The pilot ran. Nothing changed.
You have Copilot seats, a chatbot demo, maybe an agent someone built over a weekend. What you don't have is a business result you can point to. I help you pick the few technology and AI investments worth making, write down the decision, and then help you ship them.
The tools are capable. Choosing where they fit is the hard part.
Which workflows to rebuild. What to buy versus build. What breaks when the model is wrong. Which vendor is selling you a wrapper. Those are judgment calls, and most teams don't have one senior person they can ask directly.
That's the retainer. One person, available for the real questions, who builds with these tools every day and has no incentive to sell you more of them.
Operators, not spectators
Owners and executives of growing companies, founders adding AI to a product, and leadership teams that want an honest answer, including "don't."
I also advise portfolio companies and co-investors through the family office. Same approach: find the two things worth doing and kill the other five.
Every month on the retainer
Most of the opportunity map gets rejected. That's the point. You end up with a short list you can actually fund and a written reason for everything you skipped.
Opportunity map
A ranked list of where technology and AI save time or make money, what each costs, and what each risks. Revisited as things change.
Working sessions
Scheduled reviews on architecture, build-or-buy, model selection, agent design, and vendor shortlists.
Async access
Questions between sessions, typically answered the same day.
Vendor and tool calls
Copilot, Claude Code, Cursor, the CRM add-on, the "AI platform" pitch. Independent advice. No reseller margins, no referral fees.
Guardrails
Data handling, key management, agent permissions, and what your people are allowed to paste into what.
Path to building
When the map says build, I can scope a fixed-price build in your repos. Separate quote, no obligation.
Month to month. Leave on 30 days' notice.
For comparison, a full-time senior hire for this role costs $250K+ per year before equity.
Direction and a second opinion. Month one is the map. If the map says you don't need a retainer, it ends there.
- Opportunity map, revisited as things change
- Two working sessions per month
- Async access
- Vendor, model, and build-or-buy calls
Everything in Advisor, plus hands-on work in your repos. This is the forward deployed engineer tier.
- Weekly sessions
- Priority async access, including Slack
- Hands-on repo review: PRs, agent design, evals
- Pairing with your team on the hard paths
- 12-month roadmap work with leadership
Larger builds are quoted separately at a fixed price.
How it runs
The call
Free, 30 minutes. If I can't help, I say so and point you to someone who can.
Month one
The opportunity map. Interviews, a look at your systems and data, and a ranked list with costs and risks.
The rhythm
Sessions and async at a cadence your team sets. Decisions get written down.
Ongoing
Monthly decisions, with the option to leave on 30 days' notice, or move to a fixed-price build.
A good fit if you…
- Tried AI tools and can't show a result
- Have capable engineers or a vendor, but no one to referee
- Want honest advice, including "don't do this"
- Are building AI into a product and need someone who has shipped it
Probably not if you want…
- A strategy deck without follow-through
- Someone to rubber-stamp a decision already made
- A ten-person build team on day one
- To skip the data and security basics
Common questions
How much does the retainer cost?
Advisor is $5,000/month. Embedded is $9,000/month. Both are month to month with 30 days' notice and no termination fee.
Advisor or Embedded?
Advisor if you need direction and a second opinion. Embedded if you want me in the repo reviewing PRs, designing agents, and pairing with your engineers every week.
How is this different from fractional CTO?
Narrower scope. Advisory is about where technology and AI investments go and the decisions around them. Fractional CTO covers the full technical function: people, security, diligence, and roadmap. Tier pricing is the same.
What if the map says "build"?
I scope a fixed-price build, separately quoted, in your repos. You can take that scope to anyone. Most clients have me build it because I already know the system.
Can I stop after month one?
Yes. Month one produces the map. If the map shows no retainer is needed, you keep the map and we're done.
Do you work remotely?
Yes. Most of this work is remote, with on-site sessions when they're worth it.
Start with the map.
Thirty minutes, free. You'll know by the end whether month one is worth it.