Apptimistic/Services
Section
№ 002 / Services
Practices
Six - Fractional CTO is the spine
Engagement
Fixed scope · fixed price · fixed timeline
Minimum
$3,500 diagnostic · scales to retainer

Six ways we take
work off your plate.

Senior judgment, applied to real bottlenecks. You don't need another tool or another agency - you need a team that can decide what to build, what to buy, and what to kill.

01
Embedded

Fractional CTO

Senior technical leadership without the $400K salary line on your P&L.

The position

You're running a real business and the technology calls are landing on your desk anyway. Should we build or buy? Is this vendor lying? Why is the team taking six months to ship what should take six weeks? You shouldn't be the one answering those questions - and we shouldn't be a junior dev shop pretending to.

We sit at your table - embedded, recurring, senior. We set the technical strategy, hire and manage the team, run vendor selection, own the roadmap, and answer for outcomes. Not advisory hours. Actual ownership.

What you get
  • 01Technical strategy & roadmap, refreshed quarterly
  • 02Architecture review & system design decisions
  • 03Hiring loop - JDs, interviews, calibration
  • 04Vendor selection & contract review
  • 05Code & design reviews on critical systems
  • 06Direct Slack & weekly leadership call
  • 07Quarterly board-ready technical update
  • 08One named senior accountable - no rotating juniors
What it isn't
  • An advisory call on Friday afternoons
  • A junior shop with a CTO logo on the slide deck
  • Hands-on production coding (we have a build team for that)
  • Available 24/7 - engagement is 8–10 focused hours/week
Engagement details
Investment
$7,500/ month
Cadence
8–10 hrs/ week
Commitment
3 monthsminimum
02
Strategy

AI Consulting

For business owners who keep hearing “you need AI” and have no clue where to start.

The position

Run an auto-repair group, dental chain, physio network, real estate brokerage, or any other established service business? You're drowning in AI noise. Every vendor is suddenly “AI-powered.” Every LinkedIn post says you're about to be replaced. Most of it is hype, some of it is genuinely useful, and almost none of it is being explained in plain English.

We sit with you and your leadership team, look at how the business actually runs, and tell you which AI tools to adopt this quarter, which to pilot, which to ignore, and how to introduce them without breaking your team. AI isn't here to replace you - it's here to free up your hours for the work only you can do.

What you get
  • 01Plain-English audit of where AI helps your business (and where it doesn't)
  • 02Tool short-list - off-the-shelf options ranked, with pricing
  • 03An adoption roadmap your team can actually follow
  • 04Workshops for your leadership and operations team
  • 05Pilot plan with measurable before/after metrics
  • 06Honest read on what to build vs. what to buy
  • 07A “what to ignore” list - just as important as the “what to do” list
  • 08Quarterly review as the AI landscape shifts
What it isn't
  • A keynote with slide-deck buzzwords
  • A pitch for a tool we happen to resell
  • A “just install ChatGPT” engagement
  • Vendor-locked - our recommendations are ours, not a partner's
Engagement details
Investment
From $6K/ engagement
Timeline
3–6 wksfirst cycle
Format
Workshops+ written plan
03
Highest ROI

AI Automation

Replace the meetings, copy-paste, and “send me that file” loops with quiet AI workers running 24/7.

The position

Most “AI” pitches end at a chatbot demo. Yours ends at a P&L line. We build real AI workers inside your operations - not on top of them - so the workflow that used to take a person three hours now takes a process three seconds.

The pattern is always the same: find the highest-leverage manual loop, replace its core with an AI worker, instrument it, hand it back to your team with a kill switch and a clear dashboard. Repeat.

What we automate
  • 01Lead intake, qualification & routing
  • 02Document processing & data extraction
  • 03Customer support triage & first-pass replies
  • 04Reporting, dashboards & weekly summaries
  • 05Sales ops - proposals, follow-up, CRM hygiene
  • 06Content production & review pipelines
  • 07Internal search across messy company knowledge
  • 08Outbound research & enrichment at scale
What it isn't
  • A “wrapper” chatbot on your homepage
  • A foundation-model R&D project
  • Hype-first deployments without a measured before/after
  • Something you have to babysit - we build kill switches
Engagement details
Investment
From $12K/ project
Timeline
4–8 wksper loop
Typical ROI
3–9 mopayback
04
Build

Custom Software

Bespoke systems engineered to fit your exact business model - not the other way around.

The position

Off-the-shelf software is fine until it isn't. The moment your business model has a sharp edge - a pricing nuance, a workflow that doesn't fit the standard template, an integration nobody supports - the spreadsheets come out. That's a signal, not a defect.

We build the system that fits the sharp edge. Modern, proven tools. Owned by you. Code your future team can read. Fixed scope, fixed price, fixed timeline. No “we'll see how it goes.”

What we build
  • 01Internal ops & back-office platforms
  • 02Customer-facing SaaS products
  • 03Marketplaces & multi-sided platforms
  • 04Reporting & analytics dashboards
  • 05Mobile apps (iOS & Android)
  • 06Integrations between the tools you already use
  • 07Billing & subscription infrastructure
  • 08Migrations off legacy systems
What it isn't
  • A “we'll figure it out as we go” engagement
  • WordPress, marketing pages, or design-only work
  • Hourly billing & open-ended scope
  • Code that ships and rots - we hand over docs and tests
Engagement details
Investment
From $12K/ project
Timeline
4–12 wksdelivery
Ownership
100%yours
05
Full-stack

Done-For-You SaaS & Apps

End-to-end delivery of SaaS, mobile apps, and Chrome extensions. From first sketch to live product.

