STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP

Designed for firms between $10M and $50M revenue

Dedicated senior engineering capacity with same-day response

We don't install platforms and train your people. We spend months inside your operations — mapping how matters flow, how billing reconciles, how knowledge transfers between teams — then we build technology that fits your firm like it was always supposed to be there. Because it was designed for exactly where it sits.

Co-own your technical roadmapSame-day response, 2-3 parallel workstreamsTechnical co-founder depth without the hire
Explore the partnership
THE PROBLEM

Your firm outgrew its technical infrastructure.

Most professional services firms hit a ceiling between $10M and $50M revenue. The systems, processes, and technical decisions that got you here won't get you there. The gap between what your firm needs technically and what you can provide internally is widening every quarter.

$0KAverage annual technology waste

In unused licenses, half-built integrations, and Excel workarounds that became permanent. At a 40-attorney firm, that's $21K per professional per year in technology waste.

Gartner Professional Services Technology Report, 2024
0%Of managing partners

Say technology decisions are among their top three anxieties — yet only 12% have dedicated technical leadership evaluating options.

Thomson Reuters State of Professional Services, 2024
0 monthsAverage CTO search time

Time to hire a qualified technical leader for a professional services firm. And 40% of those hires leave within two years — back to square one.

Heidrick & Struggles Executive Search Report, 2024
0xIntegration complexity growth

Professional services firms use 4.2x more integrated tools than they did in 2019. Each integration is a potential failure point, data leak, and maintenance burden.

Zylo SaaS Management Index, 2024
$0MCost of wrong platform choice

Average total cost of a major platform migration after choosing the wrong initial solution — including direct costs, lost productivity, and opportunity cost.

McKinsey Digital Transformation Study, 2023
0%AI initiatives fail

Of professional services AI initiatives fail to deliver promised ROI within 18 months — typically because they're vendor-driven rather than operations-driven.

MIT Sloan Management Review, 2024

The Complexity Gap

Your operations have grown in sophistication — multi-office, specialized practice areas, complex client relationships, regulatory requirements. But your technical infrastructure is still designed for the firm you were five years ago. Every new hire, every new practice area, every new client requirement widens the gap.

3.7 yearsAverage age of core business systems at firms with $10M+ revenue — legacy platforms making decisions for you through their limitations.

The Leadership Vacuum

You have smart people at every level. But nobody whose full-time job is thinking about technology strategically. The managing partner billing $650/hour shouldn't be reading Salesforce knowledge base articles. The office manager shouldn't be evaluating AI platforms. The IT person — if you still have one — handles helpdesk, not strategy.

15+ hrs/weekTime senior leaders spend on technical issues they're not qualified to resolve — pulled from client work and business development.

The Compounding Cost

Every quarter without strategic technical leadership, the gap widens. Competitors invest. Clients expect more. The lateral candidate you want to recruit asks about your technology stack. The cost of catching up grows 15-20% annually. This isn't a problem that resolves itself — it's one that accelerates.

22%Annual increase in technology expectations from clients of professional services firms — the bar rises whether you're ready or not.
YOUR WORLD

What the leadership gap feels like

These aren't hypotheticals. These are Tuesday mornings at firms like yours — moments where the absence of technical leadership costs real money and real opportunities.

Tuesday 9:00am

Managing Partner, 60-Attorney Litigation Firm

Your largest client's general counsel calls. They're implementing a new secure document sharing requirement — all outside counsel must use end-to-end encrypted file transfer by Q3, compatible with their iManage Cloud deployment. You don't know if your NetDocuments instance supports this. Your IT person left six months ago. You tell them you'll 'look into it' and spend the next two hours reading NetDocuments API documentation instead of preparing for tomorrow's hearing. You find three different answers on three different forums. None of them are current.

“I'm the managing partner. I bill $650 an hour. And I'm reading a NetDocuments knowledge base article about encryption protocols. Something is fundamentally wrong with how I'm spending my time.”

2 hours at $650/hr = $1,300 in lost billable time. Plus the confidence erosion with your most important client — they expected a same-day answer and got 'let me look into it.' The associate at Littler who handles their other matters answered the same question in 20 minutes.

