— AI Performance Firm · Est. 30+ years in transformation
Most AI pilots die in six months. Yours doesn’t have to.
An AI agent is only as good as the problem it’s solving for PEOPLE, the context it operates in, and the growth it drives. We fix all three — under one framework, with scalable outcomes in days or weeks.
30+ Years Fortune 500
J&J · McKesson · IBM · EY
Change Leader | Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt
Wiley · 4 published books
AI or Die · 2025
— The Motivation · Three wounds
Three forces are quietly killing your AI ROI.
01
The Pilot Graveyard.
Most enterprise AI pilots never reach production. Not because the technology fails — because the problem was never sharp enough to begin with. Teams build to a fuzzy objective, ship a demo, and watch it die in the gap between interesting and useful.
CB Insights · McKinsey · IDC all converge: 70-85% of AI initiatives stall pre-production.
02
The Broken Data / Context Foundation
AI never gets “street smart.” Not because the models are weak — because the data underneath is fragmented, stale, and stripped of context. Teams launch copilots on broken pipes, watch them hallucinate, and lose trust in the gap between promise and proof.
CB Insights · McKinsey · IDC all converge: 70-85% of AI initiatives stall pre-production.
03
The Zero-Click Lead Drain
Most B2B pipelines are bleeding buyers no one tracks. Not because the traffic dropped — because answers now happen inside ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini. Brands invisible to AI search ship content nobody reads and lose deals in the gap between ranked and remembered.
CB Insights · McKinsey · IDC all converge: 70-85% of AI initiatives stall pre-production.
— The Value Prop · Why agents fail
An AI agent is only as good as the problem it’s solving, the context it operates in, and the growth it drives.
Most AI consultancies fix one of these and call it a day. Strategy firms write decks about the problem. Data engineers wire up the warehouse. Growth focuses on people and sales. Each is right about their piece — and each of their pilots dies in the gap between the pieces.
We do all three, in one engagement, governed by one framework. That’s the only configuration that actually ships.
— The Offer · The AIM Suite
The AIM Suite. Powered by AIM‑IT.
One suite. Three modules.
Solve the right problems. Build the right context. Grow in the AI-answer economy.
— AIMSolve
— AIMContext
— AIMGrowth
— fix the workflow before you automate the chaos.
— give AI the data, domain expertise, and guardrails it needs to do real work.
— develop people and win visibility, trust, and demand in the AI-answer economy.
The Methodology · AIM-IT Playbook
Taking aim at the right business problem with the right intelligent technology..
AIM-IT runs through all three modules — AIMSolve, AIMContext, and AIMGrowth — and is the reason our engagements ship where others stall.
AIMSolve
Fix the workflow before you automate the chaos.
AIMSolve helps leaders identify the highest-value business problem, produce a one-page AI Opportunity Charter (Assess phase), and ship a 1–2 week production-ready MVP that runs the full AIM-IT Playbook end-to-end. It’s the front door to the AIM Suite — where AI ambition becomes a scoped, prioritized, ROI-driven initiative instead of another pilot that quietly dies.
1–2 wks
5 phases
$2,500+
AIMContext
Give AI the data, domain expertise, and guardrails it needs to do real work.
AIMContext ships a 14-day production-ready MVP of the trusted knowledge foundation your agents need — Databricks medallion architecture (Free Edition or Premium), agentic harnessing, context engineering, and governed RAG — with working code for ingestion, Bronze, Silver, and Gold layers. Non-Databricks options available. Without governed access to company data, expert judgment, workflow context, and operational guardrails, AI is a clever assistant trapped outside the business — and that’s where most enterprise agents die.
Entry: AIMContext — 14-day production-ready MVP. Full ingestion → Bronze → Silver → Gold code, Databricks or your stack. Starting at $3,500.
14 days
MVP delivery
Databricks
Free Edition or Premium
$3,500+
Starting price
AIMGrowth
Win visibility, trust, and demand in the AI-answer economy.
