The quality of your matches depends on how clearly you describe your challenge. A real person reads what you write and hand-picks advisors from it, so detail genuinely changes the outcome.
Be specific. Instead of “help with pricing,” try “review our wholesale pricing model for a manufacturing business with 12 employees and $2M annual revenue.”
What to include
- Topic area: pricing, cash flow, compliance, operations, business transitions, or another area.
- Business size: number of employees, annual revenue, or stage (startup, growth, mature).
- Urgency: when you need the first session and whether the issue is blocking day-to-day operations.
- Desired outcome: what a good session looks like for you — a revised cash-flow forecast, a compliance checklist, a decision made.
Write the description rather than just the headline. The headline might say “pricing”; the thing that gets you the right advisor is the sentence explaining that one customer is 60% of your revenue.
If your industry is not in the list
There is a “something not listed” box. Describe it in your own words. A real person reads it, and the industry list gets extended when the gap is genuine. You will never be stuck because a menu did not have your business in it.
What happens next
Your challenge goes into a queue and someone at Whetstone reads it. They pick advisors whose experience actually fits, and write you a sentence on each explaining why. You will be emailed when your shortlist is ready — usually a small number of advisors, not a directory.
Nothing is matched automatically. If nobody genuinely fits, you will be told that honestly, along with when we expect to have someone — rather than being sent a shortlist padded out with near-misses.
Posting more than one
Post a separate challenge for each distinct problem rather than combining them. They may well need different advisors, and each gets its own shortlist.
There is a limit of 5 challenges an hour, which nobody with a genuine problem will meet. It exists because every challenge lands on a real person’s desk, and a submit button pressed six times on a slow connection looks exactly like abuse.
Who can see what you wrote
Only you and the Whetstone team. It is never published, never shown to other business owners, and not visible to advisors in general. An advisor sees the context of your situation once you book them.
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