Why this exists, what it's actually for, and what we think you're capable of.
I'm seventeen with grand ambitions to be a graphic designer because I like drawing and it seems like a cool way to make a living. And in this particular moment, the coolest version of this career — the most rock and roll thing to do — is making websites. Mostly for clients who don't really know why they need a website, but it's the future and they want to jump on board.
My mother tells her friends I'm a web genius. One of them suggests I make a website for her son — he owns a local flower shop. The brief is clear: take his logo, a few pictures of flowers, his contact info, and throw up a single page announcing his presence on the web. He doesn't want to sell online. Just a simple landing page. Photoshop, some HTML, take the money and move on.
But this is my first client and I have bigger ideas. At our first (and last) meeting I try to really understand how his industry works.
What would you do here? How would you move the needle? Take a moment and try to come up with a real game changer.
Did your thoughts turn to ad spend? A clever campaign to "go viral"? Maybe some copy? Maybe you started thinking about cultivating better relationships with wedding planners — not a bad idea, but that's obvious low-hanging fruit.
Here's what I came up with as a kid, ten minutes into surveying the florist industry. You be the judge.
What if you partnered with wedding registries? When a guest buys the gravy boat, at checkout they get an option to donate to the Flower Fund. $10, $25, $100 — a single click.
The guests choose an amount they'll never miss and feel good about it.
The registry offers a competitive differentiator no one else has. Maybe they take a cut.
The bride has 100 guests and the average donation is $40 — she's delighted she's getting an extra $4,000 in flowers at her big day, essentially for free.
That budget goes directly to you with no additional marketing cost. You're the preferred vendor for the registry and you become the default florist for every bride who signs up — before the chaos of planning even begins.
Wedding planners recognize how their job gets a little smoother when you're in the mix. The whole thing becomes a flywheel. You make it easy just by making it possible.
Win, win, win, win, win.
This was years ago. My first client and I hit a home run. It revolutionized an entire industry.
Except it didn't.
"That sounds like a lot of work."
I was seventeen and didn't know what to do when a client doesn't get it — or how to take a great idea and breathe life into it for someone I'd just met. He was a guy with a local flower shop who just wanted a web page, and I was a punk kid asking him to change his entire operation. He said he'd get back to me about the job. I left knowing he wouldn't.
I had a superpower with a catch.
It's been many years. That idea is still yours — take it and run with it. Let me know how it works out.
And if it's a smashing success and you want to thank me: don't send flowers. Let me send some flowers for free. Feels like a fair trade.
Sit with it honestly. Not "could I have eventually gotten there" — but would that have come to you, unprompted, in a first meeting with a florist?
If the answer is yes: I hope you're working on huge problems and saving the world. Let's get lunch.
If the answer is no: I'd like you to think about what it would mean to have that skill in your back pocket. What would you do with this particular superpower?
I used to think everyone thought this way because it came so naturally to me. It took years to realize it's actually rare, and even longer to learn to use it effectively. What took the longest was figuring out that it can be learned — and that it's something I can teach.
And when you get there, if you ever feel stuck, you know it's not because you aren't being creative enough. It's because you aren't asking the right questions.
Creativity falls out of the right questions like ripe fruit from a tree.
Asking and answering the right questions is step one. The process sounds simple — but each stage has its own markers, and knowing where you are matters.
You recognize and understand the landscape clearly. You can see what confuses others and why. You can see where the opportunities live.
The value of exploration can be measured by surprise. When your results are unexpected, you're in new territory. That's exactly where you want to be.
All the work is meaningless until it results in change. The delta is what matters — the thing that determines whether anything actually improves.
It's never been easier to innovate. We have more information at our fingertips than ever before.
It's never been harder to innovate. We are drowning in data, and if you don't have a way to make clear pictures from it all, you won't just feel lost — you are lost.
That's the problem we built Lockhart Intelligence to solve.
We publish competitive market intelligence reports by vertical — who's advertising, what they're saying, how long they've been running it, what's working and what's dying. We turn the flood of data into a clear starting point. And we go far beyond the ad: we help you understand the space in a way that makes insights obvious and innovation natural.
You get to decide which of these is you. But it starts the same way for everyone: with a clear picture.
Start here. Free vertical snapshots and paid deep-dive audits. A clear picture of who's advertising, what's working, and what gaps nobody's filling. This is the map. What you do with it is up to you.
We can't help but see things in the data — strategic angles, overlooked opportunities, questions worth asking. We share those in our reports and our writing. Sometimes free, sometimes not.
For those who want to develop this as a permanent capability — to actually learn to ask the questions that lead somewhere. This is the hardest work and the most valuable. We do it selectively, with the right people.
Most people only ever need the first tier. A few want the second. The third is rare — but knowing it exists is often what makes people take the first step. It's the holy grail. The path is there if you want it.
The first one's free.
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