AIMGrowth powered by AEO AgentX (TM) ships a 7–14 day production-ready MVP of your marketing and lead engine for a world where buyers ask ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews before they ever visit a website — combining LLM citation strategy with AI-powered omnichannel orchestration. You stop chasing one algorithm and start showing up everywhere the buyer is already looking — independent of any single platform, channel, or search update.
Entry: AIMGrowth — 7–14 day production-ready MVP. LLM citation engine + omnichannel orchestration. Starting at $1,500.
7–14 days
MVP delivery
7–14 days
MVP delivery
5 engines
ChatGPT · Claude · Perplexity · Gemini · AIO
$1,500+
Starting price
— The AIM-IT Playbook · Five phases. Five artifacts
Most playbooks live on slides. AIM‑IT ships artifacts your board can sign off on.
The five phases of AIM-IT — Assess, Innovate, Model, Implement, Track — each produce a named deliverable, not a slide.
01 · ASSESS
Assess
The AI Opportunity Charter
Problem stated in measurable terms. ROI target with a number. Integration map. Feasibility ruling. One page Charter.
02 · INNOVATE
Innovate
The Solution Hypothesis Map
Three solution paths considered, the one we recommend, the reasons the other two were rejected.
03 · MODEL
Model
Working Prototype + Business Case
Built with Replit, Cursor, OpenAI Agent Builder, LangGraph, DSPy — whichever fits the problem.
04 · IMPLEMENT
Implement
Adoption + Workflow Plan
Integrated with your stack. Trained users. Feedback loops. RAG layer connected. No “throw it over the wall.”
05 · TRACK
Track
KPI Dashboard + Improvement Loop
OpenAI Evals, Okareo, DSPy. Accuracy, latency, cost-per-query, AI drift, business KPI — measured continuously.
— Anxiety, killed · Proof with numbers
What this looks like when it ships.
Asset Tracking · GPX Intelligence
The blogs that built a pipeline
Before
Organic traffic flat for 18 months. Content bottlenecked at one post per quarter. No AI visibility.
After
AIM-IT content engine deployed. n8n pipeline running. 15+ industry verticals covered with entity-rich content.
+359%
organic traffic growth, with qualified inbound leads measured in dozens per month where there had been zero.
Higher Ed · Tech Infrastructure
The Databricks pipeline in days, not months
Before
Dozens of disparate systems. No AI agent layer for context, governance, or growth.
After
Full AIM-IT-governed Databricks implementation. Bronze→ Silver→Gold medallion live in production.
On time.
Zero post-launch escalations in the first 30 days. Adoption-first change leadership that actually held.
Asset Tracking · GPX Intelligence
The blogs that built a pipeline
Before
Organic traffic flat for 18 months. Content bottlenecked at one post per quarter. No AI visibility.
After
AIM-IT content engine deployed. n8n pipeline running. 15+ industry verticals covered with entity-rich content.
Live.
— The unrepeatable moat · The people behind the work
The firm to call when the cost of another failed pilot is higher than the cost of doing it right.
Frank “Rio” Shines flew Air Force aircraft, captained NCAA gymnastics at the U.S. Air Force Academy, and spent thirty years inside IBM, Ernst & Young, Express Scripts and Pilgrim S/W learning what makes Fortune 500 transformations stick — and what makes them die.
He’s an award-winning IBM & EY consultant, Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt and a four-time published author (once with Wiley, including AI or Die: The Caveman’s Visual Guide to AI for Everyone, 2025). Co-founder Umer Qureshi runs the technical practice — agents, RAG, content engines, and the GEO stack that makes AI search find our clients first.
We’ve been doing transformation work for three decades. We’ve been doing it with AI since before “agentic” was a category. You get the principals on every engagement — not recent grad junior analysts.
30+
years Fortune 500
USAF
Academy · gymnastics captain
4
published books (2× Wiley)
LSS
Master Black Belt
— The Incentive · Start small. Decide from there.
Pick a diagnostic. Pick the one that hurts.
60-Day
Ship Guarantee
On every Sprint engagement: if we don’t deliver the agreed working artifact in 60 days, you don’t pay the final invoice. We can offer this because AIM-IT works — and because we’ve shipped it forty-plus times.
