Senior, by default
No hand-offs to a junior bench. The person who scopes your work is the person who builds it.
About Balboa Insights
A boutique firm built to deliver, not pitch.
Balboa Insights exists for the nonprofits and SMBs that have been quoted six-figure transformation programs and waited eighteen months for nothing to ship.
Why we exist
Big-firm consulting wasn't built for everyone.
The standard AI-consulting playbook was built for Fortune 500 budgets: long discoveries, big slide decks, junior teams, and roadmaps that quietly outlive the executives who commissioned them.
That model doesn't work for the organizations doing some of the most important work: regional nonprofits, mission-driven operators, and high-growth SMBs that need an answer in weeks, a working prototype in six, and a senior partner who actually picks up the phone.
Balboa Insights is built around that gap. Senior-led, fixed-scope, ocean-clear: pick the right use case, ship something real, leave the team able to run with it.
Why we started
For the rooms big consulting wouldn't enter.
Balboa Insights was started for the regional nonprofit, the mission-driven operator, and the growing SMB. A $4M food bank or a Series A SaaS company at the same scale: same blocker, same need. The organizations doing important work, with real data and real questions, who happen not to have the kind of budget that funds a six-month engagement with a Big Four firm.
Those are the clients we built this firm to serve. They deserve senior thinking, working software, and a partner who finishes what they start. They're who we'll keep showing up for.
The boutique advantage
Senior attention, every engagement.
Every engagement is led by a senior principal. That's our operating model, and it's why our clients stay.
Practical over polished
We optimize for working software and decisions made, not for slide quality or presentation theater.
San Diego roots
Born in San Diego. Ocean-clear thinking, California pace, and a network across nonprofit, SaaS, retail, and telecom.
The team
Small, deeply experienced, and growing.
Our model is intentional: a senior-only core that scales through trusted specialists, not a pyramid of juniors.
JP
Joe Perone
Senior Principal & Founder
10+ years · AI, analytics & data strategy
Joe started Balboa Insights to serve the nonprofits and growing companies that big consulting forgot. He's spent the last decade leading data and AI work across European tech market research, telecom OEM analytics, retail optimization, and nonprofit operations. He currently serves as fractional CDAO at an anchor client and personally owns delivery on every Balboa engagement.
- › Fractional CDAO and AI strategy advisor
- › Customer analytics, segmentation, forecasting
- › AI governance and board-level briefings
- › Based in San Diego, working across the United States
Senior ML Engineer
Hiring · 2026
Joining the senior bench to lead model design and deployment on Rapid AI Pilots.
See careers →Senior Data Strategist
Hiring · 2026
Driving Data Strategy & Culture engagements with nonprofit and SMB clients.
See careers →
How we work
A few non-negotiables.
Ship something real.
Every engagement ends with working software, not a deck.
Plain-English everything.
If a board member can't follow it, we rewrote it before sending.
Senior on every call.
No "I'll check with my team and circle back." Decisions in real time.
ROI you can defend.
Tied to a number a CFO, ED, or board would actually accept.
Want to see if we'd be a good fit?
A 30-minute call with a senior principal. No junior gatekeeper, no slide deck.