Consulting WITHOUT Contracts?

Premise 1: When people agree to pay for consulting services, they can't possibly know in advance, for certain, just what the true value will end up being (maybe it's AMAZING or maybe it was a great sales pitch but the actual deliverables were TERRIBLE). So, I believe that when people agree to pay "X" Dollars, they have already done some subconscious mental math. They agree to pay X  knowing there is a CHANCE it will end up being worth less than X (perhaps even as low as $0.00?!) and there is a CHANCE it will end up being worth more than X (perhaps 2x? 5x? 10x? or more!) - and they agree to pay X because it's somewhere in the middle, and it (subconsciously) factors in the risks/likelihoods of useful vs. not useful / of bad vs. ok vs, great...

Premise 2: Many entrepreneurs/startups will NEVER hire a consultant, not necessarily because they can't afford to pay X if it ends up being worth X (or 2X or 10X or more!), but because they can't afford to pay IF the consulting services DON'T end up helping! I believe they'd be happy to pay IF/WHEN they knew it was going to be valuable / if there was a zero-risk guaranteed. 

• Entrepreneurs/Startups request 15 Minutes of "Consulting Without Contracts" (regarding a specific problem they are trying to solve and/or general thoughts/feedback/advice/ideas for the business)
• No charge. No obligation. No catch.
• All we ask is that you (later) answer 2 quick evaluation questions...

1) In regard to THE BEST idea(s) or piece(s) of advice you received during the consulting session, would you say:

A) No offense, but there was nothing helpful about your consulting session.
B) We had already thought of that - but decided against it for various reasons.
C) We had already thought of that - and were/are already planning to do it.
D) Good idea(s) - we will consider it.
E) Good idea(s) - we will definitely/likely plan to implement!
F) Good idea(s) - but we will probably not implement it.
G) GREAT idea(s) - we will consider it.
H) GREAT idea(s) - we will definitely/likely plan to implement!
I) GREAT idea(s) - but we will probably not implement it.
J) Other: ____________________________________

2) Was the Consulting Session VALUABLE to you?

A) No offense, but I didn't think it was anything worth paying for.
B) It was valuable and we appreciate it, but we only agreed because it was FREE / NO OBLIGATION. (If someone is giving away a free pizza, I'm going to take the free pizza, but no, I'm not paying for that pizza no matter how good it was.)
C) It was valuable and we would be happy to make a voluntary payment.
D) It was valuable and we would be happy to make a voluntary payment IF we implement it. 
E) It was valuable and we would be happy to make a voluntary payment if we implement it AND IF it ends up working, helping, saving/making money, etc. 
F) Other: ____________________________________

2) We might start randomly sending unsolicited Advice / Feedback / Ideas to entrepreneurs/startups that we think we can help...

3) For the large companies that would be difficult/time-consuming to reach directly, we might start posting some of our ideas for them, publicly, via an Open Letter Experiment - OpenLetterExperiment.com :)

Short Thought: If an investor writes you a check for $100k, you have (obviously?) received $100k in value - regardless of whether it only took 20 minutes to write the check and sign the paperwork. That value is not measured in time.

Short Thought: If Kim Kardashian or Justin Bieber sends out a TWEET about your product, that could easily be worth $100,000 - regardless of whether that tweet took 20 seconds to write.

Longer Thought: (NOTE TO SELF: Insert Carpenter/Nail story) 

This page is obviously a work in progress, but please get in touch if you're interested in discussing...