Wednesday 2:30pm

CEO, 45-Person Financial Advisory Practice

The Salesforce rep is in your conference room with a compelling demo — dashboards, workflow automation, client lifecycle tracking. The HubSpot rep was here yesterday with an equally compelling demo. Your COO likes Salesforce because 'enterprise companies use it.' Your head of sales likes HubSpot because 'it's more intuitive.' Neither has evaluated how either platform integrates with CCH Axcess for tax workflow, Sage Intacct for billing, or the custom Excel pipeline tracker that your controller has refined over eight years and secretly runs the entire practice. You'll spend $180K on whichever you choose and live with it for five years. You have no technical basis for the decision.

“Both demos looked great. Both reps were smooth. I have no idea which one actually fits our workflows. I'm about to make a six-figure decision based on which salesperson was more likeable. I don't make decisions about anything else in this business this way.”

Wrong platform choice: $180K direct + $400K migration cost in 3 years + 6 months of team disruption + the Excel tracker survives because neither platform could replace it. Right choice requires technical evaluation you can't perform internally — API compatibility, data model mapping, integration architecture assessment.

Thursday 7:45am

Founder, 35-Person Management Consulting Firm

You're reading about a competitor that just launched an AI-powered client insights platform. Your LinkedIn feed is full of partners from other firms talking about their AI initiatives. You've had three vendor calls this month — each claimed their tool would 'transform your practice.' One recommended fine-tuning GPT-4 on your proposals. One wanted to sell you a $75K annual license for document summarization. One couldn't explain how their system handles client confidentiality. None asked how your firm actually delivers engagements.

“Am I falling behind? Are they actually ahead, or are they just better at LinkedIn? I built this firm on being the smartest people in the room. But on technology, I'm not even close. And I don't know who to trust — every vendor sounds authoritative until the next one contradicts them.”

Indecision cost: 6-12 months of competitive disadvantage while paralyzed by analysis. Or worse: rushing into a $75K AI platform that your team abandons after 3 months because nobody mapped it to actual workflows first.

Friday 4:00pm

COO, 120-Person Regional Accounting Firm

The month-end report takes your team three full days to compile because data lives in four different systems — CCH Axcess for tax, Sage Intacct for GL, a custom Access database for engagement tracking, and Excel for everything else. Your staff manually exports from each, reconciles in Excel, and reformats for partners. Last month there was a $340K discrepancy that nobody caught until a client's controller called about an invoice. Your controller has been 'meaning to fix this' for two years but can't — she's the most technical person in the firm and she's already working 60-hour weeks.

“Three senior people spend three days every month on what should be a button press. That's 108 person-days per year. We've been complaining about this since I started. But nobody here knows how to actually fix it — our controller knows the process cold but not the technology, and every vendor says their product will solve it without understanding the four systems involved.”

108 person-days per year × $350 blended cost = $340K+ annually in labor. Plus the error risk — one bad report to the wrong client and the reputational damage is incalculable. Plus the retention risk — your controller is burned out and your best staff accountant just started interviewing.

Monday 11:00am

Managing Director, 80-Attorney Regional Law Firm

A lateral partner candidate — $2.3M book, Corporate/M&A — asks about your technology stack during the recruiting dinner. You describe iManage for document management ('we're on version 10, planning to upgrade'), your billing platform ('Aderant, it's… adequate'), and your 'strategic technology initiative' that's been in the planning phase for two years. She asks if your associates use any AI tools for due diligence. You mention a Westlaw subscription. She orders dessert. You later learn she took the offer from Littler, where the technology story included custom deal room automation, AI-assisted contract review, and a matter intake system that onboards new engagements in 8 minutes instead of 3 days.

“We just lost a rainmaker who would have brought $2.3M in portable business because our technology story sounded like 2015. I can't compete for top talent if my tech stack is a liability in recruiting conversations. But I also can't dedicate six months to evaluating and implementing new systems — I'm running a firm.”