The position

You have an idea for a product - a SaaS platform, a mobile app, a Chrome extension that solves a real problem in your industry. What you don't have is the time, team, or appetite to stitch together a designer, a developer, a back-end team, a DevOps engineer, an app-store specialist, and a billing integrator yourself.

That's us. One team. One brief. Idea to live product, end to end, under one roof. We design it, build it, ship it, and hand you a real, working, paying-customer-ready product. You stay focused on the business.

What we deliver, end-to-end
  • 01SaaS products - web app, billing, customer accounts, the lot
  • 02Mobile apps for iOS and Android, app-store ready
  • 03Chrome & browser extensions
  • 04Product design, branding & landing site
  • 05Subscription billing & customer management
  • 06Email, notifications & support tooling
  • 07Analytics so you can see what users actually do
  • 08Launch support & first-90-days iteration
What it isn't
  • A landing page or marketing site dressed up as “a product”
  • A no-code prototype you'll outgrow in six months
  • A hand-off relay between four different vendors
  • An open-ended retainer with no “done” date
Engagement details
Investment
From $25K/ product
Timeline
8–16 wksto launch
Scope
Idea → liveend-to-end
06
Leverage

JV & White-Label

Your clients are asking for software, SaaS, mobile apps, or AI. We build it under your brand.

The position

You run an agency, consultancy, or service business - SEO, PPC, brand, content, strategy, or something else entirely - and your clients keep asking you for custom software, SaaS, mobile apps, Chrome extensions, or AI automation. Work you don't currently deliver. Hiring a build team is a year and seven figures away. Saying no leaves money on the table and risks the relationship.

We slot in as your invisible delivery team. You keep the client, the brand, the relationship and the contract. We handle the build. Revenue share or wholesale pricing - whichever fits your model.

How it works
  • 01White-label SOW & scope review under your brand
  • 02Client-facing comms in your voice (or silent)
  • 03Build delivered against your brief & timeline
  • 04Dedicated PM as your shadow account lead
  • 05Co-pitch support for high-value opportunities
  • 06Optional retainer for post-launch support
  • 07Quarterly partnership review & pipeline plan
  • 08Mutual NDAs & non-solicit on every account
What it isn't
  • A referral relationship - we deliver, you stay in control
  • Co-branded - your brand is the only one the client sees
  • Single-project - designed for pipeline over time
Engagement details
Model
Wholesaleor revshare
Capacity
3–5live builds
Onboard
2 wkspartnership setup
07
Compare engagements
Pick the model that fits

Six practices. One firm.

Most clients start with the diagnostic and graduate into a longer engagement. Some only need one practice; some braid several together.

Fractional CTO
AI Consulting
AI Automation
Custom Software
Done-For-You
JV / White-Label
Best for
Founders without a CTO
Owners overwhelmed by AI noise
Teams with manual loops
Businesses with sharp edges
Idea-to-product end-to-end
Agencies & consultancies
Investment
$7,500 / mo
From $6K
From $12K / project
From $12K / project
From $25K / product
Wholesale / revshare
Timeline
3 mo minimum
3–6 wks first cycle
4–8 wks per loop
4–12 wks delivery
8–16 wks to launch
Ongoing pipeline
Senior accountable
Fixed scope & price
Retainer
✓ per build
Client-facing under your brand
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Starting point
Diagnostic ($3.5K)
Strategy call
Diagnostic ($3.5K)
Diagnostic ($3.5K)
Discovery call
Partnership intro
08
Questions
Common ground

Services questions.

Can I start with just the diagnostic?
Yes - and we recommend it for any first engagement. $3,500, two weeks, fixed scope. You get a written roadmap and an honest read on what your business actually needs. If you decide to build with us after, the diagnostic fee is credited against the first build. If not, you walk away with clarity. No pressure.
Do you ever combine multiple practices in one engagement?
Often. The most common pattern is Fractional CTO + AI Automation, where we sit at the table strategically and ship the highest-leverage automation in parallel. Done-For-You builds frequently sit underneath a CTO retainer too. We don't bundle to inflate scope - we sequence what compounds first.
What tools and platforms do you build on?
We use modern, proven tools across web, mobile, and AI - the same platforms behind the products you already use day-to-day (the makers of ChatGPT and Claude on the AI side; the platforms that power most modern SaaS, mobile apps, and Chrome extensions on the build side). We'll choose the right tools for your business and explain the trade-offs in plain English - never in acronyms.
Who owns the code?
You do. 100%, from day one. Code lives in your repo (or ours, transferred to you at completion). We hand over documentation, runbooks and test suites with every build. Bus-factor of one is a smell - we won't be the only people who can run your software.
What if I'm not sure which service I need?
Start with a strategy call. Free, 30 minutes, on-record. If we think you need the diagnostic, we'll tell you. If we think you need someone else (or nothing yet), we'll tell you that too. We don't take engagements we can't materially win at.
Do you take equity in lieu of fees?
Rarely. For exceptional founders with limited cash and a high-conviction story, we'll consider a partial equity arrangement on top of fees - never instead of them. The bar is high and the engagement has to fit the Fractional CTO model.
№ 09 - Ready when you are

Book a strategy call.

Thirty minutes. On the record. We'll tell you which practice (if any) fits your business, and what to expect from a first engagement.