Build with me

Sometimes the next moveis to build it.

When there's a real deadline and a real deliverable, the fastest way to move is to make it. I bring my team and my AI tooling, and we build it together — you keep the asset and you know how to run it.

The situation

Sound familiar?

Advice works when the bottleneck is knowing what to do. Sometimes the bottleneck is just capacity — and no amount of good advice fixes that.

1You know exactly what needs building. There's just nobody to build it.
2There's a date on the calendar — a launch, a raise, a demo — and you won't make it alone.
3The site or the app is 80% done and has been for four months.
4You built the product; getting anyone to use it is a different language entirely.
5You'd hire someone — but can't afford a good one and can't judge a bad one.
6You've tried agencies. They billed you and never owned the outcome.
The role

Done with you, not for you.

I'm not a contractor you brief and wait on. We build it side by side — I bring the judgment, the team, and the tooling; you stay close enough to run it after I'm gone.

What you get with me

  • A scoped deliverable with a date on it — not an open-ended retainer
  • My team and AI engine (Radi8) doing the heavy lifting — fast and affordably
  • Weekly, in-person working sessions — I'm in it with you
  • The asset and the know-how, both yours to keep when we're done

What it's not

  • A full-time hire you can't justify yet
  • An agency billing monthly that never owns the outcome
  • A freelancer executing tickets with no plan behind them
  • A black box you can't maintain after handoff
Why me

The experience and the tools to build with it.

Most advisors sell advice. I bring the experience and the engine — Radi8 — so the strategy actually gets executed, not filed.

Built & exited

25 years building. Four exits — one as a founder (FastPencil, acquired by Courier Corp in 2011), three as an advisor — and products taken from concept to market including Kiteworks at Accellion and Blackfish at Shape Security. The throughline of my book, What Holds Up the Roof.

I build the tools I use

I'm building Radi8 (AI marketing) inside my venture studio, Custany — plus Foclarity (GTM for CEOs). I don't just advise; I bring the engine.

I speak founder

I launched a startup incubator at SJSU and have taught there since 2018. I get the engineer's mindset — and translate marketing into it.

4 exits — 1 founder, 3 advisor 25+ years in GTM Founder, Radi8 Founder, Inspiring Founders Professor since 2018, SJSU Author, What Holds Up the Roof
Scope

Two kinds of projects

Build the product — a website, a web or mobile app, an MVP, a working prototype. Or build the go-to-market — the engine that gets what you made in front of people. Plenty of projects are both.

Brand Strategy Go-to-market plan Inbound Outbound PR Social — organic Social — paid Newsletter Events Content · YouTube Podcast guesting

Add-ons when you're ready

Optional extras we layer in as the engine grows:

  • CRM setup
  • SEO / AEO
  • Co-hosted live content
  • Luma events setup
  • Mailchimp setup
  • …and more as you scale
How it's scoped

Quoted up front, with a finish line.

Building work runs on the same rhythm as everything else I do — twelve weeks, four 3-week sprints — and is quoted once we know what we're building. No hourly meter, no surprise invoice.

12 weeks
Four 3-week sprints
Every three weeks: what we built, what happened, what's next.
  • A scoped deliverable with a date on it
  • Weekly in-person working sessions
  • Execution handled by my team + Radi8
  • The asset and the playbook, yours to keep
Not sure building is the move? Often what's actually stuck is somewhere else — here's how I work with organizations and individuals, and I'll tell you honestly on the call.

Let's build it.

Tell me what you're making and when it needs to exist. If it's a fit, I'll scope it, send a simple agreement, and we start next week.

Book an intro call