I keep the offer narrow on purpose. One-off sessions for a single high-stakes question. A six-week sprint when you need a strategic answer. A fractional retainer when I need to be in the room every week. Below is exactly what each looks like, what it costs, and what's included.
Book a 30-min exploratory call →A ninety-minute working session for a single, high-stakes question — the kind of question that has been keeping a CEO up for two weeks but doesn't yet warrant a six-week engagement.
You email me a one-page brief at least three working days ahead. I read it carefully, write back with the questions I think are actually load-bearing, and then we meet on a call for ninety minutes. We work through the problem in real time — no slides, no deck — and within forty-eight hours of the call you receive a written one-pager from me that summarises the conversation, the framework we landed on, and the decision I'd make if I were you.
A six-week, focused engagement around exactly one strategic question — almost always pricing, market positioning, the next-twelve-month plan, or a leadership-team redesign.
We meet weekly on a recurring sixty-minute slot, but the meetings are the smaller half of the engagement. Between sessions I'm doing real work — interviewing your customers, modelling the unit economics, reading every relevant board memo, talking to two or three of your investors. Week six closes with a final memo, fifteen to thirty pages, and a written decision artifact you can take to your board, your team, or back to your own desk.
I work with two fractional clients at a time — never more. The retainer is for founders who need a senior strategic operator in the room every week, on the long arc of the business, without paying a full-time CSO.
We set up a weekly sixty-minute call on a recurring slot, I'm in your Slack and your strategic offsites, and I read every relevant board document, customer call recording, and pricing model you put in front of me. The cadence is closer to a senior team member than a consultant — I'm in the room when you make the decision, not after, and I'm reachable on a twelve-hour weekday SLA.
| 1:1 Session | Six-Week Sprint | Fractional Retainer | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Investment | $2,400 · one-time | $18,000 · flat | $9,000/mo · 3-mo min |
| Duration | 90 minutes | 6 weeks | Ongoing · monthly |
| Live cadence | One call | Six weekly calls | Weekly, indefinitely |
| Async access | 2 follow-ups in 30 days | Slack throughout 6 wk | Slack · 12-hour SLA |
| Deliverable | One-page memo | 15–30 page memo | Quarterly board memo |
| Best for | One sharp question | One strategic decision | Long arc of the business |
| Spots open | ~4 per month | ~6 per year | 2 at a time |
For a 30-minute exploratory call: usually within the same week. For a 1:1 Strategy Session: 7–14 days. For a Sprint or a Retainer: I'm currently booking June–August 2026, so a few months of lead time. If you need a same-week answer, the Strategy Session is the right format.
Yes — I'll sign yours, or send you mine. I treat every engagement as confidential by default; the NDA is mostly for your records. I never name companies in published case studies below the Series-A line, and never name founders without explicit written permission.
No. I work in cash for the same reason a good lawyer does — alignment is not the issue, and equity-for-advisory introduces failure modes I'd rather avoid. The exception is a small advisory share of 0.10–0.25% on a 4-year vest, which I sometimes accept for a fractional client at the end of the first year.
It happens. Most fractional retainers I take on started as Sprints. We finish the Sprint cleanly with the final memo, then have a separate conversation about whether a retainer makes sense — never inside the Sprint itself. I never up-sell.
Yes — I'm happy to make introductions to two or three founders I've worked with in similar formats. I do that after the exploratory call, since it depends on which format and which sector you're closest to. The case studies page has metrics on a few public-permission-granted engagements.