$2.3M+ in lost portable business from one lateral decision. Multiply by every recruitment conversation where your technology story falls flat. The partner who came instead — $800K book, no AI question — is who you get when your tech stack limits your recruiting pool.

CHALLENGES

The leadership gap

You've built a successful firm. But the technical decisions you're facing now have implications that extend far beyond this quarter.

Integration complexity

Your systems weren't designed to work together. Clio doesn't talk to Sage. NetDocuments doesn't sync with SharePoint. Every new tool adds another manual bridge. Data flows through your staff's fingers instead of through APIs.

Scaling bottlenecks

The matter intake process that worked at 30 attorneys breaks at 80. The month-end close that took one day at $5M revenue takes three days at $15M. Growth exposes every technical shortcut you took.

Knowledge silos

Your controller's Excel reconciliation methodology. Your paralegal's undocumented matter intake workaround. Your IT person's Slack configuration notes. When someone leaves, capability walks out the door.

Security and compliance exposure

Client data flows through more systems than you've audited. Trust account data reconciles through unencrypted Excel exports. You're not sure you'd pass a serious security review — and your largest clients are starting to ask.

Talent retention pressure

Good associates leave for firms with better tools. Lateral candidates ask about your technology stack. Your best paralegal is frustrated that the document management system doesn't integrate with anything. Technical underinvestment is a recruiting liability.

OUR APPROACH

Built for how YOU work. Not how software vendors think you should.

We start with YOUR operations. Your actual workflows. Your team's actual behavior. Your clients' actual expectations. Then we build technology that amplifies what already works and eliminates what doesn't — without asking you to become a different firm.

Your Rhythm, Not Theirs

Every firm has its own way of onboarding clients, managing matters, and delivering work. These workflows evolved from years of refinement and hard-won operational knowledge.

Backwards Is Backwards

Most vendors call it 'best practices.' What they mean is: 'change your process to match our product.' We build technology around how you actually work.

Ground-Up Engineering

This is not configuration within a platform's constraints. This is ground-up engineering informed by deep operational understanding.

Invisible When It Works

The result is technology that feels like it was always supposed to be there — because it was designed for exactly where it sits.

Law Firms

For a law firm, we don't install a document management system and train your paralegals to use it. We spend three weeks understanding your matter lifecycle — how engagements are opened, how documents flow between teams, how billing data connects to time entries, how knowledge is captured and reused. Then we build a system that mirrors those exact workflows. Every field. Every approval chain. Every exception handler. If your senior partner has a specific way she wants conflict checks to work — that's in the spec. Not because it's a 'customization request.' Because her process is the specification.

Accounting Firms

For an accounting firm, we don't recommend 'best practice' GL integrations. We map your actual month-end process — the four systems your staff manually exports from, the Excel reconciliation your controller has refined over eight years, the partner review sequence that involves three different approval workflows depending on engagement type. Then we build automation that preserves every nuance of that process while eliminating the manual steps. Your controller's expertise isn't replaced. It's encoded into software that executes it perfectly every time.

Consulting Firms

For a consulting firm, we don't deploy a generic project management tool. We study your engagement model — how proposals become projects, how staffing decisions cascade through resource allocation, how deliverables flow through internal review before reaching clients, how institutional knowledge from one engagement feeds into the next. Then we build a platform where every screen, every workflow, every notification reflects how YOUR firm delivers engagements. Not how Asana thinks firms should work.

PRINCIPLES

The principles behind every engagement

THE DIFFERENCE

The vendor playbook vs. ours

Deploy their product and train you to use it

Study your operations and build technology that serves them

6 months of adoption friction, 40% feature utilization, team reverts to old workflows

Sell licenses and call it a 'solution'

Engineer custom systems that become competitive advantages

$200K+ in unused capabilities over 5 years, plus the opportunity cost of what purpose-built could have delivered

Send junior developers after senior partners close the deal

Same senior engineers from first conversation through ongoing partnership

3-month ramp every time someone new touches your project, context lost in translation, junior mistakes on senior problems

