★★★★★
He found the one thing we were quietly losing deals on, and fixed that, not everything.
TA
Tamer Abu Shahla
Privy Advisory
For founders past their first $500k
You built something that works. I find the growth you can't see.
After your first half a million, the next bit of growth is usually not more hustle. It is already sitting in your business, in the numbers and accounts you already have.
I am Khaled. I find it, then I build the system that goes and gets it.
Show me what's stopping my growth
The $500 Bottleneck diagnosis, yours free while I build up case studies.
Flat for two years, then +45% in 12 months. Most of it from accounts they already had.
See the case study →
Sound familiar?
“We grew, then we stopped. Two years at the same number.”
→ Find what is actually holding it back
“My best month came from one introduction I can’t repeat.”
→ Stop depending on lightning striking twice
“The people who already know us should be buying more than they do.”
→ Collect the business you have earned
“A third of the people who wanted to buy couldn’t actually finish.”
→ Find the leaks quietly costing you sales
“We have dashboards nobody looks at, and none of them tell me who to call.”
→ Turn the data you already have into the next call to make
“Every good month traces back to me being in the room.”
→ Something that works without you in it
“I have spent real money on agencies and I have decks, not customers.”
→ One fixed price, one built thing
“I know something is wrong. I cannot tell you which thing.”
→ The diagnosis first, then the build
“We grew, then we stopped. Two years at the same number.”
→ Find what is actually holding it back
“My best month came from one introduction I can’t repeat.”
→ Stop depending on lightning striking twice
“The people who already know us should be buying more than they do.”
→ Collect the business you have earned
“A third of the people who wanted to buy couldn’t actually finish.”
→ Find the leaks quietly costing you sales
“We have dashboards nobody looks at, and none of them tell me who to call.”
→ Turn the data you already have into the next call to make
“Every good month traces back to me being in the room.”
→ Something that works without you in it
“I have spent real money on agencies and I have decks, not customers.”
→ One fixed price, one built thing
“I know something is wrong. I cannot tell you which thing.”
→ The diagnosis first, then the build
Any of these sound like you? That is who I work with. See a case study.
Twenty years of work for
They hired me to make something complicated easy to understand. That is still the job.
Free · no signup
Show me your homepage. I will point to where it is leaking money.
Not a score. Not a redesign. The same read I do before every call, on the one page your buyers actually land on.
A public page cannot show me your numbers, but it shows me the leaks: buyers left to do the work, a warm lead with nowhere to go, no reason to come back. I name the one that is quietly costing you the most.
A REAL ONE, FROM A PAGE YOU KNOW
“Anyone who lands here and is not ready to buy today just leaves. Nothing catches them and nothing brings them back. Those are people who already liked you, and you never find out how many you lost.”
Read of a well-known project management homepage
This is the fast, automated version of the read I do by hand on a call. I call that one The Bottleneck, and it is free too.
How I work
Find where the money is first.
You already have the data and the tools. What you do not have is someone who can look at all of it and say where the money actually is. So before I build anything, I go looking. That is always the first move.
01
Find where the money is
Before a thing gets built, we go through the business and find where growth is leaking or sitting untouched, and what that is costing you. You get told what I found and why, in plain language.
02
Build the piece that fixes it
Then one specific thing gets built, at a fixed price. Not a retainer, not a programme, not six tools you did not ask for. The piece that moves the number, and it is yours.
That first part has a name. I call it The Bottleneck, and it always lands in one of five places.
The Bottleneck
Money leaks in five places.
In twenty years I have almost never found growth stuck in five places at once. It is leaking in one. These are the five, from new customers you never reach to the ones who already bought and went quiet. Open the one that sounds like you.
-
No reason for anyone to pass your name on Nobody has written down what you are known for You are only found by people who already know youWhat this usually means
Almost every business that says this has a reach problem on paper and a clarity problem in reality. People cannot repeat what they cannot summarise. If the people who already like you cannot say what you do in one sentence, the word never travels past them.
What it is costing youGrowth stays tied to how many people you personally meet. Every new customer costs you a lunch, a conference, or a favour, and the moment you stop, the pipeline stops with you.
What I would do firstWork out the one sentence that makes someone want to pass your name on. Then decide whether the gap is reach or repeatability. If it genuinely is reach, that is when paid search or ads earn their place, and I bring in the specialist.
-
Your page describes the work instead of selling it It could be any competitor's page What makes you different is not written anywhereWhat this usually means
The site was written by people who already understand the business, for people who do not. It lists services accurately and says nothing about the problem the buyer came in with.
What it is costing youYou pay to get people there, through referrals, search, or effort, and then lose most of them in under ten seconds. The expensive part already happened before they left.
What I would do firstStart with what the buyer is actually trying to fix, not what you sell. Then rewrite the page so the first screen names their problem and the rest earns the meeting.
