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Diagnostic Services

Find out what's actually broken — before it gets expensive.

Sharp, opinionated evaluation from senior practitioners — not a framework deck. Whether you're a startup building toward PMF or a service business running on duct tape, we'll tell you exactly what's working, what isn't, and what to fix first.

Track 1 — For Startups

Product Foundation Audit

The Product Foundation Audit is a two-week embedded evaluation of your startup's product foundation. We come in, look at the whole picture — ICP clarity, roadmap discipline, technical architecture, your operating system, and PMF readiness — and come out with a sharp written report and a debrief call that tells you exactly what's broken and what to fix first.

This is not a consulting engagement. It's not a deck full of frameworks. It's senior product and engineering judgment, applied to your specific situation, delivered in a format a founder can act on the same week they receive it.

Six Pillars We Evaluate
01
ICP & Problem ClarityIs your ICP tightly defined? Can you articulate the core problem in one sentence? Is there evidence of validation beyond "people said they'd use it"?Most seed-stage teams we evaluate score red here. Fuzzy ICPs produce fuzzy products.
02
Roadmap DisciplineIs there a roadmap at all? Is it driven by product strategy or by the last demo? Are you building toward PMF signal or just shipping features?The #1 pattern we see in stalled startups: a roadmap driven by the last investor meeting.
03
Technical FoundationIs the codebase scalable or held together with no-code duct tape? Can it support 10x users? Is there technical debt that will block you in six months?Technical debt compounds silently. By the time it surfaces, it’s 3x more expensive to fix.
04
Product Operating SystemDo you have any system for deciding what to build, when, and why? Sprint cadence? Prioritization framework? Feedback loops? Or is it all ad hoc?Ad hoc works until it doesn’t. Investors at Series A want to see a system, not just a product.
05
PMF Signal ReadinessAre you measuring the right things? Do you know what PMF signal looks like for your product? Are you positioned to generate defensible signal, or tracking vanity metrics?Vanity metrics feel good until the board asks for retention curves you don’t have.
06
Agentic ReadinessAre you leveraging AI and agent tooling strategically — or just bolting on chatbots? We evaluate whether your workflows are set up for agentic augmentation, and whether you're positioned to compound rather than just automate.The founders who get AI architecture right early will outpace everyone else. The ones who get it wrong will end up in the news.
NOTEThe difference between “we use AI” and “AI compounds our output” is architecture. The founders who get this right early will outpace everyone else.
How It Runs
Week One — Discovery

We get inside it.

  • 90-minute founder interview — ICP, roadmap, decision-making, vision, current pain
  • Technical review — codebase walkthrough, architecture assessment, technical debt inventory
  • Product review — onboarding flow, core feature set, UX coherence
  • No templates. No surveys. Real judgment from senior practitioners.
Week Two — Analysis & Delivery

We tell you the truth.

  • Score each of the six pillars: Red / Yellow / Green with specific explanation
  • Written report — sharp, 5–7 pages, readable in 20 minutes
  • Priority stack — ranked list of 3–5 things to fix, in order, with effort and timeline
  • 60-minute debrief call walking through findings and recommendations
The Report

Sharp, opinionated, no filler. Readable in 20 minutes.

Executive summary — one paragraph on where you are and what matters most right now
Pillar-by-pillar assessment — score, analysis, and 1–2 specific recommendations each
Priority stack — ranked list of the 3–5 most important fixes, in order
Structural readiness score — are you ready to scale with a full internal team, or not yet?
Investment

One price. No surprises.
No hourly tracking.

At $5,000, you're getting senior product engineering judgment — not a junior analyst's framework deck. That's roughly one month of a junior engineer's salary. Except instead of one engineer ramping up, you get two senior practitioners evaluating your entire product foundation in two weeks.

$5,000Fixed Fee · 2 WeeksNo equity. No retainer obligation.Book Product Foundation Audit
What Happens After

The findings create urgency — naturally

When a founder sees three red pillars and a clear priority stack, the question becomes "who's going to fix this?" We're already in the room, with full context. That's not a cold pitch — it's a natural next conversation.

The embedded engagement, if it makes sense

If the audit reveals significant foundation work, we can talk about what an embedded engagement looks like. No pressure, no obligation. But if the diagnosis points there, the path is clear — and so is the ROI.

Track 2 — For Service Businesses

Operations Audit

Most service businesses run on duct tape — disconnected tools, manual handoffs, and processes that made sense at five employees but break at twenty. We audit your stack, workflows, and automations. You get the first 20% built, plus a blueprint to automate the other 80%.

01

Stack audit — what tools are you running, what's redundant, what's missing

02

Workflow mapping — how does work actually move through your business, from lead to delivery

03

Automation opportunities — what can be automated today vs. what needs groundwork first

04

Tool rationalization — where you're paying for overlap or underutilizing what you have

05

Handoff analysis — where information gets lost between people, tools, or stages

What You Get
  • Working automations for the highest-impact opportunities
  • Implementation blueprint for the rest — sequenced, costed, tool-specific
  • Stack recommendations — what to keep, what to drop, what to add
  • Clear map from current state to target state
$2,500–5K1 Week · Complexity-BasedBook Operations Audit
Not ready for a paid diagnostic?Start with our free 3-minute assessment10 questions that check your technical foundation and product execution. No email required. See where you stand before committing to a deeper evaluation.
Take the Assessment

Ready to find out where you actually stand?

Pick the track that fits. We'll have an honest conversation about what we see, what's fixable, and whether we're the right team to help you fix it.

Starting at $2,500 · No equity · Results in 1–2 weeks