Force your processes into their product's assumptions

Reverse-engineer your processes into purpose-built technology

Lost operational intelligence, degraded competitive edge, team friction from workflows that don't match reality

Charge for 'customization' that's really configuration

Build from the ground up when that's what the problem requires

Workarounds that become permanent debt, constrained by platform limitations disguised as 'best practices'

Create dependency through proprietary platforms

Build systems you own completely — code, data, infrastructure

$500K+ switching cost when you want to leave, vendor controls your roadmap, pricing increases you can't refuse

Propose 'industry best practices' that ignore your specifics

Treat your firm's operational intelligence as the competitive asset it is

Homogenized operations that can't differentiate, competitive advantage flattened into generic workflows

CASE STUDIES

How it actually works

Strategy without execution is a deck. Here's what Strategic partnership looks like in practice — example scenarios illustrating the types of technical approaches and outcomes the model is designed to deliver.

Saving a $180K platform decision from gut feel

The Situation

A 65-person accounting firm was choosing between Salesforce Professional and HubSpot Enterprise for client relationship management. Both vendors had done impressive demos. The managing partner liked Salesforce's brand. The sales lead preferred HubSpot's interface. Nobody had evaluated how either platform would actually integrate with their existing tech stack — CCH Axcess for tax workflow, Sage Intacct for GL, SharePoint for document storage, and a custom Excel-based pipeline tracker with 47 formulas that the controller had refined over eight years.

The decision had been tabled twice because nobody felt confident making the call. Meanwhile, the Excel tracker was getting more brittle every month — a single misplaced comma had caused a $40K billing discrepancy last quarter.

What We Built

  • Comprehensive technical evaluation framework — not feature checklists, but workflow-mapped compatibility analysis against their actual daily operations
  • Integration architecture assessment for both platforms against CCH Axcess (SOAP API with rate limits), Sage Intacct (REST API, 100K records/24hr bulk limit), and SharePoint (Graph API permission model)
  • Total cost of ownership model: implementation, data migration, training, integration development, ongoing maintenance, and the hidden cost of workarounds for platform gaps
  • Proof-of-concept integrations with both platforms using the firm's actual data structures — multi-entity client relationships, cross-entity engagement tracking, the pipeline scoring methodology embedded in the Excel tracker
  • Decision matrix weighted by the firm's specific priorities — not generic Gartner quadrant comparisons

How It Worked

  1. 1Week 1: Mapped every touchpoint between client data and existing systems. Discovered 14 integration points nobody had documented — including a critical one where CCH Axcess engagement data fed the pipeline tracker through a manual CSV export every Tuesday morning.
  2. 2Week 2: Built test integrations with both platforms. Found that Salesforce's bulk API rate limit of 100K records/24hr would break their quarterly mass engagement workflow of 4,000+ client communications with multi-entity relationships. HubSpot's custom object model couldn't represent their multi-entity client structures — a single client entity spanning 3 legal entities with different billing relationships — without expensive workarounds that would break on every HubSpot update.
  3. 3Week 3: Recommended neither as a standalone — instead, designed a hybrid architecture using HubSpot for sales pipeline (where its UX advantage created real daily value for the team) with a custom middleware layer that preserved their existing CCH Axcess workflows, replicated and enhanced the Excel tracker's scoring methodology in code, and automated the Tuesday CSV export into real-time data synchronization.
  4. 4Week 4: Delivered executive presentation with full technical justification, data migration plan, risk mitigation strategy, and phased implementation timeline. The partnership voted unanimously.
Before$180K blind investment

Two vendors, impressive demos, no technical evaluation. A six-figure decision based on brand preference and sales pitches — with no understanding of integration requirements or API limitations.

AfterHybrid architecture, $120K saved

Data-driven platform evaluation against actual workflows. Custom middleware preserving 8 years of operational intelligence. Confident decision with full technical justification.

$120K saved

The Result

Saved $120K vs. pure Salesforce implementation. Eliminated the fragile Excel dependency — the controller's 8 years of scoring methodology is now in version-controlled code that anyone can maintain. Reduced client data entry from 4 systems to 1. The hybrid architecture they would never have considered without technical expertise in the room.

