How do you justify $10–15K/month for the fractional retainer?
For 15–25 hours a week of senior AI leadership, equivalent full-time comp is $300K+/year before benefits and equity. The retainer gives you that senior capacity at a fraction of the cost, with no hiring risk and no long-term commitment. Most clients find it cheaper than either an FTE hire or a traditional consulting firm — and the outcome is a production system your team owns, not a deck.
What kind of ROI can I realistically expect?
It depends on the complexity of your workflows, but typical results include 40–60% reduction in manual operational tasks, faster decision-making through automated data pipelines, and significant cost savings on tooling consolidation. During the Discovery phase, I'll model your specific ROI before you commit to the full build.
What happens after the engagement ends? Do I need ongoing support?
You own everything — the code, the prompts, the infrastructure, the runbooks. Your team is trained to operate and iterate on the system independently. If the engagement extends, it extends because it's delivering. If it doesn't, you're not stuck. There's no lock-in and no retainer-for-life.
Can you really deliver a full AI system in 6–12 weeks?
This applies primarily to the Project Engagement, not the fractional retainer. For fixed-scope projects, yes — discovery and architecture happen in the first two weeks, build and integration fill the middle, and testing, training, and handoff close it out. It works because I focus on your highest-impact workflow first, not boiling the ocean. The fractional retainer runs on longer, open-ended arcs because production AI systems need continuous tuning.
What if the system doesn't deliver the results we expected?
The AI Readiness Audit exists specifically to de-risk this. For $5–8K, you get a full diagnostic with ROI projections before committing to anything larger. If the audit shows that AI won't meaningfully move the needle for your business, I'll tell you — and save you the rest.
What tech stack do you typically build on?
The core stack includes Next.js for application layers, Firebase for backend services and real-time data, and multi-agent LLM systems for AI orchestration. That said, every build is tailored to your existing tools and infrastructure. The goal is integration, not replacement.