We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Etinosa Agbonlahor. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Etinosa below.

Hi Etinosa, thanks for joining us today. Please tell us about starting your own firm and if you’d do anything different knowing what you know now.

At Decision Alpha, we help businesses know what to price and how to package their pricing in a way that will convert, we also offer solutions to improve the overall financial health of a business. I decided to start Decision Alpha because I have a background in behavioral economics, and I’ve always understood how people make financial decisions. Over time, I kept hearing the same thing from founders, operators, and team leads: “We’re not sure if our pricing makes sense. Can you take a look?” It wasn’t a one-off. It was a pattern. And I realized there was a real need for a guide, someone who could bring clarity to pricing, not just from a finance lens, but from a behavioral one.

A lot of business owners build their pricing by copying competitors or adding a small margin to their costs. But pricing can do so much more. It can pull in the psychology of decision-making. It can do real heavy lifting inside the business. That’s what inspired the creation of Decision Alpha.

The most important step I took early on was doing a lot of customer research. I spent more than a year talking to business owners, asking about their pricing, listening to their needs, and shaping our offer around that. And I’m still doing that work, listening, refining, testing.

If you’re a young professional thinking about starting your own firm, the biggest advice I’d give is: build a financial buffer. Especially right now, you want to give yourself room to make smart choices. A buffer gives you space to focus, to grow intentionally, and to hold out for the right clients, not just the first ones that show up. That space is everything. And, of course, talk to your customers. Constantly. That’s how you build something real.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’m a behavioral economist, which means I study how people make financial decisions, not just the math behind it, but the psychology too. I’m also the founder and CEO of Decision Alpha, a pricing and monetization firm. We help businesses figure out what to charge for their products or services, how to position those prices, and how to make sure pricing is actually working for their business.

What makes us different is our behavioral approach. Most pricing advice out there is either straight finance (what’s your cost? add a margin) or competitor-driven (what’s everyone else charging?). We look at how people actually make decisions. Because pricing isn’t just about numbers, it’s about context. A t-shirt at Nordstrom and a t-shirt at Walmart might be the same item, but people are willing to pay radically different prices based on the environment, brand, and perceived value. That’s psychology. And we use that insight to help businesses price in a way that drives revenue, loyalty, and growth.

I’m most proud of the clarity we bring. Pricing is often treated like a black box, people guess, tweak, or avoid it altogether. We take something that feels murky and turn it into a strength. We help business owners feel confident that their pricing reflects the value they deliver.

At Decision Alpha, we believe pricing should pull its weight. It should do the hard work of communicating value and supporting your growth. If you’re not sure if your pricing is working — or you just want to understand your customer better — we’re the partner you call.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

The most effective strategy we’ve used to grow our clientele has been speaking — getting in front of the right rooms. We show up at events for entrepreneurs, tech leaders, CFOs, and CEO masterminds, and we share actionable insights around pricing and monetization. That’s helped people see the value of what we do, and it often turns into deeper conversations afterward.

The other thing that’s worked is just showing up and building real relationships. People work with people they like and trust. That trust can be built online, but a lot of it still happens in real life, over coffee, at an event, through a mutual connection. We’ve leaned into both.

We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.

We stay in touch by giving people tools they can actually use. Our free pricing playbook at playbook.decisionalpha.co helps businesses rethink how they set and present prices. It’s practical and straightforward.

We also run The Pricing Minute, a short podcast that shares real pricing examples and behavioral insights. New episodes come out every two weeks. It’s meant to be easy to follow and genuinely helpful. If you’ll follow us on LinkedIn, you’ll receive the video format bi-weekly.

Everything we share is built to add value. If it doesn’t help someone make a better pricing decision, or a more financially healthy business, we don’t put it out.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.decisionalpha.co
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/decisionalpha

Image Credits

Zebrina Lee