“Designed so firms avoid six-figure platform decisions based on gut feel. A hybrid architecture that neither vendor would propose — better than both options, with years of operational intelligence preserved in code.”

THE PARTNERSHIP EXPERIENCE

A seat at the table

We're not service providers waiting for instructions. We're technical co-founders who happen to sit outside your org chart — with the access, context, and mandate to act like insiders.

The first week

Day 1

Leadership Alignment

We meet with your leadership team — partners, executives, key decision-makers. Not a kickoff meeting with slides. A strategic conversation.

Days 2-3

Technical Deep Dive

We audit your current systems, integrations, data flows, and technical debt. We interview key stakeholders across the organization. We learn where the bodies are buried.

Days 4-5

Strategic Assessment

We synthesize findings into a technical landscape view and build the opportunity scoring matrix that drives your roadmap.

End of Week 1

Strategic Presentation

We present findings to leadership. Not a sales pitch — a technical assessment. Here's what you have. Here's what you're missing. Here's what it's costing you.

The ongoing rhythm

Weekly Strategic Sync (60 min)

Not a status update — a strategic conversation. We come with opportunities identified, risks tracked, and decisions framed. You come with context, priorities, and the questions keeping you up at night.

Written summary after every call with strategic context, not just action items. Decision rationale documented. Creates institutional memory that compounds over months and survives personnel changes.

Quarterly Strategic Review (2 hours)

What did we accomplish? What did we learn? What assumptions were wrong? We celebrate wins, diagnose misses, and recalibrate the roadmap against your evolving business strategy.

Executive-level summary deliverable. Clear roadmap with resource implications. Explicit deprioritization — what we're choosing NOT to do is as important as what we are.

Same-Day Response (Slack + Direct)

Same-day response on everything. We're actively monitoring your channel, not checking once a day. Complex discussions get scheduled; everything else gets same-day resolution.

Overcommunication bias. When we see a risk, you hear about it that day. When we identify an opportunity, you hear about it that day. You'll never wonder what we're working on or what's coming next.

Communication norms

SlackPrimary channel. Same-day response on everything. We're actively monitoring — not checking once a day, but treating your channel as a priority.
EmailFormal deliverables, documentation, anything that needs to be findable for stakeholders who aren't on Slack.
Video callsWeekly syncs plus ad-hoc for complex discussions. We default to getting on a call rather than long async threads.
PhoneAvailable for urgent matters. When something is truly time-sensitive, you can reach us directly.
PhilosophyOvercommunication bias. We'd rather share something that turns out to be minor than miss something important. You'll never wonder what we're working on.

How we operate

Co-own the technical roadmap — not waiting for specs, helping write them
Bring opportunities you didn't ask for — if we see advantage, we raise it
Push back at the leadership level — if a decision has technical implications, we flag it before it's too late
Represent the technical perspective in strategic discussions — you don't need to translate
Think proactively — anticipating needs, not just responding to requests
Act like we have equity — our reputation is tied to your success
THE JOURNEY

Building competitive advantage

Month 1

Strategic Alignment

  1. 1Week 1: Deep discovery — leadership alignment, technical audit, stakeholder interviews across the firm
  2. 2Week 2: Strategic assessment delivered, opportunity scoring complete, 90-day roadmap proposed and refined with leadership
  3. 3Week 3: First initiative scoped and underway. Quick win identified and deployed — immediate proof of value
  4. 4Week 4: Technical foundation work begins. Governance rhythm established — weekly syncs, Slack channel active, documentation flowing

Clarity. 'Finally, someone who gets the whole picture.' For the first time, you have a technical perspective at the leadership level that matches your ambition. The anxiety of guessing is being replaced by the confidence of informed decisions.

Quarter 1

Foundation Building

  • Critical technical debt addressed — the Excel dependencies, the security vulnerabilities, the single points of failure
  • First major initiative delivered with measurable impact — dollar amount attached to every outcome
  • Integration architecture established — systems that never talked before are now connected with middleware, audit trails, and error handling
  • Security and compliance gaps closed — you could pass a serious audit without embarrassment
  • Governance rhythm natural — weekly syncs feel productive, not performative. Quarterly planning is a conversation, not a presentation.

