The Case of the Missing Customer - Investigators Companion

Small clues often reveal the biggest shifts.

This Investigator’s Companion sits alongside the Field Note as a quiet place to pause… not to decide, but to notice. To explore how attention moves, how assumptions form, and how clarity often emerges when we ask a different question than the one we started with.

You don’t need to work through this in one sitting. You may find it more useful to return when something in your work feels well-intentioned… but oddly stuck.

1. Follow the Clue

As you reflect on the Field Note, notice what stayed with you.

Perhaps it was:

• the monastery as a living ecosystem.

• the harmony of distinct roles and needs.

• the founder’s deep love of the problem.

• the weight of the question: “Who pays?”

Look again and identify the one detail that felt most alive - the moment that seemed to tug at your attention without explanation.

If it helps, note this in your Investigator’s Notebook (journal). Not the whole scene… just the clue that feels charged.

Often, what catches your eye points to where your thinking wants to shift.

2. Sit With the Question

Rather than analysing the clue, allow it to rest with you. What question does it raise?

You might find yourself wondering:

• Where have I been most absorbed by the problem itself?

• What have I assumed about who this work is really for?

• What question have I not been asking yet?

There’s no need to resolve these questions immediately. If it feels useful, let a few thoughts surface in your Investigator’s Notebook. Fragments are enough.

This stage is about curiosity, not correction.

3. Notice the Pattern

Now widen the lens slightly: where else does this dynamic show up - in your work, your projects, or your decisions?

You may begin to notice a familiar pattern:

• building from empathy, but not from incentive.

• designing solutions before understanding buying behaviour.

• assuming alignment without testing willingness to pay.

Name the pattern gently - as a working observation, not a flaw.

Seeing the pattern is already a form of progress.

4. Test a Small Shift

Clarity rarely arrives through theory alone. It often appears through small, deliberate experiments.

What is one modest investigative step you could take next?

For example:

• asking a paying customer why they chose you.

• noticing who actually funds your work today.

• shifting one conversation from need to value.

Treat this as an experiment, not a decision.

Whatever you observe - resistance, insight, surprise - is simply evidence.

5. Compare Notes (optional)

Some investigations benefit from being shared.

If it feels helpful, you might compare notes with another investigator – a friend, advisor, or trusted peer - and explore:

• what each of you noticed in the story.

• how you each think about customers versus users.

• which assumptions surfaced through conversation.

You’re not looking for consensus or advice.

Sometimes, a second perspective helps reveal the customer who has been missing from view.

Holmes UnLimited is where these Field Notes continue… individual investigations into attention, clarity, and the things we miss when we move too quickly.

This isn’t work built for followers.
But if your curiosity pulls you onward, you may choose to follow the investigation here.

Clear the desk.
Quiet the noise.
And let the investigation continue.