-
No easy next step after the first look Nothing that keeps a warm lead warm You find out months later they went elsewhereWhat this usually means
There is interest but no path. The buyer liked you, was not ready that week, and nothing existed to hold them until they were. Most of these are not lost to a competitor, they are lost to time.
What it is costing youYour best leads are the ones that got away quietly. You never see this number, which is why it never gets fixed.
What I would do firstGive a warm lead somewhere to go that is smaller than a meeting. Then decide what keeps them warm without you chasing, which is usually one honest piece of writing rather than a sequence.
-
No named offer, so every deal is negotiated from scratch Your price needs a long email to explain Nothing tells them what happens after they say yesWhat this usually means
The work is good and the offer is shapeless. Every deal gets invented on the call, which means every buyer has to do work to buy, and the ones who are busiest do not bother.
What it is costing youLong sales cycles, discounting to close, and a pipeline full of people who are still thinking about it. You feel this as effort rather than as lost revenue, which is why it hides.
What I would do firstName the thing, price it, and write down what is in and what is out. An offer someone can say yes to without a meeting is worth more than a better argument.
-
Past customers have not heard from you in a year No reason for them to buy the second time They would refer you, but nobody has askedWhat this usually means
The business is set up to win customers, not to keep buying from them. Nobody owns the second sale, so it only happens when the customer thinks of it themselves.
What it is costing youThis is the most expensive one and the least visible. You are spending to find strangers while people who already trust you buy less than they would.
What I would do firstGo to the existing list before you go anywhere else. In the case study on this page, 79% of the growth came from accounts that were already ordering. That is the cheapest revenue in any business and it is usually sitting untouched.
Plenty can be wrong in a business at once. But the reason growth stopped is usually one of these five. Finding which one is the first thing I do. Then I build that piece, or bring in the specialist who should.
Who's behind Merv
It's one person. And it started on a sales floor.
I'm Khaled, or “Kai” to some. Based in Germany, I work with founders wherever they are. And I started where a lot of them are now: on a sales floor, with a headset and a list. Cold calls, door to door, a CRM nobody explained. I was not a natural closer, and that turned out to be the point.
Later I inherited a book of accounts run on memory and spreadsheets. No oversight, no way to see which customer was quietly slipping. One had already left and still showed up as active, so we kept preparing to pitch a company that had walked out the door. The data was all there. Nobody had built the thing that reads it.
I did not grind harder. I built the system that decided who to call next.
I learned this inside Microsoft, PayPal and Oxfam, and I have been doing it for founders for 20 years, last month for a startup that had been flat for two years. Take the selling a founder is carrying in their own head, and turn it into a system that runs without them. Sometimes the fix is the message. Usually it is the system underneath.
Here is the honest part. I do that because I love the building, and because the part I never loved was making the ask in the room. So I got very good at turning data into decisions, partly to route around the part I am not. That is why I build systems instead of just working harder.
No agency. No retainer. Just me, the one thing that is stuck, and a fixed price. If nothing is worth fixing, I will tell you on the call, and you keep the clarity either way.
Khaled, founder of Merv
Results
You're in good hands.
20 years, 150+ businesses, 20+ industries. Here are the client results I point to, and a few words from others.
Case study
Two years flat, then revenue up 45% in the twelve months after the relaunch I led, with most of the growth from accounts they already had.
Read the full case study
Testimonial
“He looks at the business from every angle, not just the sales system, but positioning, growth, and the systems underneath.” Nagi, founder of oono.ai.
Watch Nagi’s testimonial150+
businesses helped
20+
industries
20
years doing this
★★★★★
No deck, no retainer. One clear diagnosis, one fixed price, and the thing actually got built.
HA
Hazem Abughazaleh
Y / BrandTech
★★★★★
We were too close to see where it was stuck. Khaled named it in one call and we stopped guessing.
NS
Nagi Salloum
oono.ai
Pricing
First I find the money. Then we talk price.
There is almost always growth already sitting in your business, in a stage that leaks or a pile of data nobody has read. I find it for free. Building the thing that goes and gets it has a fixed price, and it is on this page. No call needed to see it.
Step one
Free while I build up case studiesThe Bottleneck
$500 Free
Free for now. I'm doing a handful of these to get results I can show. When I have them, this goes back to $500.
I work out which of the five places your growth is actually stopping, and why. You get it written down, not talked at you: what is stuck, what it is costing you, and what I would do first. Then a 30-minute call to go through it.
- A written diagnosis you keep
- A 30-minute call to walk through it
- No commitment to build anything
You can stop right here and keep the whole diagnosis. It is where I find the money. The build is where we go and get it, and that part is yours to say yes or no to.
