Start here

How we work with you

One page for everything you need to know at the start. Questions: sherpa@contextsherpa.com

The short version: you have an associate, Tenzing, who works on your practice with you: finding work that fits, helping you decide what to go for, and helping you win it. You talk to him by email, in plain words, about anything on your desk. The founder, Ron, is copied on every thread. Your material is kept for you alone, and you can ask for it back or have it deleted at any time.

1 · How to work with your associate

• One thread. Write to sherpa@contextsherpa.com, or reply to any mail from Tenzing. Everything about your work stays in one place.
• Any form. A one-line question, a long note, a tender you have just seen, a CV, a draft you want read. Attach files the way you would to a colleague.
• Just talk to him. No forms and no special commands. Say what you want, what you are worried about, or what you are not sure of, and he works from there.
• Prefer to talk it through? Ask for a call with Ron, and it is booked with you.
• One thing he cannot do yet: listen to voice notes. Write it, or ask for a call.

2 · What to expect in the first 30 days

• We read what you send, and write back what we understood. You get a short note of what we took from your CV and your messages, written as statements for you to correct. Correct anything that is wrong, bluntly.
• Your first Terrain. That is our name for a written briefing on your field: the openings that fit you, how much time each one leaves, and what we would do about them. It arrives by email, with every source named.
• Your goals, in your own words. Tell us what a good year looks like, in whatever form suits you: a few lines, a long note, or a call. Everything we do is ranked against it.
• When a tender lands on your desk, send it. You get an honest view on whether to go for it, and if you go, help with the bid.
• You set the pace. We do not chase, and we do not send nudges dressed up as updates.

3 · How we look after your material

What you send is kept on its own, apart from every other client's material, and nothing of yours goes into anyone else's work.

Your material is used only for your work. Sherpa runs on Claude, a model made by Anthropic, with model training switched off. Anthropic's terms keep two exceptions that no setting removes. If its safety systems flag a conversation, Anthropic's safety team may review it and use it to train those safety systems. And anything sent to Anthropic as feedback can be used and is kept for five years. We do not send feedback from work on your material. Anthropic keeps its own copy of what Sherpa processes for 30 days, or up to two years if a conversation is flagged. On our side, we keep what you share for as long as we are working with you. Ask, and it is removed from our live systems within 30 days and from our archives three months after the engagement ends, and we confirm when it is done. Anthropic does not offer a data-processing agreement for this kind of subscription, so we do not claim one. The full list of who receives what is at contextsherpa.com/trust.

We never contact your clients or partners. When something needs to reach them, we prepare it and you send it.

Lessons, not your material. On your first call we ask whether we may keep anonymised lessons from your work to improve Sherpa. Your material itself stays yours and is deleted when you ask.

4 · The terms

The agreement you are working under is our Terms, with the Privacy Policy and the refund and cancellation policy. They are written to be read, not skimmed past.

5 · How to reach Ron

Ron is copied on every thread with Tenzing, so anything you write reaches him. If you want him in particular, say so in the subject line, or ask for a call.

6 · Asking what we hold, or having it deleted

Write to sherpa@contextsherpa.com and ask. We will send you everything we hold for you, or delete it, and confirm in writing when it is done. You do not need to give a reason.