Mike @ DesignCode.ai

What $3.5K, $7.5K and $15K a month buys from a fractional tech partner: Co-Pilot: up to 40 hrs/mo + monthly strategy session Build Partner: up to 80 hrs/mo + PM and roadmapping Embedded CTO: up to 160 hrs/mo + a fractional CTO Which fits your stage?

If you can't leave your tech vendor, you don't have a partner. You have a landlord. Per-seat fees, licensing, lock-in: that's rent. The alternative: custom systems you own. Full code ownership, no licensing fees, no lock-in.

Agency vs. embedded partner. An agency starts with a kickoff. An embedded partner starts with the work. And it compounds: after 6 months, we know things no new vendor can match. Indispensable, not interchangeable.

Three-week kickoff. An account manager. A briefing doc. Then they start. That's the agency model. Embedded means no ramp-up. No kickoffs, no account managers. Just the work. How long did your last vendor take to actually start?

Your board will ask about your AI plan. Answer these 4 first: 1. Where does AI cut our costs? 2. Where does it create revenue? 3. Who owns our tech roadmap? 4. Do we own our code? "Not sure" is the gap.

If someone on your team copy-pastes between two systems every day, that's not a job. It's an integration you haven't built yet.

AI didn't replace your team. It changed what one partner can do. The output of 15-20 people. Speed, continuity, no management overhead. The technology partner you couldn't afford before AI.

4 manual jobs your team should stop doing: 1. Chasing follow-ups by hand 2. Building the weekly report 3. Re-keying intake and onboarding 4. Copy-pasting between systems Pick the one that costs you the most hours. Automate it first.

A CTO plus a full dev team is about $400K in salaries. Most growing companies don't need the headcount. They need the output. Hire, agency, or embedded partner: which are you running today?

grok.com/dashboard redirects to cursor.com/unify/team which is a broken page, see screen attached. I've sent an email to [email protected] and was no help. Calling for a real human to step in.