A Letter from Our Founder
Why We Built Strategic Foundation for You
I'm Rob Sergent, an Oxford-trained strategist with a somewhat unusual background. I've served as VP Innovation at Johnson & Johnson and held director positions at the National Football League. I've also launched and exited multiple businesses of my own.
That mix of corporate strategy rooms and scrappy startup warfare taught me something crucial: SMBs face a massive, unfair disadvantage.
The Fortune 500 companies I worked with had $50K consultants, strategic planning teams, and dedicated CFOs. SMB owners have... themselves, doing everything, with no strategic framework and poor cash flow visibility.
You shouldn't need an MBA and a six-figure budget to make strategic decisions. The frameworks we use at Johnson & Johnson? The competitive intelligence techniques the NFL uses? They're not magic. They're systematic. And they should be accessible to every business owner who's willing to think strategically.
That's why we built Strategic Foundation. Here's what each tool does and why it matters for your business:
Ikigai (Purpose Alignment)
Purpose statements aren't fluffy corporate BS when done right. At J&J, our Credo (purpose statement) guided $90B in decisions. We use the Ikigai framework to align what you love, what you're good at, what the world needs, and what pays. When these four elements align—magic happens. Businesses with clear purpose see 15-23% higher customer loyalty and attract better talent.
PESTEL Analysis
External forces—regulations, economic shifts, technology disruptions—kill more businesses than bad products. Fortune 500 companies monitor these constantly with dedicated teams. You should too, but in 5 minutes, not 5 hours. Our Fusion Intelligence spots the threats and opportunities most SMBs miss until it's too late.
Porter's Five Forces
Competitive intelligence isn't guessing—it's systematic analysis of where you have power and where you're vulnerable. This is how billion-dollar companies decide where to compete. At the NFL, we used Porter's to understand league dynamics and competitive threats. Now it's accessible to you, without the consultant fees.
TUNA Analysis (Turbulence, Uncertainty, Novelty, Ambiguity)
Is your market calm or chaotic? Predictable or volatile? Your strategy MUST match your environment. High-growth companies use TUNA to know when to move fast vs. play it safe. Wrong strategy for wrong environment = failure, no matter how good your product is.
Blue Ocean Strategy
Stop fighting competitors on price. Create uncontested market space where competition doesn't matter. This is how companies like Cirque du Soleil and Netflix broke out. At J&J, we used Blue Ocean thinking to enter new therapeutic areas. You don't need to be the biggest—you need to be the only one doing what you do.
What to Expect
Brief inputs, strategic insights. You provide 2-3 sentences per question. Our Fusion Intelligence—trained on thousands of businesses—transforms your thoughts into Fortune 500-caliber strategic analysis. No MBA jargon. Just practical business intelligence.
You already know your business inside and out. These frameworks just help you see patterns you might have missed. Think of it like revealing the game board—once you see how the pieces move, everything becomes clearer.
Our Commitment: I built StratBear because I was tired of watching great SMB owners make billion-dollar company mistakes without billion-dollar company tools. You deserve the same strategic clarity I had access to at Johnson & Johnson.
Oxford-trained Strategist
Former VP Innovation, Johnson & Johnson
Former Director, National Football League