Out of your head and into the world
IdeasOut is the thinking and writing partner for leaders who run something and have more to say than time to say it. Talk an idea through, leave with a brief you can act on, then publish it in a voice people recognize as yours.
Offered by Coastal Intelligence, a Santa Barbara AI think tank and consultancy
Watch Mark walk through IdeasOut
Captions are on, so you can watch with the sound off.
Leaders are responsible for two things:
strategy and communications.
IdeasOut delivers both.
Built for the leader who's the voice of the business
You run a firm, a practice, a company, or a mission. You know your field better than almost anyone. People would listen if they heard from you more often.
- You do your best thinking out loud, and there's rarely anyone to think with.
- You posted on LinkedIn a few times, then the business got busy and you stopped.
- You speak on panels and stages, and those ideas never make it into writing.
- Your newsletter hasn't gone out in months.
- You'd never call yourself a marketer, and you don't want to become one.
When you go quiet, your market hears someone else
Your best ideas arrive half-formed. In the car, in the middle of a client meeting, at 11 at night. A new direction for the business. A point of view your clients need to hear. A decision you keep circling.
Most of them never leave your head. The strategy stays unspoken, so your team guesses. The point of view stays unpublished, so a competitor says it first. The reputation you've earned in the room never reaches the people who haven't met you yet.
You've tried to fix this. A ghostwriter took weeks to learn you and still sent back a house style. AI chat agreed with everything and sounded like everyone. Doing it yourself meant nights and weekends, when it got done at all.
Watch. Work. Wrap.
You only ever talk to Reed, the AI thought partner inside IdeasOut. Behind him, a team of AI specialists each handle one job, in order, with a quality check between every step. We call that Structured Intelligence.
Each night, IdeasOut scans your market for news and conversations worth joining, and ranks them. You open a short morning brief with the angles already found.
Talk, type, or drop in a transcript. Reed asks one question at a time and pushes back on weak spots. You leave with a structured brief, then a draft, in your voice.
An approved piece becomes a LinkedIn post, a newsletter, an article, or a talk outline. The argument stays intact across every version.
Clear strategy, and a steady public voice
A brief for the meeting
The idea you've been circling, structured into something your team, board, or clients can react to.
Strategy you can say in one page
What's in your head, written down so people can repeat it without you in the room.
Writing that sounds like you
Articles, posts, and newsletters in your voice, ready for your approval before anything goes out.
A reputation that compounds
A consistent presence, week after week, built from the thinking you're already doing.
It sounds like you, thinks like you, and works like you
As you work with Reed, IdeasOut builds three profiles of you and your organization. Every piece it produces is checked against all three.
How you sound
The way you talk, write, and land a point. Your phrases, your rhythm, the words you'd never use.
How your organization sounds
What it stands for, who it serves, and the language it owns, so every piece sounds like the same company.
How you work
How you solve problems, the frameworks you use, and the steps you take a client through. The thinking only you bring.
That matters more every month. Readers can spot AI writing, and browser tools now label it right in the LinkedIn feed.
- Built from your own words, in your sessions with Reed
- Seven quality checks on every piece before you see it
- Scanned for the filler phrases that give AI writing away
- Nothing is published until you approve it
- Your DNA files are yours to take into any AI tool
Every plan gets argued with before a client sees it
AI chat works inside the frame you give it. If your plan has a blind spot, you won't think to ask about it, and the answer comes back polished and still wrong.
Your Council is a panel of advisors you seat yourself, chosen because they'll see your idea differently. Bring them a brief, and each seat pushes from its own angle, so you find the weak spot before anyone else does.
“Where does the money break?”
“Who buys this, and why now?”
“Why would I ever switch?”
“What would they see that you can't?”
Why it works. Research led by Anita Woolley, published in Science, found that groups solving hard problems did best when every voice got a turn, and that the group's average intelligence mattered less than how it talked. Your Council builds that into every plan. It took eighteen months to get right, because tuning the disagreement is the hard part.