Confidence. You're making technical decisions with real expertise in the room. When a vendor calls with a pitch, you know who to ask. When a partner raises a technology concern, you have an answer. The anxiety of guessing is gone.

Quarter 2

Capability Development

  • Second and third major initiatives complete — momentum visible to the entire firm
  • AI capabilities deployed where they create measurable value — not experimental, operational
  • Custom tools replacing off-the-shelf limitations — workflows that match your operations, not a vendor's assumptions
  • Team productivity noticeably higher — associates and staff spending time on substantive work instead of fighting systems
  • Technical roadmap extending to 12-month horizon with confidence — you know what's coming and why

Momentum. What felt impossible a quarter ago is now operational. The team sees the difference. Partners are asking 'what's next?' instead of 'what's broken?' The investment is compounding.

Quarter 3

Competitive Advantage

  • Technical capabilities becoming market differentiators — lateral candidates mention your technology in interviews
  • Client experience measurably improved through technology — faster onboarding, better communication, real-time visibility
  • Operational efficiency gains hitting the P&L — the ROI isn't theoretical anymore, it's in your financial statements
  • Proactive opportunities emerging faster than you can pursue them — the pipeline of 'what if we...' is growing
  • Thinking about what's possible, not just what's broken — the conversation has shifted from defense to offense

Differentiation. Competitors are asking how you do things. The lateral candidate who rejected your offer a year ago? She just reached out. Clients notice your sophistication and say so. Technology went from liability to asset.

Quarter 4

Strategic Position

  • Technology is a genuine competitive moat — integrated into how you win clients, deliver work, and retain talent
  • New business initiatives launch faster than industry benchmarks — your technical infrastructure is an accelerator, not a constraint
  • Technical due diligence ready if opportunity arises — M&A, investment, or merger conversations won't reveal a house of cards
  • Leadership team fluent in technology as strategic lever — partners who used to avoid tech discussions now drive them
  • Roadmap extends into year two with ambitious goals — the partnership is producing compound returns

Leadership. You're not keeping up with the market — you're setting the pace. When you speak at industry events, your technology story is genuine. When competitors announce 'digital transformation initiatives,' you've been living it for four quarters.

Year 2+

Continuous Innovation

Technology is a reliable competitive advantage. We have deep institutional knowledge — context never resets. Major new initiatives build on a rock-solid foundation and execute faster than you thought possible. We're thinking about what's next, not just what's now. The partnership compounds because every quarter adds to a shared understanding of your operations that no new hire could replicate.

Partnership. It stopped feeling like a vendor relationship a long time ago. We know your business well enough to anticipate needs and drive strategy. When you're evaluating a new market, we're already thinking about the technical requirements. When a client asks for something new, we're already prototyping.

Outcomes

What changes

Your firm transforms from technology-as-overhead to technology-as-advantage. Here's what that looks like in practice — specific, measurable outcomes the model is designed to deliver.

For the Managing Partner/Owner

Strategic technical capability

FromGuessing on technical decisions, hoping vendors are honest, approving platforms based on demos
ToInformed decisions with senior technical judgment in the room, vendor due diligence you trust, architecture aligned to operations
In practice

Example: Three AI platforms evaluated with rigorous technical due diligence — API testing, data residency analysis, integration mapping. The right choice avoids a competitor's mistake: $400K+ in migration cost, 6 months of disruption, and organizational skepticism that makes the next initiative harder.

Market position strengthened

FromTechnology as cost center and necessary evil that partners avoid discussing
ToTechnology as competitive differentiator that partners lead with in pitches and recruiting
In practice

Example: A firm wins a major client because the GC cites 'technology sophistication' as a deciding factor over two larger firms. The custom client portal and real-time matter tracking seal the deal.

