Our Take
Minock admits the product is early and consulting subsidizes it—a founder-honest signal that the market narrative outpaces current revenue.
Why it matters
Founders often conflate TAM (what they could sell to) with current GTM (what they're actually selling to). This interview exposes the gap. Enterprise software investors need to know whether you're building a real product or consulting with a technology wrapper.
Do this week
Investors and customers: ask any early-stage software vendor to separate consulting revenue from product revenue—if they won't or can't, the business model is still under construction.
Minock separates consulting and product, focuses product vision on SQL databases
Michael Minock, founder of C-Phrase Technologies, clarified the company's market positioning in an interview with CB Insights. He drew a sharp distinction between the consulting side of the business and the product side. Currently, most revenue is consulting-driven, but Minock's growth focus is on the product.
The addressable market for the product, he argues, is broad. While initial consulting work concentrated on construction and small-to-medium-sized businesses, Minock sees any company running an SQL database as a potential customer. That scope substantially widens the theoretical market compared to the current customer base.
Consulting revenue can mask product-market fit
This is a common inflection point in enterprise software. A founder builds a consulting practice, discovers a pattern, wraps technology around it, then claims the entire adjacent market as TAM. The gap between "we solved this for five construction firms" and "every SQL user is our customer" is where many early-stage companies live longer than they should.
Minock's candor about the consulting subsidy is worth noting. Many founders obscure this ratio or present it as a go-to-market advantage rather than a revenue dependency. His transparency suggests he understands the product is not yet self-sustaining, which is fine at an early stage but relevant context for anyone evaluating the company's trajectory.
Separate revenue source from product traction
When evaluating C-Phrase or any consulting-backed software company, ask for product-only revenue, customer acquisition cost from product channels, and churn. Consulting revenue is real, but it does not prove product fit or scalability. It often subsidizes customer acquisition costs that would look unsustainable if the company had to pay for them in a pure SaaS model.
Minock's openness about this makes due diligence easier. Use it.