The CIOs Who Trusted Gartner Are Retiring. Lionfish Built for the Ones Replacing Them.

Rob Smith spent eight years as a Gartner analyst learning exactly how a specific generation of IT leaders makes buying decisions. He is now betting the next generation makes them differently enough to build an entire product around the difference. Periscope, the newest release from his firm, Lionfish Tech Advisors, is designed less around a feature set and more around a demographic shift Smith says he has watched happen in real time across his client base.

The claim is straightforward and worth taking seriously rather than treating as a hook. Here is what the outgoing generation relied on analyst firms for, what is different about the incoming generation’s instincts, and how a company builds for a buyer population in the middle of a transition.

Key Takeaways:

• Smith tested the theory directly: a Boeing IT executive and a major transport CIO both named purchase verification as the reason for the contract.
• The outgoing generation accepted a $60,000 to $70,000 seat and a multi-week wait as fixed costs.
• Younger buyers want the same verification in a self-serve format, not a scheduled call with a stranger.
• Lionfish repriced the live call to $400 to serve buyers mid-transition, without removing it.
• The bet rests on demographic math: the analyst-call habit is retiring with the people who built it.

The Habit the Outgoing Generation Built Their Careers On

Smith describes a specific mental path among Baby Boomer and Gen X IT leaders: a purchase comes up, and the reflexive next step is a call to Gartner, Forrester, or IDC, usually Gartner first as the largest of the three. The habit formed over decades, and Smith does not think it was irrational. Analyst firms did and still do produce rigorous research, and for a CIO responsible for a large budget, a credentialed third party validating a decision was a reasonable risk-management step, not a crutch.

He tested the assumption rather than theorizing about it. He asked a friend who is a senior IT executive at Boeing what the actual reason was for keeping an analyst relationship, and got the answer he expected: purchase verification, full stop. It matched what he heard from a friend who runs IT at one of the world’s largest transport companies. Neither described a need for new information. Both described a need for a credentialed third party to confirm a decision they had already reached.

What Changed Is the Cost of Access, Not the Value of Validation

A typical per-seat contract with a major firm starts around $60,000 to $70,000 a year and climbs, and booking a call under it still takes several weeks at minimum. For CIOs who built their careers when that was simply the cost of doing business, the price was accepted as a fixed part of the job. Smith’s read is that this generation is retiring now, and taking that accepted cost structure with them.

What Does the Incoming Generation Want Instead?

A different format for the same reassurance. Younger buyers, millennials and Gen Z professionals moving into senior IT roles, tend to be more confident researching a decision themselves and more skeptical that a scheduled call with an unfamiliar analyst is worth the wait and the cost. Smith puts it plainly: this group would rather do its own research than book time with a stranger, not because the advice would be wrong, but because the format does not match how they get information.

The underlying need does not disappear. Even skeptical younger buyers still want some form of purchase verification before committing real budget. Periscope’s free, instant, self-serve report is built for exactly that: a login, a set of company details, and a report in under a minute, with a live call available only if the buyer decides they want one.

Building for a Transition, Not a Fixed Audience

The harder part of the bet is not spotting the shift, it is building a product that still works for the CIOs who have not retired yet. Lionfish did not remove the live advisory call; it repriced it, from the tens of thousands a full contract requires down to $400 for thirty minutes. That keeps the door open for buyers who still want the traditional format while making self-serve the default for those who would rather skip the call.

Smith’s underlying argument is that this is not really a story about AI, or even about Lionfish. It is a story about a workforce transition that was going to happen anyway, and about which advisory firms are still relevant on the other side of it. A firm built entirely around a $70,000 annual contract and a three-week wait is built for a shrinking base. Whether Lionfish’s bet pays off depends on whether the free, fast version holds up to the same scrutiny the paid, slow one earned over decades. The demographic math behind the bet is hard to argue with.

FAQ

Is the analyst call going away?

Not entirely. Lionfish kept the live analyst call and repriced it to $400 for thirty minutes, while making a free, self-serve report the default for buyers who prefer it.

What do younger IT buyers want differently?

They want the same purchase verification in a self-serve, on-demand format rather than a scheduled call, and they are more skeptical that an unfamiliar analyst adds value proportional to the wait and cost.

Why frame this as a generational story?

Because the CIOs who built careers on the analyst-call habit are retiring in numbers, and their replacements start from different assumptions, which changes which advisory models stay relevant.

The Bottom Line

The validation buyers wanted has not changed. Who is doing the buying, and how they expect to receive it, has. Lionfish repriced and repackaged the same verification for a generation that would rather log in than schedule a call, and bet that the demographic tide does the rest.

See the model at Lionfish Tech Advisors, or get a verified recommendation in under a minute here.