FOR AI-EMPOWERED BUILDERS
You built it with AI. Now scale it without breaking it.
You shipped fast — Cursor, Bolt, Lovable, Claude Code, Replit Agent. The product works. Paying customers. Now the walls are showing up. We don't replace your AI tooling. We add the practitioner judgment that lets what you've built stand up to enterprise reviews, capital conversations, and the operational reality of growth.
SOUND FAMILIAR?
The four walls AI-built businesses hit.
You shipped fast. The product works. Customers are paying. Now something's pushing back. Most AI-built businesses we see are running into one of four walls.
The security wall
Your first enterprise prospect just sent a 200-question security questionnaire. Your AI tools generated working code, but the security posture underneath is informal. SOC 2 is starting to come up in sales calls. You need real security architecture, fast — without slowing the product.
The capital wall
You're raising. The investors who liked the demo are now asking about cap table cleanliness, financial controls, IP ownership of AI-generated code, and unit economics. The questions you can't answer are the questions that decide the round.
The scale wall
The product works at 100 users. At 1,000, the seams are showing. Edge cases your AI agent didn't anticipate are surfacing. Performance is uneven. Reliability is becoming a brand risk. You need senior engineering judgment without giving up the velocity AI gave you.
The operating wall
You're running the business out of your head. Finance is a spreadsheet. Customer support is your inbox. Your one engineer is overloaded. The next hires are urgent but you don't know which roles to fill or in what order.
A FEW THINGS WE WON'T DO
We're not here to slow you down or take over.
We won't replace your AI tooling.
Cursor, Claude Code, Bolt, Lovable, Replit Agent — keep using them. They're how you ship. We work alongside the tools that make you fast.
We won't insist on rewrites.
The code that got you here is the code that got you here. Rewrites are sometimes necessary — we'll tell you honestly when that's true. Most of the time the right answer is to harden, instrument, and grow what's working. We'll also tell you that.
We won't take over the product.
Your product vision is yours. We bring practitioner judgment to the questions you're working through; we don't make those decisions for you. You stay at the wheel.
PRODUCTIZED ENGAGEMENTS
Four ways to work with us.
Each maps to one of the four walls. Most founders enter at one and progress through the others as the business matures: Diagnose with a Foundation Audit, Remediate with a Scale Sprint, Prepare for a raise with Investor-Ready 60, and Sustain with an Embedded Partner engagement when senior judgment needs to compound over time.
All four are productized engagements with fixed scope and price — specifics in the discovery call, in writing, before you sign anything. No surprise pricing. See The PluggedIn Method for the delivery posture behind all of them.
Foundation Audit
Fixed-price · Project Engagement
You need a baseline before you scale. First enterprise prospect, incoming raise, or just a nagging feeling the architecture needs a real look.
- —Architecture review of your AI-built codebase
- —Security posture assessment with prioritized findings
- —Financial systems and controls audit
- —Cap table and IP-ownership review (coordinated with your legal counsel)
- —Technical Debt Score — a structured read on where the codebase stands
- —Written report and 90-minute walkthrough with a practitioner
Best for: First-time scaling decisions. Pre-Seed-to-Seed transitions. Pre-enterprise-pilot reviews.
Talk to us about Foundation Audit →Scale Sprint
Fixed-price · Project Engagement
You've validated the product. One wall is actively blocking the next stage. You have the capacity to execute if someone gives you the right senior pairing.
- —Foundation Audit included
- —Targeted remediation on the highest-priority wall
- —Senior engineering pairing with your dev workflow or AI tooling
- —Security baseline build (MFA, secure access, secrets management, SOC 2 prep)
- —Financial systems setup or cleanup
- —One enterprise-readiness package (questionnaire response, trust materials)
- —Weekly working sessions with a practitioner throughout
Best for: Moving from "it works" to "it scales." Pre-enterprise-pilot prep. Seed to Series A bridge.
Talk to us about Scale Sprint →Investor-Ready 60
Fixed-price · Project Engagement
You're raising in the next quarter. Diligence will happen. You want to be ready for the questions — not scrambling when they come.
- —Foundation Audit included
- —Cap table cleanup and 409A coordination
- —Financial reporting build-out — recent history reconstructed if needed
- —Unit economics analysis with defensible assumptions
- —Data room build — financials, contracts, IP documentation, security posture
- —Pitch-narrative consistency review against your underlying numbers
- —Q&A prep for the diligence questions investors actually ask
Best for: Founders raising Seed, Series A, or strategic capital. Founders responding to a sudden inbound term sheet.
