If your AI pilot works in the demo but hasn't reached real users yet, I can help you find out what's in the way.
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.
90-minute call, $500. Refundable in one click.
- A demo everyone liked
- Costs starting to add up
- A long list of AI ideas
- Tested on your own data
- Running costs, worked out early
- The piece to build first
What I usually find
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. Usually, everyone is working hard. The team often has the right intent, but not yet the experience of getting an AI system to real users.
One thing I usually do first
We find the piece that's worth building, and make sure it ships first. Every milestone is something your users can actually use, tested on your own data.
A note from me
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.
- Sachin
Questions a demo doesn't have to answer
The data
Where does the data really come from, and who keeps it clean?
When it's wrong
What happens when the model is wrong? Who notices, and who checks the output before a customer sees it?
The cost
What does each run cost at real volume, and how fast does it need to be?
Testing
How do we test it, and know a “better” prompt didn't make something else worse?
Sometimes the answer is that AI won't help. You'll hear that on the first call, not in month six.
Some of the work
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.
A revived heritage travel brand was paying for several third-party travel-booking tools. Using an AI-heavy development process, we replaced them with an in-house portal built around how their team actually works, in about three months. That cut both the license fees and the operating costs.
In 2013, I developed and trained computer vision machine learning models for detecting and tracking fish species in open waters. Keeping detection and tracking separate made it far more efficient: up to 100 objects at 30 FPS on a 3.1 GHz 4-core Intel i7, using OpenCV.
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, and how the ground reality compares with how it feels to you. That can go either way: sometimes the work is 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. And 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 pilot, your data, and your AI plans, over two to three weeks.
- The pilot, its code, and how it does on your real data
- The running costs, and which piece is worth building first
- Solutions to the problems we find, worked out together with you and your team
Your fractional CTO
A few hours a week on your AI work and the decisions around it. The monthly range depends on how much of my time you need.
- Finding specialists who have already solved your kind of problem
- Build-or-buy and vendor calls, with the running costs worked out
- 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.
Maybe, later. Once the first piece is working with real users, it's much clearer what experience that person needs. Then I help you find someone who has already solved that kind of problem, and hand the work over.
Access to the pilot and its code, a sample of the data it will run on, and time with the people who built it, on your side and any vendor's.
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.
No. I take no reseller fees or commissions from any vendor, so I'm truly on your side, with only your best interest in mind.
Book your first call
Pick a time that works for you. Bring whoever on your team knows the pilot 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 →