AI shouldn't be a
luxury for big business.

We built Gnomon because every small business owner deserves a clear path forward, not a consultant invoice they can't afford.

01 — Why We Built It

The Problem

AI felt like something for someone else.

Every small business owner we talked to said the same thing: they'd heard about AI, they knew it mattered, but every guide, every agency, every consultant was speaking to Fortune 500 companies. The language, the tools, the price tags, none of it was built for the owner of a neighborhood restaurant, a boutique, or a local services firm.

Meanwhile, AI consulting retainers routinely start at $10,000 a month before any implementation begins. That's not guidance. That's a wall.

The Gap

The intent is there. The roadmap isn't.

Small business AI adoption jumped from 23% to 58% in just two years, and 96% of small business owners say they plan to adopt emerging technology. But intent and action are different things. Research consistently shows that 82% of the smallest businesses believe AI simply doesn't apply to them, not because it's true, but because nobody has ever shown them how.

Without a clear picture of which AI tools actually fit their workflows, most end up paralyzed, overwhelmed, or paying for tools they never use.

Our Answer

AI made the economics of real consulting possible, for the first time.

Here's the insight that changed everything for us: AI didn't just create a new set of business tools. It fundamentally changed the economics of advice. What used to require a six-person consulting team and three months of billable hours can now be done, done well, with the right framework, the right data, and the right model doing the heavy lifting behind the scenes.

That meant we could build something we'd never seen before: a genuine AI strategy consultation, personalized to your specific business, your data, your team, your goals, for $60 a month. Not a chatbot. Not a template. An actual analysis that tells you exactly where to start, what to skip, and how to integrate AI in a way that makes sense for you.

02 — Who We Are

Two perspectives. One obsession.

Gnomon was built by two Dartmouth seniors and longtime best friends: one who grew up in the restaurant industry and learned to build software, and one who focuses on strategy and operations. We've seen both sides of this problem and built the platform we always wished existed.

Harshith Yallampalli

Engineering & Product

Harsh is a double major in computer science and economics who grew up watching his family run a restaurant. He knows artificial intelligence's opportunities, its pitfalls, and its best forms of integration. He also saw that his family's small business was getting left behind by every wave of technology that was supposedly going to help them. Harsh leads the architecture of how Gnomon ingests, normalizes, and reasons about your business data.

Agent Development BackgroundRestaurant IndustryProduct Architecture

Ella Klinsky

Strategy & Client Experience

Ella comes from a background in Government and Economics and interned as a Business Analyst at McKinsey. Through that experience, she got a close look at how large organizations think about transformation, scaling, and what it actually takes to change how a business operates. She leads our methodology, client experience, and the frameworks that turn data into decisions.

McKinsey AlumStrategy & ScaleClient Forward

03 — The Name

A gnomon is the part of the sundial that casts the shadow to tell the time.

We chose the name Gnomon because we see our product as a tool that helps small businesses navigate the complex landscape of AI, much like how a gnomon helps people navigate time. Just as a gnomon casts a shadow to reveal the passage of time, Gnomon casts light on the opportunities and challenges of AI, empowering small businesses to make informed decisions and thrive in the age of AI.

Gnomon

AI shouldn't be aluxury for big business.