About Eleven 186
Why the firm is built this way.
Eleven 186 is an independent advisory firm that also builds and executes. It exists because of a gap that owners and executives keep running into. Consultancies analyze the thing and hand over a document, agencies deliver the one thing they already sell, and software shops build whatever you specify whether or not it is the right thing to build. None of them are set up to take a problem that crosses strategy, operations, technology, capital, and regulation all at once and stay with it until it is resolved.
So we built the firm for that instead. It takes a defined problem, works it down to ground truth, recommends a course of action, and then does the work required to make that recommendation real. The firm has worked across defense and national security, infrastructure, water and wastewater, government procurement, healthcare, software, and capital markets, and has secured $200M+ capital across client engagements with 100+ clients to date.
Where the name comes from
Escape velocity is 11.186 kilometers per second. Below that number, an object thrown upward comes back down, no matter how hard it was thrown. Above it, the object keeps going.
Organizations accumulate gravity the same way. It is rarely one thing. It is the system nobody wants to replace, the report three people build by hand every month, the decision that has to route through the owner, the market data that contradicts itself, the process that worked at twenty people, the constraint nobody has named because naming it means dealing with it. Each piece is small. Together they hold a company exactly where it is, and the company burns most of its energy staying there.
Effort alone does not solve this. A company can work harder for two years and end up in the same position, tired. What changes the outcome is knowing precisely what is holding you in place, and then applying force to that specific thing rather than to everything at once.
That is the work. Find what is actually holding the organization down. Determine what will move it. Build whatever is missing. Then push until it moves.
The name is also an homage. The founder's work began in space-based national security, and continues today through an affiliated company.
The founder
Founder
The founder started Eleven 186 to work on business problems that don't fit a category.
The background is operational: time spent building and running the systems large organizations depend on, and then work in space-based national security and defense. That work continues today through an affiliated national-security company.
At Eleven 186 the work has produced more than eight first-of-their-kind systems, with viable builds live within 120 days. The firm has worked across defense, infrastructure, water and wastewater, government procurement, healthcare, software, and capital markets.
The founder also teaches. Masterclasses and working sessions for founders, leadership teams, and program cohorts on corporate pilots, buying processes, and entering the United States market.
The founder works from the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania and takes engagements nationally.
What high-consequence work teaches
Establish ground truth.
Start from what is verifiably true, not from what everyone believes is true. Most bad decisions trace back to an unexamined assumption that entered the room early and never got tested.
Question assumptions.
Ask who established a given fact, when, and whether the conditions still hold. Numbers age. So do org charts, contracts, and market conditions.
Understand the mission.
Know what the organization is actually trying to accomplish, which is often different from what the current plan optimizes for. Solve the real objective.
Find the constraint.
In any system, one thing limits the outcome more than the others. Effort spent anywhere else feels productive and changes nothing.
Know what happens if you are wrong.
Every recommendation carries a downside. Name it before committing, and size it. A decision you can recover from is a different decision than one you cannot.
Build systems that work in the real world.
Real conditions include exceptions, bad data, people who are busy, and rules that cannot be waived. A design that only works under ideal conditions has not been finished.
How we work with clients
The team is small and senior, so you work with the people who actually design the system. There is one point of contact, and it's someone who was in the room for the diagnosis.
There are two ways to work with us, and which one applies depends on the problem. Some problems resolve into a defined piece of work, so that gets a fixed scope and a fixed price and you know both before you start. Others do not resolve that way, and those run as an ongoing engagement that reserves a defined share of executive capacity each month for as long as the problem needs it. Either way every stage has a named end state and a review. We don't sell an open-ended retainer that nobody ever closes, and we don't bill for a document nobody acts on. Some clients stop after the diagnosis and go do the work with their own team, which is a perfectly good outcome.
The core team is deliberately small, so we keep an advisory network across business sectors and draw on it when a problem needs a domain specialist. If it turns on a regulatory question, a technical discipline, or an unfamiliar market, we bring in someone who has done that specific work, for the part that requires them. You're told who is involved and why.
And when the answer turns out to be a system, we build it and hand it over with the documentation and the evidence trail showing how it meets the constraint. Eleven 186 works from the Lehigh Valley and takes engagements nationally.
What this site is and is not
Eleven 186 provides strategic, operational, research, technology, and business advisory services. Information on this site is general and does not constitute legal, investment, engineering, accounting, medical, regulatory, or other licensed professional advice.
Engagements, clients, and examples on this site may be anonymized, generalized, or omitted for confidentiality, contractual, or national security reasons. References to government agencies, national security work, defense organizations, or space programs describe relevant experience. They do not imply endorsement, sponsorship, or affiliation. Results vary by engagement, and past performance does not guarantee future outcomes.
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