Best first step
Free
AI Flight Recorder
Full-spectrum 30-minute live diagnostic across all three systems. One-page red/yellow/green scorecard plus a recommended starting system. Limited to 10 per month.
AIMSolve · Problem
$2,500
AIMSolve MVP
Opportunity Charter plus a 1–2 week production-ready MVP. The full AIM-IT Playbook, end-to-end. Starting at $2,500.
AIMContext · Context
$3,500
AIMContext MVP
14-day production-ready knowledge foundation with full ingestion-to-Gold code. Databricks Free Edition, Premium, or your stack. Starting at $3,500.
AIMGrowth · Growth
$1,500
AIMGrowth MVP
7–14 day production-ready MVP. LLM citation engine plus AI-powered omnichannel orchestration. Starting at $1,500.
— The Path · Friction, removed
Three steps from “this is hurting” to “this is working.”
Step 1
Diagnose
7 – 14 days
Pick a diagnostic. Get clarity in seven to fourteen days. Or run the free Flight Recorder if you’re not sure where to start. You walk out knowing exactly which of the three systems your problem needs.
Step 2
Sprint
90 days · fixed scope
One working agent, one unified data layer, or one AI-citation-engineered campaign — depending on which system you start with. 60-Day Ship Guarantee on every Sprint.
Step 3
Operate
Ongoing · optional
Monthly improvement loop, additional agents, expanded coverage. We earn the renewal. The data and AIM-IT artifacts are yours to keep regardless.
— Anxiety, killed · The objections answered
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
How is this different from Accenture, Deloitte, or McKinsey?
They sell hours. We sell shipped artifacts under a 60-day guarantee. Their average AI engagement runs $1M–$5M and 18 months. Ours start at $1,500, top out at named fixed prices, and ship in 90 days. We can do this because AIM-IT compresses the discovery work that consumes 60% of a Big Four engagement.
What if our data isn't ready?
That’s the most common starting condition. The Agent Context Audit is designed for exactly that case. We’ll tell you what the readiness gap actually is — not what a sales engineer wants you to hear — and we’ll give you a 90-day roadmap to close it.
What if the agent we build doesn't work?
Every Sprint engagement carries the 60-Day Ship Guarantee. If we don’t deliver the agreed working artifact, you don’t pay the final invoice. We can offer this because we’ve shipped it forty-plus times across pharma, healthcare, manufacturing, and infrastructure.
How do you handle our data security?
RAG with vector stores and, when needed, local LLM deployment inside your perimeter. Your data is never used to train public models. Unity Catalog grants by group, never by individual. Full lineage. We come from regulated industries — pharma, financial services, healthcare — and build to that standard by default.
How fast can we start?
The AI Flight Recorder runs this week. The paid diagnostics start within ten business days of agreement. Sprints kick off the Monday after diagnostic acceptance.
Why should we trust a small principals-only firm over a larger one?
You shouldn’t — unless those two principals combined hold thirty years of Fortune 500 transformation experience, a Wiley publishing track record, a Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt, and a working agentic AI delivery practice. Then you should — because you get the principals on every engagement, not the analysts who’d be assigned at the Big Four.
— Not ready to talk yet? · Two on-ramps
Read the book. Try the tool.
Book · Wiley · 2025
AI or Die: The Caveman’s Visual Guide to AI for Everyone
By Frank Shines & Umer Qureshi. Wiley, 2025. The book your team can read in an afternoon and have an actual opinion by Monday. Free excerpt delivered by email.
Product · Free trial
ProbSolveAI™
The problem-to-solution engine that compresses Lean Six Sigma cycles to a tenth of the time. Six guided frameworks — AIM-IT, Lean 6σ, Design Thinking, and more. Free trial, no credit card.
The cost of another failed AI pilot is higher than the cost of doing it right.
Thirty minutes with the founders. No deck. We’ll tell you which of the three systems your problem actually needs — and whether we’re the right team to ship it. If we aren’t, we’ll tell you that too.