Stuck software, moving again. The right technology, adopted.
- Tech Due Diligence
- Acquisitions
- Second Opinions
- Software Builds
- Big Tech Decisions
- Product Releases
- AI/ML Pilots
- Deep Tech
- Revenue Ops
- Data Projects
- First Builds
- Deciding What to Build
- Senior Interviews
I join a few teams at a time, usually for a few hours a week, until your team is ready.
90-minute call, $500. Refundable in one click.
- Agency build, months late
- AI pilot stuck in the demo
- New technology tools nobody uses
- Shipped
- In production
- Used every day
- The telehealth platform I led for 8 years was used by Partners Healthcare, Boston Children's, Mayo Clinic, and municipal healthcare providers across Denmark during the Covid19 waves.
- I started with AI/ML in 2013, when I trained computer vision ML models to detect and track fish species in open waters, and implemented image compression algorithms that ran on GPUs in 94.7% less time.
About me
I wrote my first program in 1999, at fifteen, and never really stopped. I've led teams since 2005, and in 2008 I founded Rawzor. It started as a deep-tech R&D studio for image compression and computer vision. Today it's a small senior team of tech experts who work with our clients' teams to get stuck software moving again. 27+ years of building software, and it's still just as fun as building sand castles on the beach.
LinkedIn profile →What usually brings people to me
Each one is usually a sign of something underneath.
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Technical due diligence for investors and M&A
Before money moves
Before you invest or acquire
Someone with no stake in the answer should look at the technology before money moves. I check the code, the team, and the risks, and tell you plainly whether it's an asset or a problem, and what it would take to fix.
Before you sell
I find what a buyer's team will find, while there's still time to fix it.
A private second look
For a CEO or board that wants an honest, independent read on what the technology team is saying.
An agency build that isn't moving
Agency or freelancers
Usually, everyone is working hard
The trouble is underneath: the agency is stretched across too many clients, or has the right intent but not yet the skills for this job, or you each mean something different by “done”.
One thing I usually do first
I change what each payment pays for. Every milestone is a feature your users can actually use (released, stable, and complete) instead of a task ticked off on the vendor's list.
Estimates that add up
I also push back on estimates that don't add up. On one project, a quote for four developers for three weeks came down to about one developer for three to four weeks.
Big calls, nobody senior to make them
Funded, shipping, no CTO
The big calls keep waiting
When there's no senior technical person, the big calls either wait or get made by whoever happens to be closest. The team often has the right intent, but not yet the experience for the decision in front of it.
A few hours a week
I join for a few hours a week and make those calls with you: architecture, hiring, vendors, and what to build next.
Slow delivery, and nobody knows why
That's usually where I start: what's really done, what isn't, and what's in the way.
AI, and no clear idea what's real
AI and deep tech
Stuck between the demo and real users
That's where AI pilots tend to stall: real data is messier than the demo's, and the costs start to add up. We find the piece that's worth building, and make sure it ships first.
AI, before it was called AI
I was building machine learning, computer vision, and audio systems long before any of it was called AI, so I can usually tell quickly what's realistic, what it will really cost, and what to build first.
Technology tools nobody really uses
RevOps, operations, adoption
The other half of my work
Helping companies choose and adopt the technology tools they run on, from sales and marketing to operations, finance, and support.
Revenue Operations (RevOps)
Your CRM, marketing tools, and ad tracking set up to work together, so you can see which ads bring in which customers, and where the money leaks.
Often the technology is fine
It was just never set up around how the team actually works, so every report shows a different number. I help choose the right vendors, negotiate the contracts, get the setup right, and stay until your people are using it.
Building something new
First build, or what's next
Why it costs more than you expect
Custom software is closer to opening a car workshop than buying a car. In a showroom, you pay, take the keys, and drive. Building your own means setting up a workshop: hiring the mechanics, getting the equipment, trying different parts, and getting some decisions wrong before the car is safe to drive. It takes more iterations, and more money, than most people expect.
Where I come in
My job is to align this extra complexity with your business goals, simplify the build-or-buy decisions, and keep the iterations few and useful if we decide to build.
The people you're missing
Sometimes the build needs a skill that would take a new hire months to learn. I help you find someone who already has it, and join the technical interviews myself.
