How we engage
Wherever you are with AI, we'll meet you there.
Some founders are making their first real AI investment and need someone to think it through with them. Some have a stalled pilot and need it shipped or killed cleanly. Some are ready to build. Wherever you are on that arc, the studio has a shape that fits.
How an engagement starts
One lean week. Both sides lean in.
Every engagement begins with an Accelerated Discovery — not a productized step, just a low-commitment way to do real work together before either side commits to more. In five days we surface what's worth solving and hand you a prioritized register of the next moves.
Pillar · Advise
Advise — strategy that drives to execution.
Strategic counsel on what to build, what to buy, what to skip, and how to bring your organization along. AI strategy, technology selection independent of vendor commissions, organizational design, capability and learning programs. Senior judgment for founders making AI investment decisions for the first time — or the tenth.
Advise engagements cover the full range from a focused four-week audit to an ongoing fractional leadership retainer. The constant: same person in every meeting, no pyramid, no junior analyst handoff.
Who it's for
Founders making meaningful AI investment decisions and wanting senior counsel before they spend. Leadership teams that need to align on strategy before committing real budget. CEOs who want ongoing strategic partnership without hiring a full-time Chief AI Officer.
- →A founder is making AI investment decisions for the first time and wants someone to think through it with them
- →A leadership team needs to align on AI strategy before committing real budget
- →An owner wants ongoing strategic partnership but a full-time Chief AI Officer hire isn't the right shape
Example engagements
- —A prioritized opportunity register for a founder making a first real AI investment.
- —Twelve-month roadmaps that align leadership before budget commits.
- —Independent technology selection — build vs. buy, which vendor, what to skip. No reseller commissions.
- —Fractional AI leadership without a full-time CAIO hire.
Pillar · Build
Build — we ship.
Design and ship one production AI system inside your business. Could be an agentic workflow, an AI-native product feature, a data-and-agent integration, or an internal tool that changes how a department actually runs. Built with your team. Documented. Deployed. Owned by you when we leave.
We are operators, not slide-makers. If a Build engagement ends without something running in production that someone uses every week, we didn't do our job.
Who it's for
Founder-led companies that have already done the AI thinking and now need someone who can actually build the thing. You've talked to dev shops who don't get the business. You've talked to consultants who won't write the code. You need the rare combination of both.
- →A specialty consumer brand needs an AI-native product extension before a competitor ships one first
- →A founder-led specialty manufacturer needs an agentic workflow that turns quoting, spec-checking, or order intake from a bottleneck into an edge
- →A multi-location operator needs an AI-powered customer experience layer their vertical SaaS doesn't ship natively
Example engagements
- —Voice agents that answer after-hours calls and book jobs into dispatch — every missed call is $350–$450.
- —Agentic quoting, spec-checking, and order intake for specialty manufacturing and distribution.
- —Drafting, research, and compliance agents grounded in a professional-services firm's own work.
- —A guest-comms and scheduling layer for multi-location operators that their vertical SaaS doesn't ship.
- —AI-native product extensions for founder-led consumer brands entering a competitive window.
Pillar · Embed
Embed — we sit alongside.
A forward-deployed pod inside your business for three to six months. Aaron plus one or two senior contractors, working inside your tools, your data, and your workflows alongside your team. One foot in your organization, one foot in the studio. We're there for the boardroom conversation and we're there for the build review the next morning.
This is the model we use when the work isn't a single product but a sustained capability — when you need help getting from "we have AI ambitions" to "AI is part of how this business runs."
Who it's for
Companies where the founder has a CEO mandate to "do something with AI" and no internal capability to lead it. Companies inheriting a stalled AI pilot from a previous initiative. Founders who don't want to hire three full-time AI people but need senior craft inside the building right now.
- →A founder-led consumer brand has a board mandate on AI and no internal capability to drive it
- →A boutique professional services firm needs to embed AI into delivery before competitors do
- →A specialty distributor inherited a stalled AI pilot and needs help getting it to production — or killing it cleanly and starting over
Example engagements
- —Board-mandated AI initiatives with no internal lead — we run the agenda for three to six months.
- —Stalled-pilot recovery: ship it, or kill it cleanly and rebuild.
- —Senior craft inside a multi-unit operator standing up AI across locations.
- —A professional-services firm embedding AI into delivery before competitors do.
The five engagements
The shape itself is one of five.
Most studios will tell you they custom-scope every engagement. We custom-scope the work inside the engagement. The shape itself is one of five. That clarity protects you and it protects us — we don't drift into a long sales cycle dressed up as a discovery process.
| Tier | Engagement | Pillar | Length | What it is |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| T1 | AI Opportunity Audit | Advise | 3–4 weeks | Prioritized register of what's worth building, in sequence. |
| T2 | Discovery Sprint + Roadmap | Advise | 4–6 weeks | Full diagnostic plus a twelve-month AI roadmap. |
| T5 | Fractional AI Leadership | Advise | Open-ended retainer | Senior strategic partner inside the leadership team. |
| T3 | Implementation Sprint | Build | 8–14 weeks | One production AI system, scoped, shipped, documented. |
| T4 | Embedded AI Pod | Embed | 3–6 months (3-mo min) | Forward-deployed studio team inside your org. |
- T1Advise
AI Opportunity Audit
3–4 weeks
Prioritized register of what's worth building, in sequence.
- T2Advise
Discovery Sprint + Roadmap
4–6 weeks
Full diagnostic plus a twelve-month AI roadmap.
- T5Advise
Fractional AI Leadership
Open-ended retainer
Senior strategic partner inside the leadership team.
- T3Build
Implementation Sprint
8–14 weeks
One production AI system, scoped, shipped, documented.
- T4Embed
Embedded AI Pod
3–6 months (3-mo min)
Forward-deployed studio team inside your org.
Larger work — multi-system Studio Engagements, multi-quarter pods, ongoing partnerships — is custom-quoted off the same productized shapes. We don't do hour-by-hour billing.
Fit check
We might not be the right fit if any of this is true.
Naming this list is part of the brand. Saying no protects the wedge — and saves both of us the time of figuring out we weren't a fit on month three of an engagement.
If your AI thesis is shrinking the team.
Every engagement we run is designed to elevate the people doing the work. There are firms that will help you do the other thing. We aren't one of them.
If you want a deck and a roadmap and nothing else.
Every engagement ends with something running, something shipped, or something handed off to your team that they can actually run. We will not write slides and call it transformation.
If your buying process requires a nine-month sales cycle.
We close engagements in two to four weeks. That's a feature, not a bug. An RFP committee and a master services agreement that takes a quarter to negotiate is not the right shape.
If you need a vendor who takes platform commissions.
Our technology recommendations are independent of any platform's reseller program. We will tell you which vendor is wrong for your business. None of that is influenced by who pays us.
How to start
The starting point is a conversation.
Thirty minutes. No deck, no obligation. We trade notes on what you're working on, what you've already tried, and where you're stuck. If we're a fit, the next step is usually an Accelerated Discovery — paid entry that lets us do real work together before either of us commits to a larger engagement.
If we're not a fit, we'll tell you. Sometimes we'll point you toward someone who is.