method candidate goes to: this-edition T town planner
A service only scales with people: a curated marketplace of consultants, joined by proof of work
Agentic engagements need someone who knows the client's world and can steer a hive in it, and there are more of those people in a community than hours in a founder's week. So alongside the offers, a small curated list of consultants who deliver on the same stack, where the client picks the kind of project first and then the people. Joining copies the markets that work: apply, show proof of work (a public vault or repository of a real run with its ledger), peer review by two members, a thirty to forty-five minute interview with a scenario, a first engagement shadowed, and standards including a behaviour policy for consultants, the same idea applied to agents. The consultant sets the price within the band and keeps most of it; markets sit between 5% and 20% in total (Malt charges freelancers 5%, Upwork 0% to 15%, Braintrust 15% to the client).
Decided by. Nobody yet: a candidate for Dinis to read, comment on and decide (keep, rewrite, merge, cut, article first, later, not doing it).
Note. Nothing is built; the platform share is a proposal; the first two consultants (Mondweep Chakravorty and Dinis) are not taking bookings. Toptal says fewer than 3% of applicants pass its five stages. Also a door for the reader going into a job: join as the person who delivers.
Where it comes from
- Agentics, ready to sell A marketplace for the people who deliver it; A brief for the marketplace page (newsroom)
What it answers in the 2018 book
Where it goes
Chapter Sell, part Start the company (drafting); topic Be a founder (or a one-person service).
Other ideas proposed for the same chapter: Send an agent, not a spreadsheet: due diligence derived from the code, not composed by the vendor, A startup should double down on understandability: less code, the same tools, and it can be checked and pass, Selling a service: each step small enough to say yes to, and each ends with something they keep, The market is crowded at the top and thin on evidence: sell the record the client keeps, The reason to move is never sovereignty or cost: sell value that lands the day they switch, Answer the hard questions in full, publish what is live and what is design, and check your own site against the answers, Do not sell the need; answer a question somebody already has to answer, with a deadline.
Node idea:a-marketplace-of-people in graph.json; see it in the graph. Source: admin/content/graph/ideas.json.