A note from me
I keep reviewing products where the architecture was drawn around the teams instead of the product. One feature crosses three microservices, each owned by a different team, with a lot of beautifully written code just to keep them in sync. My job is to talk everyone into deleting most of it. They'll thank me eventually. (They won't, but a man can hope.)
- Sachin
Some of the work
I led a client's telehealth platform from its first version to retirement. Through the Covid19 waves, Partners Healthcare, Boston Children's, Mayo Clinic, and municipal healthcare providers across Denmark used it. Along the way, the team went from 13 people in three countries to a remote team of four, and delivery got twice as fast.
A New York based VoIP company had spent nine months on an AI project that was moving at a crawl: self-hosting ASR models and LLMs for transcribing and summarizing calls, to keep costs down at scale. I recruited the right specialists, and it shipped in two months. I also drove the GPU batch-processing optimizations.
A revived heritage travel brand. Closed-loop attribution tied ad spend to actual customer revenue, and a semi-automated budget-adjustment funnel moved the money to the campaigns that brought in customers. Ad spend came down by about 45%, and the sales team got 30% smaller, because it was chasing fewer, better leads that actually converted. Alongside it, an in-house portal replaced several paid tools in about three months.
The founders had vibe-coded their whole AI app. I led a human review of the front end and the back end, and got it stable enough for a public App Store launch.
Clients stay unnamed here. I'm happy to walk you through any of these on a call.
How I work
What I look at first
- What you're trying to achieve, and where things really stand.
- The quality of the work so far. It can go either way: sometimes it's worse than it looks, and sometimes it's much better than it feels, simply because it isn't finished yet.
- The skills the job needs against the skills on the team.
- Whether your timeline and budget estimates are realistic.
- The gap between what I hear from leadership and what I hear from the people doing the work. That gap usually tells me the most.
Progress everyone can see
Status updates that say what's really done, in enough detail to act on, and a working build you can try every week. A lot of the misunderstandings I see start with updates that skip the details.
People who've solved it before
I look for people and tools that have already solved the exact problem you're struggling with, not just a good developer, a good marketing team, or a good CRM. A job post that says “great machine learning engineer” vs “a machine learning engineer who has worked on audio models, and plays a musical instrument” can turn a 3-month project into a 3-week sprint.
A team that doesn't need me
Knowledge moves to your team, and if you need a full-time CTO, I help you find the right one. By then, no part of your product should depend on one person, including me.
How we'd start
Everything starts with one paid call. By the end of it, we'll both know whether there's more to do, and which of the other two options fits.
A first call
- 90 minutes with me, working on your actual problem.
- Real answers and clear next steps on the calls themselves.
- Up to two follow-ups, with you or the people on your team.
- If it wasn't worth it, one click refunds the full $500.
The right first step for nearly everyone.
Some teams take the solutions and run with them on their own. That's a perfectly good outcome.
A fixed-price review
A close look at the whole picture, over two to three weeks.
- Your goals, the work so far, and your team
- Whether your timeline and budget estimates are realistic
- Solutions to the problems we find, worked out together with you and your team
Your fractional CTO
A few hours a week on the decisions that matter. The monthly range depends on how much of my time you need.
- Architecture, hiring, and vendor calls
- Closing the gap between what leadership hears and what's happening on the ground
- A planned hand-off to your own team
Bootstrapped and pre-revenue? Book a 40-minute Founder Call for $200. It doesn't include follow-up calls, and the same one-click refund applies.
Fair questions
Because it's working time on your problem, and you get real answers on the call itself. It also covers up to two follow-ups, including calls with people on your team if needed.
Sometimes, for a tricky performance problem or a code review. Mostly I make sure the right people are writing it, and that what they build is what you actually need.
Yes. Often the agency is doing its best, and trust has worn thin on both sides. Fixing what's broken is usually easier and better than wholesale replacement. Sometimes all that's needed is adding an expert with the missing skill set. Replacement is the last option.
Book your first call
Pick a time that works for you. Bring whoever on your team knows the problem best.
$500 for the first call
- 90 minutes with me, working on your actual problem.
- Real answers and clear next steps on the calls themselves.
- Up to two follow-ups, with you or the people on your team.
- If it wasn't worth it, one click refunds the full $500.
Need more than one person? Rawzor is my firm, a small senior team of experts that works alongside your people. Explore rawzor.com →