◗ AI for leverage · humans for the magic
“the royal we”: a crew of one, with a fleet's worth of range.
Launch or refit your D2C brand in one quarter. You keep the keys.
Big-company scale on an indie budget. I learned how Google and Zappos build, and how to lean all the way into a brand. Now you get the playbook. Without the agency, the retainer, or the deck.
One quarter, fixed fee. If the fit's wrong, you'll know by week two, for sure.
* the “we” is, technically, one person. far out, eh? the work ships.
The operating model
Two meanings, one idea. First, the ship's bridge, where a single captain runs the whole vessel. You at the conn, AI at the consoles, a bench of greats on call. Then the bridge we build, from where you are to shipped: idea → product, your stack → the AI age. One quarter across. You keep the keys.
Most AI shops sell theatre: a deck, a workshop, a vague promise. I sell the opposite. A partner who's seen both sides (Google-scale innovation and creative, plus the founder's grind of shipping his own) who'll actually ship yours.
High EQ, high IQ, and TPM rigour in one room. A program manager's whole job is working across every function and stitching the parts into one big-picture vision, which is exactly what a company of one is built to do. We modernize how you work, upskill the team on AI, and set the business up to profit. Core creativity stays human-led.
We flipped the playbook
The going consulting model is built to bill, not to ship. So we turned it upside down.
What the research actually says
The big studies all say the same thing. The tools are everywhere; the results are rare. The difference is never the model. It's how it's applied.
of companies report no material bottom-line impact from gen-AI. Yet.
McKinsey ↗struggle to scale AI past pilots into real value.
BCG ↗avoid AI use cases over data & risk concerns.
Deloitte ↗of small businesses now use gen-AI. Most don't know where to start.
U.S. Chamber ↗they'll embrace AI, if they trust who's behind it.
Edelman ↗That's the gap I live in: one real use case, measurable before the next. Human-led, no hype, and you keep the keys.
◗ Receipts, not promises
// every capability, accounted for. no theatre, lotta ins, lotta outs.
From a napkin idea to a shipped product. Idea-accelerator energy, minus the committee.
Define the funnel, wire up Mailchimp, and make the numbers move. Yeah, well, that's just, like, your funnel, man.
Internal and customer-facing bots that deflect real tickets, not real customers. And, by royal decree, don't make things up.
End-to-end AI transformation: workflows modernized, tools wired up, team fluency built, while core creativity stays human-led.
Translation and true cultural adaptation, so a concept lands in every market it visits. Led by a fluent French speaker. BA in French, GTM for EMEA’s top 50 brands.
Brand-building that leans all the way in, so you don't look like every other AI startup.
Big-company operations on your indie tools (Shopify, Square, Stripe, Mailchimp) wired to run like a machine.
The differentiators
One accountable person. Agency breadth, none of the overhead.
5B+ users served · +250% YoY launches · idea → App Store in 30 days.
No retainer, no lock-in. We launch you and leave.
Machine speed, human taste. The soul stays intact.
Range you can see. A beige consultancy would be lying about it.
Google (incl. The ZOO, Paris), Zappos, Affirm, all in one head.
The Bridge · the Away Team · Launch / AI Refit. Not vague "advisory."
You watch it ship: documented, handed over, runnable without me.
No "biggest," no "first." Just the work that ships.
The signature engagement · one quarter, 1:1
Imagine riffing with a fellow creative who first understands your vision, then helps you shape it and ship it. One quarter, 1:1. Idea → shipped product, as deep as it takes: ecommerce, recommendation engines, tax nexus, transfer pricing, the lot.
Twelve weeks. One Dude. A product that ships.
One “dude,” every hat you need
The engagement
A focused crew beams into your business, learns it cold, comes back with ideas, and builds it with you, from business process to your site to the product you ship. No hovering, no meetings about meetings. We focus, we collaborate, we get it done. Then we hand you the keys.
Mission · 0 → 1
Get the idea out the door.
A focused strike on the thing that has to ship. A 0 → 1 launch, a make-or-break build, the deadline that can't slip. Idea to live in a quarter, in real users' hands. You keep the keys.
Mission · level-up
Bring it into the AI age.
Business stalling? We transform it end to end: business process, the site, the product, what you ship. Modernized, AI-leveraged, creative again. More value, more speed, less cost.
Either mission · one quarter · 1:1 · fixed-fee. You keep the keys. Built for D2C & creative brands.
How the away team runs
No retainers, no standing meetings about meetings. The goal is to get you going in a quarter, then hand you the keys. I'd rather launch you and leave than be a line item that never ends.
Two weeks of riffing. I learn the business, the taste, and the real goal. Then we name the one thing worth building.
We scope it for real. Funnel, stack, edge cases, the CRA-compliance-and-recommendation-engine stuff nobody warned you about. A plan you could hand to anyone. You won't have to.
I build it with you, in the open. AI for leverage, TPM rigour for the finish. You end the quarter with a shipped product, not a deck.
◗ More value, not less, for a fraction
The big firms each own one thing. You get all of it, from one person who has actually shipped.
AKQA · Instrument · Work & Co
Range & creative taste.
Accenture
Data & scale.
McKinsey
Frameworks & rigour.
Le Nous Royal
All three, made to measure. Built & shipped in the real world, 1:1.
À la carte, that range runs:
You shouldn't have to choose between range, data and frameworks, or hire three firms and eat their overhead to get them. One accountable person, made to measure. A creative shop's taste, a consultancy's data, a strategist's frameworks, plus the real-world, founder-level experience and 1:1 attention the big guys can't sell. They charge crazy sums because they are the man. Le Nous Royal helps you beat the man. Without becoming him. Our rates are value-based, not crazy.
