I Spent $50 Million on Consultants and Got Nothing But Slide Decks — So I Built 123G to Kill the Model

By Harp Grewal

I started my career in investment banking because I wanted to understand how companies really work. Not how they looked on paper, but what happened inside them when strategy collided with the world. I was good at it—I could build a spreadsheet and find the three levers that would move gross margins 300 basis points—but I didn't know what it actually took to hit the number. So I pivoted to go in-house to operate a business and produce outcomes, not generate recommendations.

The accepted way to do that was to combine outside strategy with internal execution: hire the consultants, take the deck, and hope your team could make it real. Over the course of three decades, spanning over a dozen companies as an operator and C-suite executive, I consumed north of $50 million in traditional consulting services.

At firms like Pepsi, Vistaprint, and Constant Contact, invoices were larger; at scaleups like Volante and GoldenSource, smaller. But one thing stayed the same: the consultants extracted everything from me and my teams, spent months assembling massive decks in 9-point font, and left us to fend for ourselves, wallets lighter, teams no more enlightened, and success no more certain.

Sitting in the buyer's seat taught me a costly lesson: strategy is critical, but it's only the start of the journey—translating it into execution and outcomes is hard. Legacy consulting's batting average on delivering those outcomes is shockingly low, and I got tired of paying top dollar for missed swings.

I decided I'd rather build the alternative than keep buying the same disappointment. That's why I founded 123G, so neither I nor anyone in that chair after me would have to sit through it again.

The Buyer’s Dilemma

I started with simple questions: why did my peers and I hire outside help in the first place? Why didn't it work?

I outsourced to find expertise I didn't have in-house, from people who'd solved this exact problem before. I wanted productive capacity without ballooning headcount. And most importantly, I needed an outcome—not a recommendation or a strategy, an outcome.

Over the years I tried them all. Consulting firms: rigor in a silo, done the day the deck was delivered. Expert networks: a sharp mind for an hour, no time to learn my business. Fractional executives: hands-on, but one person's view, costs spiraling past a few days a month. And when the problem seemed to need it, the permanent hire—a salary and a six-month ramp on one person, for a problem that might be gone within a year.

Each option sold me one piece of the puzzle, then called it the whole answer. An expert network sells a call. A consulting firm sells an engagement. A fractional platform sells a placement. A recruiter sells a hire. None could tell me which one I actually needed. Not one would endanger a fee for an outcome. So I did what most CEOs eventually do: stopped trusting any of them, and fell back on my own gut.

That's the flaw. It was never that any one option was bad. It's that the needs of leadership—expertise, real capacity, hands-on execution, and shared accountability for outcomes—have never lived in one place. You could buy pieces of all four and still not get the whole thing.

Something Genuinely New

That is why 123G exists. I built one place where those needs finally live together, and where our success depends on yours. We've melded the rigor of strategic consulting, the domain specificity of an expert network, and the hands-on leadership of a fractional executive into something none of them alone can offer. That's why we call ourselves strategic operators.

123G's distinctive operating model runs on outcomes, not hours. My mantra is: activity is not output, and output is not an outcome. We take an integrated view, weighing every lever against your whole business, not just the slice we were hired for. So we put our own compensation at stake, with a basic retainer free of markups and a meaningful piece tied to outcomes we agree on together. We focus on achieving your outcomes, not elevating our incomes.

People with experience do the work. Legacy firms staff you with analysts learning your industry on your dime, which is why the senior partner who sold you the engagement vanishes the moment the contract is signed. At 123G, we over-index on seniority, complemented by a layer of talent that works alongside our operators. No one is learning as they go. It's a bench that rolls up its sleeves, not one that hands off. Every operator carries scars from solving problems just like yours. It's rare to get this caliber of people together, working the same way toward the same mission. We don't just send you a chef—we bring the whole restaurant.

Here's the contrast that matters: I spent $50 million on consultants who delivered slide decks. This 200-person network has collectively generated over $50 billion in outcomes for the companies its operators have led, and has been part of more than 150 transactions, including IPOs and exits. They aren't names matched by an algorithm, they're people who've been in the trenches with me.

Put that model together with that network, and 123G isn't a faster consulting firm, it's a different kind of company, built around one relationship that grows with you. 123G is tied to the numbers CEOs lose sleep over: revenue, profitability, growth. But we're also tied to the outcomes that underpin those numbers: reduced risk, and execution that's faster and better than what you had before. You don't get the first without the second.

Proof, Not a Pitch

Like any founder, I believed 123G could work—I just didn't know it would take off this fast. It started as a handful of people I'd already worked beside; today it's 200, and every one of that original group is still in it. It's grown because people who do great work want to keep doing it together, without the usual politics.

Our client list is growing for the same reason: CEOs feel the difference between paying for advice and paying for someone to solve their problem. Here's a glimpse: a stablecoin startup closed its first round. A wearable health platform opened up a new path to market. A digital identity company learned to target its best customers instead of guessing. An online video-commerce platform found its growth engine. Different industries, same pattern: fewer advisors, more doers, real results.

I also didn't anticipate how quickly engagements turn into relationships. Not long ago, a client CEO called, half-serious, asking why our contract was only two pages. I told him the truth: you can have a great relationship on a two-page contract, or a terrible one on an eighteen-page contract. The paper is never what makes it work. Trust is.

This is the End of Consulting as You Know It

Here's what I'm convinced of: leaders don't have the time or the appetite to fund another deck. They need partners who've sat in their seat, know where the landmines are, and are willing to put their own compensation where their mouth is.

I didn't want to set up yet another consulting firm, or a business that runs on my name. I set out to kill the model that failed me, and build 123G, the thing I always wished existed: a network of seasoned operators who think about outcomes the way I do, so that whoever you get, you get all of us.

Before you hire anyone for your next inflection point, ask them one question: what happens to your fee if this doesn't work? Watch the face. Then ask us.

It's time to stop paying big bills for activity. Save that $50 million. Instead, bring us your hardest problem. We'll deliver the outcome you need, and bet our own pay on it.