact only they can make. Every team he worked with increased their customer-base and were oversubscribed in subsequent funding rounds.
— Ty Danco, fmr. Director, Techstars Boston
Dan’s human-centered approach to problem-solving has been crucial in helping us work through important challenges we’ve faced as a startup, like better articulating the value proposition of our product, improving our client on-boarding experience, and finding better ways to support and communicate with each other as a team. The inquiry process he takes us through helps us reframe our challenges—and generate new and original solutions to seemingly intractable problems.
— Cristina Herndon, fmr. Director of Partner Relations, Mainstay
Dan makes you feel like you and your situation are the only things that matter right now. He listens deeply, captures what you really mean, and offers back a few small insights or connections that open up a completely different understanding—a path forward you can actually follow, because it comes out of what you really believe. In my 30+ years in education, there is no one that I’ve met that has this ability to truly help you be better.
— Michael Caraco, Dean of Faculty, Burr and Burton Academy


Designing the future of learning spaces with architects and educators at Harvard’s Learning Environments for Tomorrow.

Rebranding with Taylor & Hart.

Problem-solving with Keystone Strategy.