A portrait that does the work of the first three sessions, in 1,200 words.
Executive coaches bill $400 to $800 an hour, and the first few hours of any engagement go to the same archaeology: who is this person, how do they decide, where do they get in their own way. A Thumbprint does that excavation before you meet - nine open-ended questions in, one written behavioral portrait out. You start the engagement with the pattern already named, in writing, on the table between you.
Discovery, done - before the meter starts.
The least billable-feeling hours in any engagement are the discovery hours. The client is paying premium rates to answer "tell me about yourself" while you build the read you can't start coaching without. A Thumbprint hands you that read on day zero.
It is not a personality type and not a score. It is a written argument about how one specific person operates - built from incidents and decisions they describe in their own words, not from self-ratings. Six sections, roughly 1,200 words:
- The Pattern - the one move the client makes in every room, named, with the evidence that names it. This is the thing you'd normally find in session three.
- Signature Moves - how the pattern shows up when it's working. The habits a team can set its watch by.
- The Blind Spot - the part the client cannot see, written to resist the story they tell about themselves. Not flattering by design. This is the section coaches tell us earns its keep.
- The Tension - where the pattern fights itself; the place a strength and its cost are the same behavior.
- What's Working Against You - the conditions that turn the pattern expensive, so it can be seen coming.
- What To Do With This - observation, not advice. What to watch for, never who to become.
What that buys you as the coach: a shared vocabulary on day one, a blind spot already on the page so you're not the only one who said it out loud, and a baseline document you can re-read against at month three to show the client how far they've moved.
Three places the portrait earns its keep.
Intake. Send it before the kickoff call — you open with a document you've both read instead of "so, tell me about yourself."
A deeper read of a client you already have. When an engagement keeps circling the same thing without landing it, the portrait puts the circle into words.
Language for the hard conversation. A blind spot on the page, fed by the client's own words, stops being "my coach thinks this about me" and becomes "here is what the record shows." The portrait absorbs the friction so the relationship doesn't have to.
Apply once. Use it across your engagements.
- Apply. Submit the coach application - your practice, your client mix, how you intend to use the portrait. Approval is usually within five business days. We decline coaches who want it as a marketing tool or a white-label product; that's not what the license is for.
- You're approved for a throughput cap. The partnership covers up to twelve portraits per year, for your own paying clients only. If you use all twelve, that works out to about $66 a portrait - a rounding error against a single coaching hour.
- Commission a portrait for a client. Send your client the nine-question intake. They answer in writing, at their own pace - most take around twenty-five minutes.
- Priority editorial review. Coach-partnership portraits run on a three-day turnaround, not the standard five. Every portrait is held to the same internal quality bar; anything that can't clear it is rewritten at our cost or refunded - never shipped to your client weak.
- Delivery, attributed to you. The portrait arrives "From your coach, via Thumbprint." It is not white-labeled and not resold - the client knows you brought them a real instrument, and the instrument keeps its name. One revision pass per portrait is included.
- The quarterly digest. Partnership coaches get a private, coach-only digest: what we're noticing across portraits in aggregate, fully anonymized. Patterns across a population you'd otherwise never get to see.
A throughput cap, not a rebrand.
- Twelve portraits per year - roughly $66 each if you use the full allotment.
- Anti-resale - exclusively for your own paying clients. You don't sell portraits to people who aren't your clients, and you don't use the license to white-label.
- Attributed delivery - "From your coach, via Thumbprint." Your name on the gift, our name on the method.
- Priority turnaround - three business days, not five.
- Quarterly coach-only digest - anonymized aggregate of what's surfacing across portraits.
- Application-only - we review fit before approving, which is also what keeps the digest and the brand worth being part of.
We ran it on the founder first, and published the result.
We don't have a wall of coach testimonials, because we don't invent them. What we have is the founder's own portrait, published unredacted with his name on it, next to three de-identified samples — the kind of writing your clients will receive:
"She doesn't decide until she's already decided. The meeting ends and the answer was settled in the first ninety seconds." De-identified sample
Read the full portraits before you apply. The standard on the sample page is the standard your clients get.
Read the sample portraits →Apply once. Use the portrait across your client engagements.
The Coach partnership is by application, not signup. We review each coach's practice, client mix, and intended use. Approval is usually within five business days. We do not approve coaches who intend to use the portrait as a marketing tool or a white-label product - the license is a discovery instrument for your clients, and we keep it that way.
Apply to the Coach partnership →The anti-resale line is the partnership, not a footnote.
A coach who signs the partnership signs the line that the portrait is a discovery instrument for their own clients and never leaves their practice - not resold, not white-labeled, delivered attributed to you. The sample at /sample is the standard your clients get. It is an annual partnership with a throughput cap - up to twelve client portraits a year, roughly $66 each - by application only. The application is a short email: your practice, your client mix, how you intend to use the portrait.
Apply for partnership →