Sharpen the architecture and the economics behind your business.
Fractional architect and SaaS-economics counsel for founders and technical leaders. We make sure the system you're building can carry the business model you're running.
The work itself. Four flavors of counsel, all written down.
memos, models, briefs — not slides
Architecture reviews & technical due diligence.
A structured second opinion on the system you're building or buying. We read the code, walk the diagrams, talk to the engineers, and write you a memo that names the risks honestly — including the ones your team is too close to see.
SaaS unit-economics modeling.
The math that decides whether your business actually works at scale. COGS vs. CAC, retention curves, pricing tiers, and the hidden infrastructure costs that quietly eat your margin three years in. We build the model with you, then teach you to run it.
Scaling roadmaps: refactor, rewrite, or leave alone.
The hardest call most engineering organizations face — and the one most people get wrong out of either fear or hubris. We help you make it deliberately, in writing, with a phased plan and a clear set of triggers for each path.
Hiring & org design for early-stage teams.
Level calibration, comp ranges, interview loop design, and the structural question nobody asks early enough: who are the first three engineers you actually need, and in what order? We've sat on the senior side of the market for a decade.
Three shapes the work can take. Pick whichever matches the question you're trying to answer.
switchable mid-engagement
Review
One-off engagement around a specific question. Fixed shape, written deliverable, no ongoing commitment.
- ›Architecture audit, unit-economics review, or scaling-plan critique.
- ›2–4 weeks, fixed-bid, written memo at the end.
- ›One findings presentation + 30 days of follow-up availability.
- ›Best for: a discrete decision you need a second opinion on before committing.
Retainer
Ongoing strategic counsel for founders and technical leaders. The senior voice you wish you had on your cap table, billed monthly.
- ›Monthly cadence of working sessions and written notes.
- ›Async availability for in-between questions, capped at sensible hours.
- ›Direct line to founder & CTO; nothing routed through an account team.
- ›Best for: an ongoing partnership across product, architecture, and economics.
Sprint
Four-week intensive embedded in a specific decision. The deep-work version of Review — half-time presence, full-time attention.
- ›Half-time embedded; you'll feel us in the room, not in an inbox.
- ›Working sessions twice weekly with the founder + relevant leads.
- ›Final deliverable: a written plan and a recorded walkthrough.
- ›Best for: pre-rewrite, pre-fundraise, pre-pivot — moments that don't get re-runs.
What we actually talk about. Six areas where founders most often need a sharper opinion.
most engagements cover 2 – 3 of these
COGS architecture.
The line items that quietly define your gross margin. Where infrastructure cost is born, where it scales linearly with customers, and where it shouldn't.
Pricing & packaging.
Tier design, usage-based vs. seat-based, the trade-off between simple and right. Mostly: making sure your pricing aligns with the value you actually deliver.
Retention math.
Cohort curves, expansion vs. churn, the architecture decisions that make retention easy and the ones that make it brittle. Retention is an engineering problem too.
Reliability economics.
Each additional nine is an order of magnitude more expensive. Which nines does your business need, which ones are vanity, and how should you decide.
Hiring & comp calibration.
Leveling your first ten engineers, designing the interview loop that finds them, and benchmarking comp to what the senior side of the market is actually paying.
Architecture decisions.
The big ones — monolith vs. services, sync vs. async, the database choice you'll be married to for a decade. We help you make them with the right amount of seriousness.
How a retainer actually runs. From intake to ongoing rhythm.
everything is written down
Intake & mapping.
Questionnaire, document review, two-hour kickoff. Output: a one-page situation map covering business state, technical state, and the three questions worth answering first.
Working sessions.
Two-hour weekly working session with the founder and relevant leads. Written notes shared within 24 hours. Decisions captured as ADRs or memos, not as Slack history.
Written deliverables.
Each major topic ends in a written artifact: architecture brief, economics model, decision memo, hiring plan. Built to survive your team's turnover.
Quarterly review.
Every three months we step back and look at the engagement as a whole — what's working, what isn't, what the next quarter's focus should be. Rebalance scope, or end it cleanly.
When this is the right call. And when it isn't.
better than a discovery call surprise
This is right for you.
- +You have a capable engineering team but you're making an architectural or pricing call you'd rather not make alone.
- +Your unit economics aren't where they need to be, and you suspect the answer is part architecture and part packaging — not just headcount.
- +You're about to choose between rewrite, refactor, and live-with-it — and you'd like a structured second opinion before you commit your year to one of them.
- +You're a founder or CTO who'd benefit from a senior peer to think out loud with — without the cap-table conversation that comes with an advisor.
This probably isn't a fit.
- —You want someone to write the code, not opinions about it. That's what the Engineering pillar exists for.
- —You're looking for approval, not opinion. We'll be direct, and that's the whole point.
- —You want a single workshop with no ongoing engagement. Sprint or Review are the closest fits — but they still come with structure.
- —You want a free working session before deciding. Discovery calls are free; working sessions are billable from minute one.
What this looks like in practice. One representative engagement.
full memo on request
SaaS unit-economics review, Series-B platform.
A Series-B B2B platform watched its gross margin erode through three consecutive quarters and couldn't explain why. We ran a four-week Sprint, traced the bleed to a multi-tenant storage pattern that scaled with the noisiest customer rather than the median, and rebuilt the unit-economics model around the new shape.
What it costs. Written down, not on request.
final price = written proposal
- 01Review. Starting at $8k flat. One-off engagement around a specific question. 2–4 weeks, written memo at the end.
- 02Retainer. Starting at $6k / mo. Ongoing strategic counsel for founders and CTOs. 6-month minimum, cancellable with 30 days notice.
- 03Sprint. Starting at $14k flat. Four-week intensive embedded in a specific decision. Half-time presence, full-time attention.
- 04Discovery.Free. 30-minute call to see if we're the right fit before either side commits anything.
Bring us the decision you don't want to make alone.
A 30-minute discovery call is the fastest way to see if we're the right partner. Or send a written brief if the question is clearer in writing — both end up in the same inbox.