Talk to us about Investor-Ready 60 →Embedded Partner
Custom-scoped · Fractional Leadership
You're past the immediate fire-fighting. You want a practitioner in your corner on an ongoing basis — real advisory cadence, not a quarterly check-in.
- —Senior fractional advisor — CFO or CTO/CIO depending on your dominant need
- —Weekly or biweekly working sessions
- —Real-time advisory on capital decisions, hiring, vendor selection
- —Direct line to our network for specialist questions
- —Cadence and scope sized to your stage, not a one-size package
Best for: Founders past the immediate crisis who want senior expertise to compound over time.
Talk to us about Embedded Partner →WHAT FOUNDERS TELL US
What sets us apart for AI-built businesses.
We use the same tools you do
Our practitioners use Cursor, Claude Code, and the AI dev stack daily. We're not auditing your tooling from the outside — we're working in it. That's why we can pair effectively with your existing workflow instead of replacing it.
Practitioner depth, sized to your stage
Most advisory firms don't engage at your stage because the engagement size doesn't fit their economics. Most firms that do engage at your stage staff with junior people under senior brand names. Our model lets experienced practitioners deliver at engagement shapes that work for AI-built businesses — scoped after the discovery call, not pulled from a price list.
Capital network, not just delivery
We work across the capital ecosystem — early-stage VCs, seed funds, angel networks, growth equity, and impact capital partners. When you're ready for the next round, we know who's actively investing in AI-native businesses and what they're looking for.
AI governance built in
Your investors, your enterprise customers, your auditors are all going to ask about your AI governance. We help you build the answer — and we lead with the same posture in our own delivery. See our AI Principles.
Direct access to the team that delivers.
The practitioner you meet in your Foundation Audit is the practitioner who delivers your Scale Sprint. No bait and switch. No layered teams pushing decisions up a chain you can't see. You don't have time for handoffs.
FREQUENTLY ASKED
What founders ask us most.
- Will you tell my investors I had to hire help?
- No. Engagements are confidential. The work product is yours to share. We can support how it is described in diligence, but we do not help misrepresent who prepared it. Most investors respond positively when they learn a founder brought in senior advisors at the right moment.
- What if I just need one specific thing — not a whole sprint?
- The Foundation Audit is the smallest scoped engagement. For something narrower, our Fractional Leadership model can be sized down to a single situation or month. We'll tell you on the discovery call which model fits.
- My code was generated by Claude Code / Cursor / etc. Can you actually work on it?
- Yes. Our practitioners use the same AI tooling. We can read AI-generated codebases fluently, identify the architectural patterns AI tools tend to produce, and pair effectively with your existing AI workflow. We don't insist on rewriting AI-generated code — most of the time we don't need to.
- Do I need to be a technical founder to engage you?
- No. We work with both technical and non-technical founders. For non-technical founders, our role often includes serving as the senior technical voice in conversations with investors, enterprise customers, and your engineering team or contractors.
- Can you help me hire a CTO or CIO when I'm ready?
- Yes, indirectly. We don't run executive searches, but we work alongside the search firms that do. Many of our Fractional Leadership engagements end with a graceful handoff to a permanent CTO or CIO hire — at which point we either step out or move to a smaller advisory cadence.
- What about IP ownership of AI-generated code?
- This is a real and active question. The short version: ownership turns on vendor terms and contractor assignment language. Our Investor-Ready 60 engagement includes a review of this specifically. This is not legal counsel — we review the business and diligence implications of contract terms and coordinate with your attorney on legal interpretation.
- Can I switch engagements mid-stream?
- Yes. Founders sometimes start with a Foundation Audit, decide the situation calls for a Scale Sprint, and we credit the audit cost into the sprint. Founders sometimes finish an Investor-Ready 60 and continue as Fractional Leadership clients. The engagements are designed to compound.
- What's your AI delivery posture?
- We use AI in our own delivery — and we're explicit about how. AI accelerates document review, analysis drafting, and code review; senior practitioners hold every meaningful judgment. AI work uses approved enterprise data controls, retention disabled where the tool allows, and no client data used for model training where contractually covered. If you'd rather we work AI-free on your engagement, that option exists too. See AI Principles.
Tell us where you are. We'll tell you which wall.
The fastest way to know which engagement fits is a 30-minute call. No pitch deck, no qualification gauntlet. Tell us what's in front of you — we'll tell you which wall you're hitting and which engagement does the work.
Or book a Foundation Audit directly if you already know that's where you need to start.