Business Consulting
Strategy advisory for SMEs that want to move faster — and stop guessing.
We work with founders and operators who know their market but need structured thinking to turn that knowledge into a product definition, a go-to-market plan, or a digital transformation roadmap. Clear deliverables, fixed timelines, no retainer theatre.
Book a strategy callWhen business consulting makes sense
These are the situations businesses describe when they first reach out.
You're pre-launch and building without a clear target persona or validated positioning.
Your product exists but isn't growing — and you're not sure whether the problem is the product, the message, or the channel.
You're considering digital transformation but have no roadmap for which processes to automate first and in what order.
You need market research and competitive analysis but don't have the internal capacity to do it rigorously.
You want an outside perspective from people who have shipped products and understand the operational realities of SMEs in Vietnam.
What we build
Product definition workshop
A 2–3 day intensive to align your team on the exact problem being solved, the user being served, the value proposition, and the simplest valuable first version. Output: a written product brief your engineering team can build from.
Target persona research
Qualitative interviews with real potential customers, behavioral analysis, and persona documentation. You know exactly who you're building for — their job, their frustrations, what they search for, and what would make them switch from their current solution.
Market & competitive analysis
Landscape mapping, competitor positioning, pricing benchmarks, and white-space identification. We tell you where you can realistically win — not just where you could theoretically play — and why the opportunity is real or overstated.
Go-to-market plan
Channel selection, launch sequencing, early adopter strategy, partnership targets, and messaging hierarchy. An actionable playbook that your team can execute — not a slide deck that collects dust.
Digital transformation roadmap
For established SMEs: audit of current tools, processes, and data flows. Phased transformation plan with prioritisation by ROI and implementation complexity. Includes rough cost-benefit estimates for each initiative so leadership can make informed investment decisions.
Pricing strategy
Willingness-to-pay research, competitive benchmarking, and pricing model design — subscription, usage-based, seat-based, or project-based. Grounded in data from your specific market, not generic frameworks applied generically.
Our stack
Jobs-to-be-Done framework for customer discovery, STP analysis (Segmentation, Targeting, Positioning) for market strategy, Lean Canvas and Business Model Canvas for product framing, structured customer interview methodology, NPS and cohort analysis for existing products, Ahrefs and Semrush for search demand validation, and Figma for wireframing when we need to make ideas tangible.
How we work
Initial consultation (free, 1 hour)
We understand your market, product or business situation, and the specific decision you need clarity on before proposing any engagement.
Research phase (1–2 weeks)
Customer interviews, competitive analysis, market research, and data gathering — conducted rigorously, not superficially.
Strategy workshops (2–3 days)
Collaborative sessions with your team to synthesise findings, test assumptions, and build your persona, positioning, and plan together.
Deliverables & follow-up
All research, personas, market analysis, and strategic plans documented in clear formats. Optional implementation support if you want us to stay involved as the plan executes.
Frequently asked questions
Is this strategy work or implementation work?
It's strategy and planning work — we help you decide what to build and how to go to market, not build it for you in this engagement. If the plan calls for automation, AI agents, a SaaS build, or a data warehouse, those are separate engagements — though we often move from consulting to implementation with the same client.
We're early stage. Is it too early for consulting?
It's rarely too early, and often critical. The most expensive mistakes — building for the wrong customer, choosing the wrong pricing model, launching on the wrong channel — happen before the first line of code is written. A well-run product definition and persona research engagement typically costs far less than the cost of rebuilding a product for the right customer after spending six months building for the wrong one.
How is L'inno's consulting different from a traditional strategy firm or agency?
We work with SMEs, not enterprises, so our process and pricing are calibrated accordingly. We've shipped products ourselves — we don't theorise about product-market fit from the outside; we've lived it. We produce working deliverables, not slide decks: interview transcripts, written persona documents, a go-to-market calendar, a roadmap with ROI estimates. And we're honest when a market isn't as attractive as a founder hopes it is.
How long does a typical consulting engagement last?
A focused product definition or go-to-market engagement runs 3–5 weeks from kickoff to final deliverables. A digital transformation roadmap for a larger SME with multiple business units typically takes 6–8 weeks. We scope each engagement before starting — you always know the timeline and deliverables in advance.
Do you only consult for technology businesses?
No. We consult for any SME that's considering or undergoing a digital change — whether that's a retail business evaluating its first e-commerce investment, a manufacturer assessing IoT, or an NGO deciding how to modernise donor management. The frameworks are domain-agnostic; the context we bring from working with Vietnam-based businesses is relevant across industries.