Start small. Prove it. Then go.
No one should hand a stranger a year of budget on a first meeting. So the first step is deliberately small, and every step after it is earned.
Business Modernization Strategy
Two to three weeks. I interview leadership, sit with the people doing the work, map how the job actually flows today, and find where time and money are leaking. You get a prioritized plan with real numbers attached, the quick wins separated from the long ones, and a straight answer on what not to bother building.
Credited toward any engagement that follows, not only a build. If the honest answer is to stop, the work still stands on its own.
90-Day Pilot
One problem off the top of the list, fixed end to end and put in front of the people who have to use it. Small enough to prove out, big enough to matter. You see how I work before committing to anything longer.
A defined start, a defined end, and a decision point with a number attached.
Operations and Technology Partnership
The role most established companies need and cannot justify hiring for: someone who owns the technology direction, runs the projects, talks to the vendors, keeps the roadmap honest, and stays close enough to the floor to know whether any of it is being used.
Product owner, project lead, and technology advisor in one relationship. One person, not an agency.
A stack of recommendations and an invoice.
I build what I recommend. That's the reason to hire one person instead of a consultancy that hands you a deck and a referral to an implementation partner. If I put it in the plan, I can go do it, and I have to live with whether it works.
Which also means the recommendation isn't always "build something." Sometimes it's a product off the shelf, or one you already pay for that no one configured properly, or a change to the process that costs nothing. The custom part is the fit, not necessarily the parts.
It also means your existing stack isn't a disqualifier. Whatever your systems are written in, I can work in it and hold it to professional standards, so the plan can say "extend what you have" when that's the honest answer instead of "replace it with something I know."
Who this is for, and it isn't an industry
Established companies, roughly 15 to 250 people, that grew faster than their systems. I've done this for hazmat crews and equipment dealers, and the same method works just as well in a professional firm: agencies, clinics, accounting and law practices, insurance, distribution, property management, anywhere the work runs on spreadsheets, email threads and institutional memory.
The common thread isn't the industry. It's an owner who knows the business cold, doesn't speak technology, and can feel that the way it runs is now the thing holding it back.
Startups looking for a technical cofounder. Companies that want a body to fill a staffing gap. Anyone who has already decided what to build and just needs hands to build it, since the deciding is the part I'm actually useful for.
I'd rather say so on the first call than three months in.