Technical confidence restored

FromAnxiety about falling behind, reading vendor articles at 10pm, not knowing what you don't know
ToClear view of landscape, confident strategic position, informed perspective on every decision
In practice

Example: A managing partner goes from reading vendor articles at 10pm to speaking at industry conferences about operational innovation — with genuine capabilities to back it up, not marketing.

Leadership bandwidth reclaimed

From5-10 hours weekly managing technical issues, vendor relationships, and integration problems
ToDelegating technical leadership while maintaining strategic control through weekly syncs and quarterly reviews
In practice

Example: A managing partner reclaims 8 hours per week from technical firefighting. At a $650/hr billing rate, that's $270K in annual productive capacity redirected to client work and business development.

Exit readiness achieved

FromTechnical debt, undocumented systems, and Excel dependencies that would trigger a valuation haircut
ToClean technical infrastructure, documented architecture, and zero single-person dependencies
In practice

Example: A firm enters acquisition conversations with clean technical infrastructure. Due diligence returns no flags — documented architecture, zero single-person dependencies. No valuation haircut for technical risk.

Proactive opportunity capture

FromReacting to technical problems as they emerge, always a quarter behind
ToIdentifying and capturing opportunities before competitors, always a quarter ahead
In practice

Example: Proactive analysis of a firm's billing workflow reveals an automation opportunity worth $240K annually. The firm didn't know it was possible — that's what happens when someone is thinking about your operations full-time.

ROI

The math behind the partnership

Conservative estimates using industry benchmarks. Your actual numbers will vary — but the directional math is clear. Adjust the inputs to match your firm.

Your Numbers

50

Total headcount including partners, associates, and professional staff

$400

Blended rate across your professional team — what an hour of their time is worth to the firm

8 hrs

Time managing partners and senior leaders spend on technical decisions, vendor calls, system troubleshooting, and IT-related firefighting

8

Number of distinct software/technology vendors your firm pays for — Clio, NetDocuments, Sage, etc.

2

CRM, DMS, billing system, AI platform — decisions with 5+ year implications

$160,000

Leadership Time Recovered

Leader hours × 50 weeks × effective rate

$400,000

Wrong Decision Prevention

Platform decisions × avg. wrong-choice cost × 50% probability

$750,000

Operational Efficiency Gains

Professionals × 2 hrs/week recovered × 50 weeks × blended cost

$48,000

Vendor Consolidation Savings

Vendors × avg. annual waste × 40% recovery

$1,358,000

Total Annual Value

Sum of all value drivers

11.3x

ROI Multiple

Total value ÷ annual partnership cost

The Investment

Technology leadership is an investment, not a cost.

The firms that treat technical capability as strategic spend less, move faster, and win more.

Strategic Partnership

Investment discussed during consultation

What's included

  • Dedicated senior engineering capacity for 2-3 parallel initiatives
  • 2-3 active initiatives in parallel
  • Same-day response time (business hours)
  • Weekly (60 minutes)
  • Quarterly (2 hours) with executive summary
  • Dedicated channel with active monitoring
  • Direct access to Scalewerk's founding engineers — same people, every call

What this means

  • Enough capacity to drive multiple strategic initiatives simultaneously — not sequential, parallel
  • Enough access to feel like an extension of leadership, not a vendor on a schedule
  • Enough involvement to co-own your technical roadmap — bringing ideas, not just executing tasks
  • Priority access — urgent needs get same-day attention, not next-sprint scheduling
  • Deep institutional knowledge that compounds — context never resets, no onboarding tax every engagement
  • NOT unlimited capacity — there are bounds (that's Enterprise tier)
  • NOT 24/7 on-call — that's a separate arrangement if needed, though same-day covers most situations

The comparison

Fractional CTO + Agency

  • Two vendors to coordinate
  • Strategy separated from execution
  • Context lost in handoffs
  • Finger-pointing when things go wrong

Scalewerk Strategic

  • Strategy AND execution unified
  • Same senior engineers, start to finish
  • Deep context that compounds monthly
  • Single owner for outcomes

Unified strategy + execution. Zero coordination overhead. One relationship instead of two.

Not ready for Strategic?

Start with Growth tier. Build confidence in the partnership, then upgrade when you need more capacity.

