Fifteen questions, none with the answer we wished we could give.

A written argument about how you operate - roughly 1,200 words, built from nine open-ended questions about real situations and decisions. Not a type, not a letter code, not a score out of a hundred. It names the one move you make in every room, shows where that move is a strength and where it's a cost, and names the part you can't see about yourself. Think of it as the synthesis a senior coach reaches after watching you for months - except written down, on day one, before the first conversation.

Those instruments classify. They sort you into one of sixteen boxes, or four letters, or a number-with-a-wing, and hand you a label you mostly already believed. A portrait narrates. It doesn't tell you which box you're in; it describes, in specific prose, how you actually decide and where you get in your own way - written to be defensible against a friend who knows you well. The honest difference: a type is reusable on millions of people. A portrait is only true about one.

The nine questions are designed to fail generic. They ask for incidents, not adjectives - what you did, not what you're like. Vague answers produce a vague portrait, and a portrait that reads generic doesn't clear our internal bar, so it gets rewritten before delivery or refunded instead of shipped. The sample page shows you what passes. If you give it real material, it gives you something only true about you.

Only what you write in the intake. There's no scraping, no data broker, no LinkedIn import - nine questions, your answers, nothing else. Your intake is stored encrypted. The finished portrait is delivered through a private signed link; after thirty days that link expires and the portrait moves to cold storage, still retrievable by you on request. We do not sell your data, and we do not train models on your intake. Responses are read by one person.

The whole method is published at How it works - every question, the six-section structure, and the quality bar - so you can check the work before and after you buy. Each section of each portrait is rated against a twelve-point internal bar for specificity, evidence, and whether the blind spot actually bites. Anything below nine of twelve is rewritten at our cost; if it still can't reach nine, you're refunded rather than shipped a weak portrait. And the portrait isn't a verdict - it's a hypothesis. You're the test. If it doesn't fit, that's signal, and we'll work it.

Yes. The first portrait wasn't for a customer - it was the founder's own, built from months of his recorded working evidence and blunt enough that the blind-spot section names the exact instinct that makes him underprice his own work. He published it unredacted, with his name on it. It's on the sample page, abridged, next to three de-identified samples written to the same bar. We didn't ship the instrument until it had already been turned on the person who built it.

The nine questions take most people around twenty-five minutes, and you can save and return as many times as you like. After your answers land, synthesis takes five business days for standard portraits. Coach-partnership portraits run on a three-day priority turnaround.

Two tiers, same portrait, same bar. Founding is $149 while the first twenty spots remain - locked at that rate for life, and Founding buyers can commission three portraits within three years, each at $149. Standard is $299 for a single portrait. The why: $99 signals a toy and $199 sits in the uncanny valley; at a coach's $400-$800 hourly rate, $299 costs less than the single discovery hour it replaces. The founding twenty carry the most risk on an unproven instrument, so they keep the lowest rate permanently.

Yes, on a clear rule. If a portrait can't clear our internal delivery bar, you get a full refund and we don't ship it. If it clears the bar and you simply decide it's not for you, you keep the portrait and we keep the payment. And if a section reads wrong, that's not a refund situation first - it's a revision: one revision pass is included on every portrait (see Q10). The refund rule is, in the founder's words, "the whole company."

Tell us exactly what missed. We go back through your intake with you and rewrite the section - one revision pass is included with every portrait. If the rewrite still doesn't land, we refund you and keep the portrait. The portrait is a hypothesis about you, and you're the only one who can confirm or falsify it; "this part is wrong" is useful data, not a complaint.

It's honest, not unkind. The blind-spot section is the part you cannot see, and the first read can be uncomfortable for an hour or so - that discomfort is the work, not a flaw. It's not written to flatter you on a Tuesday afternoon; it's written to still be true, and useful, six months later when the pattern is something you're working with rather than meeting for the first time. If yours reads comfortable all the way through, we did it wrong.

Because we tried eight and the extra two - an "opportunities" section and a "recommendations" section - always drifted into advice. The portrait is observation, not advice. Six sections hold that line: The Pattern, Signature Moves, The Blind Spot, The Tension, What's Working Against You, and What To Do With This. The last one tells you what to watch for, never who to become.

People whose decisions carry weight and who want the read on themselves in writing - executives, founders, senior operators, and the coaches who work with them. It's built for coaching preparation first: walk into the first session already known. Buyers also use it as the behavioral layer of a bio, a founder's "how I work" page for new hires, or a periodic self-audit they can re-run as they change. It's not a hiring screen, a clinical assessment, or a party trick.

Share it freely - the portrait is yours to give to a coach, archive, or never open again. Using it commercially is narrower: you may quote up to 100 words of your own portrait in personal marketing, attributed to "Thumbprint portrait, [year]." You may not resell it, license it, or use it to generate portraits for other people. The limit exists to protect the integrity of the document, not to be precious - past 100 words, just write to us.

A way for executive coaches to use the portrait as a discovery tool with their own clients. It covers up to twelve client portraits a year (about $66 each if you use all twelve), on a three-day priority turnaround, delivered "From your coach, via Thumbprint" - attributed, not white-labeled, never resold. It's application-only: we review your practice and intended use before approving, usually within five business days. Full terms, and the application, are on the For Coaches page.