An early-stage, venture-backed startup had some team members who sensed generative AI was relevant to their business but could not articulate why or how to act on that instinct.
Most of the leadership team was skeptical. The company lacked a structured on-ramp to generative AI, had no shared vocabulary for evaluating AI opportunities, and no plan for translating curiosity into a strategy or product direction. The result was inaction and risk of missing a critical window.
Justin Massa ran a structured AI grounding workshop for the leadership team, followed by one-on-one executive coaching sessions with individual AI playbooks, culminating in a functional AI-first product prototype in under three months.
All skeptics on the startup's leadership team converted to AI believers by the end of the grounding and coaching phase, enabling a unified strategic posture toward generative AI.
The company entirely pivoted its business focus to make generative AI central to its product offering and defined a clear MVP, a strategic shift that would not have happened without the engagement.
Starting from Thanksgiving, the team had a functional prototype ready for beta customers by the end of February, roughly 10–12 weeks from engagement kickoff to working product.
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