The people closest to the work know where it gets difficult. We start there—then turn their experience into an evidence-backed plan for where AI can create real business value.
Request a 30-minute discovery call ↗Your assessment lead conducts the conversations, examines the work, and owns the recommendations. Your team brings the lived experience. Our analytical tools help organize and test what we find. Human judgment stays at the center.
We listen to leaders and operators, compare the intended process with the real one, and examine the moments where people search, reconstruct, decide, or compensate. Then we identify what technology should support—and what should remain a human decision.
“The tools help us see patterns.
People help us understand what matters.”
We examine how your company operates, identify where AI and other technology could create meaningful value, and deliver a prioritized plan for what to do next.
A focused, three-week engagement examining business objectives, workflows, information, decisions, and operating economics. We identify opportunities, evaluate feasibility, estimate potential value, and recommend what deserves investment.
For opportunities that warrant deeper work: solution architecture, workflow changes, data requirements, integrations, human oversight, implementation sequence, and success metrics.
Prove an opportunity in a real workflow. Establish a baseline, define success criteria, test the intervention, and measure what changed. The goal isn't to prove AI can do something—it's to determine whether it should.
The assessment is a standalone decision product—not a disguised implementation pitch. Software development, integrations, vendor selection, and ongoing consulting are outside its scope.
We don't start with a tool or a technology trend. We start with the work, the information it consumes, the intelligence it requires, and the economics of changing it.
| Typical approach | H1E approach |
|---|---|
| Starts with technology | Starts with how the business works |
| Collects use cases | Investigates workflows and intelligence gaps |
| Recommends tools | Evaluates economic value and feasibility |
| Measures activity | Defines measurable business outcomes |
| Assumes AI is the answer | Includes what not to build |
“We assess work, identify where intelligence is expensive, and determine where technology can economically change the work.”
A practical set of outputs your leadership team can use to decide where to invest, what to test, and what to leave alone.
Business problems, intelligence gaps, and opportunities worth addressing.
Prioritized opportunities assessed for value, suitability, readiness, feasibility, and risk.
Value ranges, assumptions, evidence confidence, and relevant metrics.
Focused tests designed to validate the highest-priority opportunities.
A practical sequence from assessment to evidence and implementation decisions.
Opportunities to defer, reject, or solve without AI.
Three weeks. A focused set of conversations and workflow deep dives. No sprawling transformation exercise.
Understand business objectives, constraints, operating pressure, and what leadership needs to change. Interview executives and operators.
Examine how work actually happens—not just how the process is supposed to work. Map workflows, information, intelligence, systems, and handoffs.
Quantify potential value, evaluate feasibility and risk, prioritize opportunities, design experiments, and deliver the executive readout.
One 60–90 minute executive interview, 5–7 operator/SME interviews, 3–4 workflow observations, selected systems/data review, and an executive readout.
Findings distinguish measured or observed evidence from reported information and assumptions. Estimates are ranges—not promises dressed up as precision.
A fictional example of the assessment lens—not a client case study or a guarantee of results.
A fictional $85M industrial services company produces thousands of service reports each year. Those reports contain failure patterns, parts usage, customer issues, and technician knowledge—but much of it is trapped in PDFs, notes, photos, and disconnected systems.
The opportunity isn't simply to write reports faster. It's to turn service activity into usable intelligence for technicians, service managers, quoting, parts planning, and customer follow-up.
A proposed pilot would test extraction quality, employee usefulness, actionable follow-ups, and operational impact before any broader rollout.
SCENARIO VALUES ARE ILLUSTRATIVE AND NOT VERIFIED CLIENT RESULTS.
Built for business leaders who know something in their operation needs to change—but don't want to spend six months and a pile of money finding out the hard way.
Your business may not need more software. It may need to make better use of the information, experience, and intelligence it already has.
Two views of the same simulated Apex Industrial Services engagement. Access either directly on the site—no PDF download required.
A complete, chapter-based assessment with a cover, interview findings, evidence register, workflow analysis, all six opportunities, economic assumptions, pilot design, and a 90-day decision path.
21 CHAPTERS · EVIDENCE & ANALYSIS
A 15-slide leadership briefing with dedicated navigation. Explore the recommendation, all six opportunity profiles, visual priority scores, economics, human decision roles, and clear investment gates.
15 SLIDES · RECOMMENDATIONS & DECISIONS
H1E is a founder-led practice built around a practical question: where can better use of technology make a meaningful difference to the business? You work directly with Russell Grin, with specialist expertise brought in where the engagement calls for it.
Business strategy, product development
and opportunity discovery
Russell is a founder, inventor, and product builder whose work spans software, digital infrastructure, consumer products, and connected hardware. He built Tactara in email infrastructure and marketing, created the recipient-controlled email venture Emailius, co-founded Cork Genius, and founded Absolute Controls to develop draft-beverage technology.
Building across those markets means working through the questions that determine whether an idea survives: who needs it, what changes in the operation, what it costs to deliver, and why someone will pay. Russell brings those same questions to your AI assessment, connecting technical possibilities to customer value, operating capacity, and a practical path to implementation.
Russell leads discovery, connects the findings across teams, and turns the evidence into a prioritized set of decisions. You have a direct working relationship with the person responsible for the recommendations.
Your people know where work gets difficult. Russell starts there, using interviews and workflow review to identify the opportunities. Analytical tools support the investigation; human judgment determines what deserves action.
Some opportunities need a deeper look at the data, the systems, or the financial controls. Russell remains your assessment lead. When a question needs deeper expertise, the relevant specialist joins for a defined contribution. We agree participation, scope, and any additional fees with you before that work begins.
Applied AI, data engineering and systems interoperability
Larry’s background spans defense, enterprise software, and research environments, including work with the U.S. Air Force, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Sun Microsystems Labs, and HP Labs. His experience includes connecting disparate data sources, designing scalable pipelines, and turning complex operational data into decision support.
He holds an M.S. in Computer Science from San Diego State University, a Stanford graduate certificate in Data Mining and Applications, and an MIT MicroMasters in Statistics and Data Science.
Assessing data readiness, testing technical feasibility, and examining how an AI opportunity could work with existing systems.
CPA, CFE, CAMS
Investigations, financial analysis and controls
Ben brings more than 18 years of experience in complex financial investigations, cross-border financial crime, and disputes advisory. His background includes EY, PwC, Kroll, and Alvarez & Marsal, with engagements for businesses, law firms, governments, and regulators across four continents.
His work spans fraud and embezzlement investigations, anti-money laundering, sanctions, asset tracing, and analytical support for litigation and arbitration. He brings a forensic discipline to evaluating financial records and the conclusions drawn from them.
Examining vendor and payment workflows, evaluating financial controls, and assessing opportunities where the quality of the evidence matters as much as the potential return.
Specialists contribute independently on an engagement basis, subject to availability and agreed scope. Professional backgrounds describe individual experience; their employers are not parties to H1E engagements.
You don't need a company-wide AI initiative to get started. You need a clear view of where AI can create value, what it will take, and what deserves your attention first.
Opens an email to H1E. Share the workflow you want to improve and a couple of times that work for you. We’ll arrange the conversation personally.