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Operator essays

Playbooks

Real depth on launching, distributing, and operating the kind of products in the Wishdeal Factory catalog. Nine essays, ~16,500 words, all written by the operator who built the 772-product catalog. Worth your reading time even if you do not buy a dossier.

Hand-written, not templated. Updated as the catalog evolves. One graduated product (intakecounsel.com) is in the case-study essay.

Why playbooks instead of more ideas? The catalog gives you a structured starting point. The hard part is everything after: what to actually spend, how to find buyers, which channels work, when to kill a product. These essays are the operator-level thinking that doesn't fit in a per-product dossier.

Recent

Buyer tactical

The 30-minute marketplace audit for buyers

Ten checks to run on any AI marketplace before you spend money. Works on us and works on competitors. Vendor-risk filter, not product-fit filter.

2026-05-14 · 11 min read · 1900 words
Meta-honest

What we learned from 85 iterations of an autonomous /loop

85 ship logs in 5 days for ~$172. The cadence dynamics, the audit-before-shipping rule, the source-fix discipline, and what we wish we had built sooner.

2026-05-14 · 12 min read · 2050 words
Scoring rubric

How to read an Adoptability score honestly

The 10-axis score on every product page, explained operator-honestly. Four reader contexts. Three axes most operators misread. The tier rule that beats the tier.

2026-05-14 · 10 min read · 1800 words
Studio honesty

How we caught 70 fabrications in our own catalog

The autonomous studio shipped 70+ silent fabricated claims across the catalog. We found them in our own audits, fixed at source, built a daily cron. The credibility post is the one that says where we screwed up.

2026-05-14 · 11 min read · 1800 words
Anti-recommendation

The dossiers we'd tell a friend to skip

Operator-honest. Five patterns + specific catalog examples we would tell a friend to pass on. With named products at Adoptability 69-71 and the reasons we have skipped them.

2026-05-14 · 9 min read · 1700 words
Catalog editorial

Five patterns we keep seeing across 772 AI ideas

After scoring 772 products, the same 5 shapes keep showing up. Workflow compression, after-hours catcher, second-opinion play, pre-meeting prep, paperwork compression. With catalog examples and failure modes.

2026-05-13 · 12 min read · 2050 words
Case study

Anatomy of a graduation: how Counsel AI became intakecounsel.com

The honest case study of the one product that graduated. What was right, what was risky, the public arc, and what other catalog products could follow the same pattern.

2026-05-13 · 10 min read · 1700 words
Distribution

Five distribution channels that work for B2B AI in 2026

Real channels with real acquisition cost ranges. Not Facebook ads. Not "do content." Specific moves with specific failure modes.

2026-05-13 · 11 min read · 1950 words
Agency strategy

The agency productization trap

Most agencies productize wrong. They package what they already do. The right move is smaller, weirder, and harder to copy.

2026-05-13 · 11 min read · 1900 words
Partnership math

When to take over a stalled product: operator-partnership math

The honest math on when an operator partnership makes sense, what each phase costs, and the three failure modes that quietly kill most launches.

2026-05-13 · 11 min read · 1850 words
Market thesis

Vertical AI in 2026: where the dollars actually are

Horizontal AI is a crowded knife fight against $100B incumbents. Vertical AI is a quiet land grab where buyer pain is concrete and incumbents do not show up.

2026-05-13 · 11 min read · 2100 words
Budget reality

What I'd actually do with $5,000 to launch one of these ideas

A real budget breakdown for launching a Wishdeal Factory idea solo. Most of the money goes where you don't expect.

2026-05-13 · 8 min read · 1800 words

Coming next

The agency productization trap. Most consultancies productize wrong: they package what they already do. The smaller-but-more-leveraged play, with examples from the catalog.
Five distribution channels that work for B2B AI in 2026. Not Facebook ads. Real channels that are currently working for vertical SaaS.

New playbook approximately every 7-10 days. Subscribe to the newsletter to get notified.