Thought Leadership

GITIT is a proposed self-service rental locker system housed in Whole Foods Market parking lots. Think Amazon orders goods in lockers meets Home Depot Rentals. Imagine you can walk up, use your phone, and rent any number of home and garden tools, power equipment, or DIY essentials for the weekend.

Tools are Amazon-supplied. The locker pods are franchise-owned. Customers get frictionless access, while the franchisee pays off hardware via rental income and franchise fees. Obsolete or excess tools? They're resold to members. Larger items? Try before you buy, right from the lot.

Tesla recently unveiled its much-anticipated robotaxi, a vehicle with no steering wheel, no pedals, and all the promise of full autonomy. Elon's vision? A fleet of self-driving vehicles owned (or partially owned) by individuals who make passive income by sharing them.

Sound familiar?

It's essentially the next-gen version of TURO, the peer-to-peer car sharing app where individuals rent out their own vehicles. The idea seems scalable: monetize underutilized assets and democratize access to cars. But after years in market, TURO's actual growth has been sluggish, and profitability elusive.

At JCLA Labs, we spend our days asking disruptive, simple questions. One that hit the whiteboard recently:

"What if LEGO sets didn't tell you what to build — but helped you build what matters most to you?"

That challenge went through our design thinking incubator — tested through desirability, feasibility, and viability lenses.

In the consulting world, "speedboats" became a metaphor for how large companies can experiment with innovation — fast, focused, agile teams set loose to explore new markets, products, or customer segments. Unlike the "mothership," these speedboats can pivot quickly and test value before betting the farm.

When markets tighten or uncertainty rises, the instinct is often to shrink. We cut marketing, CX, lead generation, R&D, and headcount. The logic? "Let's weather the storm." But what you're really doing is turning off the engines. And what you're left with is less capability and less momentum — all while the market gets harder to navigate.

The Carving Wand is a patented carving tool I patented designed to revolutionize the way we carve, stencil, and grate. It's safer, smarter, and built for precision — replacing traditional tools that are often bulky, dangerous, and limited in use.

Born from rounds of research, prototyping, and feedback, the Wand already has traction — but we know it can go further.

In business, we often chase transformation — new products, services, brands, even entire companies — with the goal of creating value. But like turning lead into gold, it's not just about if it can be done. It's about how, why, and at what cost. And most importantly: is the value created worth more than the resources (people, process, culture, so on and so on) consumed?

Over the years, I've had the privilege to help incubate and launch new ideas across industries. What I've learned is this: 💡 Revenue is everywhere — but it's almost always cloaked. It doesn't emerge by accident. It takes a tactical, deliberate approach to uncover, shape, and scale it.