The anti-agency stance
Retainers and hourly rates are the agency's racket. The longer it drags, the more they bill, so nothing's ever quite done. We refuse to play it. One fixed fee for the quarter. We ship, hand you the keys, and leave. No meter running, no auto-renewing monthly, no reason to pad the hours. We get paid to launch you, not to linger. We set you up to be sustainable, not dependent. That's the counter-culture part: we win when you don't need us anymore.
What a quarter can look like
A typical quarter is one hero build + two or three supporting deliverables, plus a standing slice of senior capacity. You pick the hero; we pick the supporting cast in week one.
A representative quarter, not a parts list. I don't invoice tasks; I learn the business and build what actually serves it.
Hero build · pick one
A working v1 in real users' hands. Concept to live MVP.
Deployed, with evals in CI, not a demo that dies on Monday.
A live “you might also like” that earns its keep.
Email + funnel re-architected, instrumented, converting.
Migrated and humming on Shopify / Square / Stripe / Mailchimp.
A coherent identity + asset kit your team can actually use.
Supporting moves · pick two or three
Twelve weeks is enough time to ship something real, and not enough to overthink it. That's the point.
◗ Atelier Le Nous Royal · la galerie
Proof we ship: et que nous sommes drôles. Built for the love of it, then made to actually work. Range, humour, and a finished product. Pick three.
Fan-trivia game for Chiefs Kingdom. Brand obsession, gamified.
A tournament blind-timer that actually looks good. Structure for chaos.
An app for vinyl/CD/tape nerds. One shelf, a daily pick, a snarky AI clerk. Built & shipped solo. iOS · Android · Web.
Turn a crate of records into a priced, scannable catalogue and a real register, folding table to full storefront. Live demo on the page.
Receipts · the dots I connected
None of this was a solo act of genius. It was orchestration. A program manager's job is connecting the people, teams, and pieces into one thing that actually ships. Imagine what dots I can connect for you.
I helped launch Google's Star Trek computer. Now you can have your own.
The Verge “…the most successful by far.” On Project Kennedy, Google’s first cross-product redesign, which I led as TPM. · read ↗ ▶ ▶ Watch the launch Project Kennedy: Google’s launch film The cross-product redesign I led as TPM · YouTube ↗The work, in the press
◗ Who we partner with
Our specialty: D2C and creative brands, makers, indie labels, creative commerce with taste and a story (Gatefold is one of ours). If you build something and want more, better, faster (AI for leverage, soul fully intact), we should talk.
◗ On the matter of « we »
“The royal we” is the pluralis majestatis, how monarchs have spoken for a thousand years. Never “I,” always “we,” because a sovereign never stands alone; they carry a whole court with them.
It's the joke, and it's the whole promise. Hire Le Nous Royal and you hire one person, but every team that person stood on comes too. Google, Zappos, Affirm, and a founder who shipped his own. That's range a single “I” could never claim.
And there's a second “we,” the one that matters most: you and me. This is a partnership, not a purchase order. We riff, we shape, we ship. Together.
“We” is the most important word on this page. It means you're never doing this alone.
Personnel file · reserve crew
The “we” is still one person. That's the bit, and the promise. The person you hail is the person who ships. But when a build deserves a specialist, I don't fake it or hand it to a junior. I hail the bench: a short list of genuinely great people I've shipped with and trust. Named at kickoff, on call, and only on the jobs that need them. A fleet's worth of range without the agency. First seats below; more crew revealed soon.
Name revealed soon
Generative visuals with a fine-art eye. Work featured in museums. The crazy-good stuff, pointed at your brand.
Name revealed soon
Director & producer. Work screened on film and produced in France. Cinematic motion from concept to final cut.
Name revealed soon
Award-winning creative. Concept to craft, social to stage to screen.
Name revealed soon
Data analysis, feature engineering, and the heavy AI-data work. Legit, and proudly surly, bud..
◗ Bench reach · activated per build
The bench activates only when the work calls for it. You always hire the one, and you keep the keys.
◗ Frequently, fairly, asked
Often, yes, and you're right to be wary. The going model: a six-month roadmap, a buzzword deck, a fat retainer, and a pilot that moves nothing. The studies back the skepticism. 80%+ of companies see no bottom-line impact from gen-AI yet. We do the opposite. One person on the real problem first, working output before you commit. We help you beat the man; we're not the man.
One person. That's the whole joke, and the whole pitch. You get the range of an agency, minus the agency. No account managers, no hand-offs to a junior. The person you hail is the person who ships.
Less than betting on a team you'll never meet. One quarter, a fixed fee, a scope you sign off on. If the fit's wrong you'll know in week two, not month six. And everything we build is yours, for sure: documented, handed over, and runnable without me.
Then I'm probably the wrong call, and I'll say so in the first conversation. This is built for 0→1 and modernize-the-stack work, not for staffing a 40-person org. Honest fit beats a signed contract.
I write it. AI for leverage, hands on the keys, TPM rigour on the finish. gatefold.fm went idea → App Store in 30 days the same way.
Because range is the product, and a beige consultancy site would be lying about it. The work underneath is dead serious. The rug just ties the room together.
◗ Book a fit call · 1 client per quarter
You get the quarter to yourself. The person you meet is the person who ships. Bring a concept, a mess, or a maybe. The dude abides.