You don't need a $200K CTO. You need an operator to spend a week looking at it.
Fixed-scope, fixed-price technology analysis for owner-operators and growing SMBs. Money you're losing, risks you can't see, found in seven days, or you don't pay.
Former AT&T Director | NextCard #16 through IPO | 28 Years Technology Leadership | U.S. Army Veteran
Most owner-operators don't have a technology problem. They have a visibility problem.
The SaaS bill keeps growing and nobody knows what's actually being used. A vendor renews for $40,000 the day after you would have canceled. The IT person who set everything up three years ago is gone. There's a domain registered to an email address nobody can access anymore. Your insurance carrier sent a cyber liability questionnaire last month and you're not sure how to answer half of it.
These aren't engineering problems. They're operator problems, things that get missed because the people running them are too busy running them.
That's what a tech diagnostic is. A senior operator spending a week looking at your stack so you don't have to.
The Engagement Scope
Every engagement examines the same four areas. This is where cost, risk, and surprises tend to hide in a growing business.
SPEND & WASTE
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Duplicate tools and overlapping software doing the same job
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Subscriptions nobody uses, still auto renewing every year
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Seats and service tiers you've outgrown or never needed
OPERATIONAL RISK
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Critical accounts tied to one person, or a former employee's email
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Systems only one person knows how to run or recover
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No documented way to get back up if a core system goes down
VENDOR & CONTRACT
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Renewal dates and notice periods nobody is tracking
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Auto-renewals that fire before anyone reviews them
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Pricing and tiers that have never been questioned or benchmarked
COMPLIANCE & SECURITY
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Insurance and audit questionnaires you can't fully answer yet
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Incident response and access policies practiced but never written down
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Shared admin logins with no record of who changed what
Two ways to work together.
The Strategic Tech Analysis
$1,500 | Delivered in 72 hours
The Operator's Tech Diagnostic
$5,000 | Delivered in 7 days
A pattern-based review of your technology operations. Owner intake form (~20 minutes) plus a 60-minute strategic interview. You get a six-page Strategic Analysis document and a one-page 90-Day Priority Memo within three business days.
Best for owners who want a senior operator's read on where the risk is and what to fix first, without exporting a single spreadsheet.
What you get:
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Executive Summary
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Six-page Strategic Analysis document
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One-page 90-Day Priority Memo
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60-minute walkthrough call
Deep analysis with hard-number findings. Your bookkeeper or IT person sends a few standard exports (~30 minutes of their time). We map your vendor and SaaS spend, inventory your operational risks with severity ratings, and deliver a 90-Day Priority Memo.
Best for owners who want quantified findings:"here's $18,000 in waste, here are the three risks that could take you down, here's what to do first."
What you get:
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Executive Summary
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Vendor & SaaS Spend Map (spreadsheet)
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Diagnostic findings with severity ratings
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90-Day Priority Memo with dollar figures
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60-minute walkthrough call
Guarantee:
We find it or you dont pay. If your not satisfied with our work, we will provide a full refund, no questions asked. No fighting over what counts. The risk is on us that's the deal.
Who You're Working With
Andrew Rowe
Andrew Rowe has spent 28 years running technology operations at scale. He was the 16th employee at NextCard and Director of Web Operations through its IPO, spent 14 years in technology and operations leadership at AT&T, and most recently led an enterprise observability and field service management engagement for a Washington State public utility. Before technology, he served as a U.S. Army Combat Medic and Paratrooper.
He's spent his career doing at enterprise scale exactly what he now does for owner-operators: finding money quietly leaking out of an operation and risk quietly building up in it. He's run teams of 125 and technology budgets of $9.3 million, and at AT&T he cut $2 million in costs without adding a single person. Spotting waste everyone else walked past isn't a new trick, it's what he's done for years.
He drops into a business, sees what's actually working and what isn't, and lays out a clear path forward. Now applying that experience to owner-operators who don't have a CTO yet and need a senior operator at their side as the business grows.
Based in the Wenatchee Valley. Working remotely with clients across the U.S. and Canada. Available onsite if needed.
Buying or Selling a Business?
In a deal, technology is where the surprises hide, and surprises cost money on both sides of the table. If you're buying, the Operator's Tech Diagnostic is your pre-close diligence: a fast read on integration risk and the cleanup costs buried in the target's stack.
If you're selling, it's how you find and fix those problems first, before a buyer's team uses them to chip your price. Same fixed price, same guarantee, same seven days. Built for search funds, private equity firms, and M&A advisors.