Engagement · Tier 2
Founder AI Playbook
The operating manual for how your company uses AI in the next 90 days. One working session, one written playbook, two weeks of shared Slack. Priced $297–$997 based on company stage and domain complexity.
What you leave with
- A named AI operating model for your company — which workflows are automated, which are augmented, which stay fully human, and why.
- A 90-day build order with the three things to ship first, ranked against Theory of Constraints (not against what’s easiest).
- Tool selections for your stack (Claude, GPT-5, Cursor, n8n, Zapier AI, agent frameworks) with explicit trade-off notes — not vendor brochures.
- A Wardley-style map of where AI commoditizes your current moats and where it widens them.
- Hiring guidance: the one role to add, the two to deprioritize, the skills to upskill internally.
What’s included
- 45-minute pre-call intake — we learn the business before the session, not during it.
- 90-minute working session with a senior operator (Zoom, recorded, transcript delivered).
- Custom written playbook, 15-25 pages, delivered within 7 days of the call.
- Two weeks of shared Slack channel for follow-up questions, tool evaluation pings, and hiring-funnel reads.
- One 30-minute revision call at week 3 to pressure-test what you’ve shipped against the plan.
- All written artifacts yours to keep, edit, and redistribute internally.
Sample deliverable
Every playbook uses the same seven-section spine. Content is written from scratch — we do not reuse frameworks between clients.
Section 01
The business, stated plainly
One page describing your company in language your board doesn’t use. This is the document we reference the rest of the way.
Section 02
AI operating model
Which workflows we’re automating (fully agentic), augmenting (human-in-loop), and leaving alone (regulated, relational, or already good enough).
Section 03
Wardley map — your landscape under AI pressure
Your value chain mapped on the evolution axis, with the components AI is pushing from custom-built to commodity, and the components becoming more valuable as a result.
Section 04
90-day build order
Three workflows to ship, in sequence, with the reasoning for why this order and not another. Each includes the tool stack, the success metric, and the kill criteria.
Section 05
Stack decisions
Claude vs. GPT-5 for your specific workloads. Cursor vs. Copilot vs. Windsurf for engineering. n8n vs. Zapier AI vs. custom code for orchestration. Explicit, not hedged.
Section 06
Team & hiring
One role to hire, one to deprioritize, and a one-page upskilling plan for the team you already have.
Section 07
What not to build
Five adjacent ideas we’d reject and the reasoning. This section saves more money than the rest of the doc combined.
Questions
How is this different from hiring a fractional CTO?+
A fractional CTO shows up weekly and participates in operations. We write you a plan and then get out of your way. Most of our playbook clients do not need a fractional technical hire — they need a clear argument for what to do next.
Why the price range?+
Anchor at $497 for a seed-to-Series-A startup. The $297 floor is for pre-revenue founders bootstrapping. The $997 ceiling is for teams with regulated-domain complexity (healthcare, finance, legal) or 20+ headcount that need stakeholder alignment baked into the doc.
Who runs the session?+
A senior operator — not a junior analyst, not a sales engineer. Our bench is people who’ve actually shipped AI in production at Stripe, McKinsey Digital, and venture-backed startups.
Can you help us implement after?+
Yes — the Growth AI Accelerator is built for exactly that. About 40% of Playbook clients graduate into an accelerator within 60 days.
Do we need technical leadership on our side?+
No. The playbook is written for the founder or operator. If your team has engineers, we include an engineering appendix. If it doesn’t, we point you at what to outsource and to whom.
Scope a playbook
Book a 20-minute intro. We’ll confirm scope, price within the published range, and book the working session within 10 business days.
Book intro call