How IdeasOut compares
| Ghostwriter | AI chat on its own | IdeasOut | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Helps you think | Writing only | Agrees with you | Reed pushes back on weak premises |
| Knows you | After weeks of learning you | Only what you paste in | Your Voice DNA and past work, from the first session |
| Sounds like you | Often a house style | Readers can tell | Checked against your Voice DNA |
| Argues with your plan | Rarely, you're the client | Only if you know to ask | Your Council, on every brief |
| What you leave with | A draft | A wall of text | A brief, then finished pieces for every channel |
What your membership includes
Mark runs the monthly group AMA himself. You're never left alone with the software.
Reed, any time
Your thought partner, who knows your business, your voice, and what you worked on last time.
Your Council
Seat the advisors you'd want in the room: a chief financial officer, a skeptical buyer, people whose judgment you trust. Every plan gets argued with before anyone else sees it.
Your morning brief
Topics from your market worth joining, found and ranked overnight, ready when you start your day.
A monthly group AMA (Ask Mark Anything)
Members bring their thinking and strategy questions to an open session with Mark. Every session is recorded.
Mark Sylvester
Mark has spent 40 years where technology meets storytelling. He co-founded Wavefront, the company behind Maya, the 3D animation software that won an Academy Award.
Since 2010 he's produced TEDxSantaBarbara, getting speakers' ideas out of their heads and in front of an audience. IdeasOut builds what he learned into software. He co-founded Coastal Intelligence, the Santa Barbara AI think tank and consultancy that offers IdeasOut.
I went to IdeasOut to figure out how to make more time for the work I care about. Twenty minutes later I had two difficult letters drafted, one to the man who nominated me a decade ago and one to the CEO, and clarity on a significant life decision.J. Douglas Crawford, Founder, OwnerAI.coach
I've tried a lot of AI writing tools. Most hand you a draft and leave you to fight with it. This is the first one that made me do the thinking first. Reed interviews you until the idea is actually sharp, then the draft shows up already sounding like me.
The Council is the part I haven't seen anywhere else. I seated a CFO, a CRO, a skeptical buyer, and a couple of real people I respect. Now every plan gets argued with before a client sees it.
It wrote a strategy memo on my own pricing model and I used it as-is. No cleanup. That's never happened with another tool.
Writing has always been a landmine for me, particularly before starting any article or post. Thinking was never the problem. Coordinating my thoughts and structuring the pieces bordered on mild insanity. IdeasOut helped me sort through the cold start problem by interviewing me. Within seconds it gives me a smart outline, then works as my AI partner through the writing to produce output I'm proud to share.
IdeasOut is brilliant in gathering your voice DNA, your brand DNA, and how you work as an entrepreneurial operator, so your clients can see the real you sooner and faster.
The best way to see IdeasOut is IdeasOut Live
IdeasOut Live is a free 45-minute session on Zoom, every other Wednesday at 10 AM Pacific. Mark takes one registrant's idea and works it live with Reed, from a rough thought to a brief, then to a finished article that sounds like the person who brought it. You see exactly what a session feels like, then decide if IdeasOut is for you.
See the dates and save your seatBring an idea you haven't had time to work through.
Questions
Who is IdeasOut for?
Leaders who are the voice of their business: founders, CEOs, owners, managing partners, and executive directors. It works best for people with deep expertise and too little time to think it through and write it down.
I already use ChatGPT or Claude. Why this?
General AI chat only knows what you tell it in the moment, and it tends to agree with you. Reed works from your Voice DNA and your past work, challenges you, and hands you something structured you can use.
Do I need to know how to use AI?
No. Reed asks questions and you answer them. There are no prompts to write.
How much of my time does it take?
Your first session takes about 30 minutes and builds your Voice DNA. After that, most sessions start with a question from Reed and a few minutes of talking.
Why can I only join through IdeasOut Live?
Because you should see it work on a real idea before you decide.
Can I cancel?
Yes, anytime. Membership is month to month.
Nothing changes until the idea gets out.
Get your idea outIdeasOut™ is available exclusively through Coastal Intelligence.