About
Built by people who have run the work.
We were doing this before it was called AI. Deep learning, then machine learning, now agents: the same field, mostly the same math.
Garbage in, garbage out survived every rebrand because it is arithmetic. So we sell the work, not the dream.
- Years in digital and commerce operations
- 25Years in digital and commerce operations
- Industries that paid for the lesson first
- 4Industries that paid for the lesson first
- Commissions, kickbacks, or referral fees taken
- 0Commissions, kickbacks, or referral fees taken
Twenty-five years of the same problem, mostly somewhere else.
Cyril Drouin founded an agency in Shanghai when Chinese eCommerce was still an argument, then spent a decade running commerce and performance across North Asia.
Biography, not positioning. The years show one pattern: the same problem, wearing a different industry every few years, failing where nobody wanted to look.
Before it was called AI
Media & advertising
Attribution, reach, and spend.
Supply chain
Forecasting, routing, and stock.
Finance
Reconciliation, risk, and reporting.
Market analysis
Demand, pricing, and share.
2003
Founded one of the first eCommerce agencies in China. Built recommendation engines before anyone called them AI.
2010s
CEO, Publicis Commerce & Performance, China and North Asia, through the attribution years.
Now
Founder, BearingBridge. Building Intelligence.
He sells the work and does the work. Whoever scoped your account answers for it.
Questions better answered by a person go to hello@bearingbridge.com.
The method came from doing the job, not from studying it.
Intelligence was designed by people who staffed marketing teams, budgeted them, and explained the number at the end of the quarter.
That is why the agents have job descriptions instead of a chat window.
How we run the workAgency, from the inside
Founded and ran agencies. Wrote the scopes, staffed the teams, saw what a client was really charged.
Growth under a number
Ran commerce and performance at scale, against a target that did not move because the market was hard.
Small teams, no cover
A handful of people carrying marketing, sales, and support at once, with no analyst to ask.
No agency owns us, and no agency works on your account through us.
An agency’s retainer is the product, so it has every reason to keep the work inside. A tool resold through one inherits the incentive.
Same with models. We benchmark on your tasks, at the API prices you would pay yourself, and the winner changes by task and by quarter.
Certified on some. Trained on others.Loyal to none of them.
What does not exist
- An agency that owns us, or resells us under its own name
- A commission, kickback, or referral fee behind a recommendation
- A model vendor paying for placement
- A lock-in on your data
Five things we are held to, including the one that costs us money.
Rules for the consulting work, inherited by the product.
Measure first
No recommendation without a baseline. Opinions are welcome in the room. They just do not close a phase.
Say no in writing
About a third of what people ask an agent to do should not be built. We say so and lose the line item.
Start in the plumbing
The first week is your data, not the models. A brilliant agent on a source nobody trusts produces confident nonsense, faster.
End in your autonomy
The goal is that your team runs this without us. No dependency built in on purpose.
Ship what we sell
We run our own marketing on these modules. What does not survive that never reaches your account.
Saying no is the expensive one, and it is why the other four are credible.
See where we said no
Anyone can write that they are honest. Here is where you can check it.
A promise of candor is cheap to write. These three pages make it falsifiable.
- The catalogEvery module with its real status: shipped, in build, or planned. The only page allowed to say a thing is not finished, and it says it about us.Open the catalog
- The changelogWhat shipped, and when. A roadmap is a hope; a changelog is a record. Both are public, and the gap is visible on purpose.Open the changelog
- The pricingThe number is on the page. No seat math, no “contact us for a quote.” Opening an account does not even ask for a card.Open pricing
The roadmap is written by the people who use it.
Ask for somethingYou ask
In a session or by email. No ticket portal.
It is answered
Either way, and the no is explained in writing.
It appears
If it is in, it lands on the catalog as planned.
It ships
And moves to the changelog with a date on it.
Judge it on the product, not on the page.
Open an account and run one module on one brand, or talk to us first and we will tell you honestly whether this is your next move.
No subscription. No seat fee. No card required to request an account.