FIELD NOTES
Writing on operations, AI,
and building serious businesses.
Essays from Connor, Nikolas, and the Valtryn team on what we're learning while building.
NO. 01 · MAY 6, 2026 · CONNOR FINNEGAN · 9 MIN
The five tools every AI consultant is duct-taping together (and what one dashboard does instead)
How operators of complex client work end up with Notion, Linear, Slack, Stripe, and a custom-built mess — and why the next generation of operating systems will look very different.
Read essay →NO. 02 · APRIL 28, 2026 · CONNOR FINNEGAN · 7 MIN
The prompt library problem: why your team keeps reinventing the same patterns
Most AI teams have ten times more institutional knowledge than they think — but it lives in chat history, archived projects, and one engineer's head.
Read essay →NO. 03 · APRIL 21, 2026 · CONNOR FINNEGAN · 10 MIN
Model spend governance: how to know which client is responsible for your $4,000 Anthropic bill
Most AI agencies treat their Anthropic and OpenAI bills as a single overhead line. The ones that scale don't.
Read essay →NO. 04 · APRIL 14, 2026 · NIKOLAS YAZICIYAN · 8 MIN
Retainer health signals: how to see churn coming three weeks early
By the time a retainer client sends a cancellation email, the data showing they were leaving was three weeks old.
Read essay →NO. 05 · APRIL 7, 2026 · CONNOR FINNEGAN · 11 MIN
The founder-as-bottleneck problem (and why your business cannot scale without solving it)
Every operator-led service business hits the same ceiling. The companies that break through have the same answer.
Read essay →NO. 06 · MARCH 31, 2026 · CONNOR FINNEGAN · 12 MIN
Why vertical AI-native is the next layer of vertical SaaS (and why timing matters)
ServiceTitan IPO'd at $9B in December 2024. The market validated vertical SaaS. The next decade belongs to AI-native, rebuilt from the ground up.
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