Explore Growth Partnership

How it compares

Full-time CTO hire

Highest cost, highest risk

Get: Dedicated technical leadership, full organizational integration, always available

Miss: 18-month search, management overhead, single perspective, 40% leave within 2 years. If they leave, you start over — institutional knowledge walks out the door. Plus: most CTO candidates from SaaS/tech companies struggle with professional services operations.

Fractional CTO service

Advisory without execution

Get: Strategic perspective, flexibility, experienced advisor

Miss: Often advisory-only — they tell you what to build, but you still need someone to build it. Two vendors instead of one. Strategy and execution separated by a handoff that loses context. When the fractional CTO recommends 'a middleware integration layer,' you still need to find and manage someone who can build one.

Agency + consultant combo

Two relationships, two incentive structures

Get: Strategy from the consultant, execution from the agency

Miss: Coordination overhead between two vendors with different incentives. Context translation — the consultant writes specs the agency misinterprets. Finger-pointing when things go wrong. No single owner. And the consultant leaves after the 'strategy phase,' so the agency builds without the strategic context.

Strategic Partnership (Scalewerk)

Predictable monthly investment

Get: Technical co-founders: strategy AND execution in one relationship. Same senior engineers from discovery through deployment. Deep context that compounds over months and years. Someone who acts like they have equity in your firm's success.

Miss: We're not employees — we serve other clients. But our incentive structure (long-term retention, referral-based growth) means your success is directly tied to ours. We don't need to upsell you on services you don't need.

Value drivers

Partner Time Saved

One right platform decision — informed by technical due diligence instead of vendor demos — saves more than the annual partnership cost. One wrong platform costs multiples more to recover.

Competitive Advantage

One major client won because of technical sophistication pays for years of partnership. One lateral partner recruited because of your technology story: significant portable business.

Risk Mitigation

One security incident avoided, one compliance failure prevented, one technical disaster-recovery plan that works — the cost of not having technical leadership isn't theoretical, it's existential.

Opportunity Identification

Billing automation opportunities at mid-market professional services firms create significant annual savings. These opportunities don't surface without someone thinking about your operations full-time.

Terms

  • Initial commitment6 months recommended — strategic initiatives need time to compound. The first 90 days is foundation; the ROI accelerates in quarters 2-4.
  • After initial periodMonth-to-month, 30 days notice to adjust or end. No long-term lock-in — retention comes from outcomes, not contracts.
  • ScalingCan scale to Enterprise for dedicated capacity, or adjust to Growth if needs change. The relationship flexes with your firm.
  • Major projectsLarge initiatives outside normal scope (e.g., complete platform migration) can be layered on top of retainer with separate project scoping.
FAQ

Common questions about Strategic partnership

What happens after you submit

  1. A senior engineer reads your submission personally. Not a sales automation — a human reading your situation.

  2. Within 24 hours, you'll get a direct reply with initial thoughts on your challenge.

  3. We'll schedule a 30-minute call — just you and a senior engineer. No pitch deck. No demo. No second salesperson.

  4. On the call: honest assessment of whether Strategic is the right fit. If Growth or Foundation is better for where you are, we'll say so.

  5. If it's a fit: we propose a specific first-week plan based on what you've shared — not a generic onboarding template.

  • No commitment required — this is a conversation, not a sales funnel
  • Direct conversation with the person who does the work — not a sales rep
  • Honest assessment — we'll tell you if Growth tier is a better fit for where you are
  • 30-minute call, no follow-up pressure — we don't do 'just checking in' emails

“Illustrative example: A managing partner finally has senior technical judgment in the room when evaluating a major AI platform. Instead of relying on vendor demos, the team tests it against actual workflows and avoids a costly misfit — then identifies a better approach the firm never would have found alone.”

Managing PartnerRegional Law Firm · Illustrative — not a real client quote

Start with a strategic conversation.

No pitch decks. No demos. A direct conversation with a senior engineer about your firm's technical challenges and whether Strategic partnership is the right fit.

Prefer email? Reach out directly at hello@scalewerk.net