Startup technology advisory
Before product-market fit: what to build first, what to buy, what to skip, and who to hire. Short sprints with a decision at the end.
Who this is for
- Founders before product-market fit who have to decide what to build with very little
- Non-technical founders who need a technical plan they can hire against
- Founders preparing a pitch who want the technical slides to survive an investor's questions
What we do
- Scope the smallest product that tests the real hypothesis, and cut the rest
- Decide what to build, buy or borrow, with the cost and the lock-in written down
- Design the minimum viable architecture and the first hires that can carry it
- Review the technical claims in your deck from an investor's point of view
- Turn customer conversations into technical requirements your team can build against
What you get
- A written decision: scope, architecture, stack, hires, and why
- A build-versus-buy table with costs and the point where you would switch
- Annotated pitch deck feedback and the questions you should expect
- A plan for the next ninety days your team can execute without me
How it runs
- Format
- One-to-four-week sprint with two or three working sessions a week, or an ongoing fortnightly advisory call.
- Typical length
- A sprint is one to four weeks; advisory runs month to month.
- What I need from you
- Your customer conversations so far, your deck, and the people who will build.
Where I've done this
I co-founded VoltVogel and learned pre-product-market-fit decisions by making them: simulation first, prototype scoping under pressure, paid pilots, and an honest wind-down. I am co-founder and CTO of SoilFlux, which went through Earlybird's Vision Lab accelerator. I was a domain expert in the Carbon13 venture builder programme and advised Star Hopper Studio on running a creative studio like a startup.
Abhi's helping us use AI to offload the busywork so we can focus on the creative side, and to think about growing the studio like a startup. Nothing is a black box — we run everything ourselves.
Questions founders ask
- We are not technical. Can you still help?
- That is the common case. I translate the idea into a plan you can understand, hire against and defend, and I help you choose the first engineer.
- What does a sprint end with?
- A decision, written down: what to build first, with what, with whom, and what you are deliberately not doing yet.
- Do you review pitch decks on their own?
- Yes. A deck review is two to five days: annotated slides, the questions investors will ask about the technology, and a call to go through them.
- What if the answer is 'don't build this'?
- Then you hear it early, with the reasons. That is the cheapest outcome a sprint can have.
Start a conversation
Tell me what you're building and what's in the way. I reply within one business day, usually with a first thought, not a sales pitch.