Book my free diagnosisWhy free: I want a few more results I can show. There is one case study on this page and I would like three or four. If the work moves your number, I will ask whether I can write up what happened. You can say no and it changes nothing.
Step two, if you want it
The build
$5,000 to $15,000
One fixed price, agreed in writing before anything starts. Nearer $5,000 when the fix is one clear piece, like the message or a single stage. Nearer $15,000 when it is the whole system underneath. You see the exact number before you decide, and it does not move after that.
Set that against what the diagnosis turns up. For a founder past their first half a million, the growth sitting there unclaimed is usually a bigger number than the build. The price is for the piece we agreed to build, nothing else.
- Fixed price, agreed up front
- No retainer, no hourly meter, no lock-in
- Every asset is yours when it is done
What the build is depends on what's leaking
Sometimes the fix is the message: the way you explain what you do, a named offer, a page that finally lands.
Usually it is the system underneath: how leads get captured and worked, a real cadence, and a read on your own data that tells you who to call next. I build the one piece the diagnosis pointed at, not a bundle of things you did not ask for.
Most jobs are done in weeks, not months, and you get the date before we start.
Book my slot and start the diagnosis
Tell me what your business does and what has stopped moving. If it is a fit and there is a slot left, I will do it. If not, I will tell you straight.
Who this is for, so neither of us wastes a call
A founder past their first real revenue, where the selling still runs through you and a spreadsheet, or a stack of tools nobody has turned into a clear answer. You have demand and you have data, but no repeatable way to sell without you in every deal. If you are pre-revenue, looking for a cheap website, or shopping three quotes on price, I am the wrong person and I will say so.
FAQ
Questions? Answered.
The honest answers, before you commit.
We already have someone running sales and marketing.
Good. Keep them. I am not here to take that over.
What I do is different work. Most marketing people are hired to run things: campaigns, content, the website, the ads. Very few are given the room to stop and ask whether the whole thing is aimed at the right problem. That is the part I do, from outside, and it has an end.
Often the person doing your marketing already suspects what is wrong. They have said it in a meeting and it did not go anywhere. If that is the case, this usually ends with them getting what they needed.
If your marketing person is the one reading this, forward it. I would rather work with them than around them.
Why not just hire a Head of Sales?
Because a Head of Sales runs the system you already have. If the system is the problem, you are paying a senior salary to push on something aimed at the wrong thing, and you will not know for a year.
I find where it is actually stuck and build the piece that fixes it, for a fixed price, in weeks. Then you know what you are hiring for, and whether you even need to yet. Plenty of founders find the fix was the system, not the headcount.
We already have a CRM and it hasn't helped.
A CRM stores what happened. It does not tell you who to call next or which deals are quietly slipping. Most of the founders I work with are sitting on data that already holds the answer, unread.
Part of what I do is turn that pile into a clear read: where the growth is, who to go after, and the cadence to do it. The tool stays. I make it point at the money.
How is this different from hiring an agency?
An agency puts you on a monthly retainer and bills for ongoing work. That is a good model for them and a slow one for you, because the incentive is to keep going rather than to finish.
You get one specific thing, for one price, agreed before we start. No retainer, no lock-in, no hourly meter. When it is done it is yours and you do not owe me anything.
We already spent a lot trying to fix this and got nothing back.
Then you already know the thing most people learn the expensive way: the problem is almost never the tactic. Money goes on ads that stop working the second you stop paying, on content, on a new website, while the thing that is actually stuck sits untouched.
This is why I start by finding the one thing that is stuck, before anything gets built. If I cannot find something real, I will tell you on the call and we stop there.
What happens after the job is done?
Usually nothing. You have the thing, it is yours, and you do not owe me anything.
Some clients keep me on afterwards. That was their call, and it came after the first piece of work had already proved itself, which is the only sensible order. I will not ask you to commit to anything ongoing before you have seen me work.
Will this actually bring in revenue?
I can promise the work, not the market. What I promise is that I will find what is holding the business back, tell you straight, and build the piece that fixes it.
Whether buyers then say yes depends on your market and on you showing up to the conversations. Anyone who guarantees you a number is selling you something. There is a case study on this page with real figures so you can judge for yourself.
How long does it take?
Days or weeks, not months. Finding the problem is usually the first conversation and a short piece of work after it. Building the piece depends on what it is, and you get the date before we start.
If a job is going to take months, I will say so, and you can decide whether it is worth it.
What if I do not like it?
You see the work in progress and adjust until it is right. Nothing goes live without your okay, and you are never stuck with something you did not sign off on.
What do you need from me?
Honest answers, and not many hours. I need to know who has actually bought from you and why, what you have already tried, and what you would rather not do. That is most of it.
The building is mine. The twenty years of knowing your business is yours, and I cannot do the work without it.