Execution Risk Review
A fixed-fee review for founders before a raise, a rebuild, or an architecture decision that's hard to undo. I look at the systems, the team, and the roadmap, then write up what will break, what to fix first, and what to leave alone.
- Price
- From $9,000
- Time
- about two weeks
- If we keep going
- the fee counts toward what comes next
| Severity | Finding | What I'd do |
|---|---|---|
| Serious | Settlement reconciliation depends on one engineer's spreadsheet.Fix before the raise | Fix before the raise |
| Serious | A retried payment webhook gets processed twice.Fix now | Fix now |
| Moderate | Manual ledger adjustments leave no audit trail.Fix this quarter | Fix this quarter |
| Moderate | The payments partner can end the contract on 30 days' notice, with no migration plan.Plan this quarter | Plan this quarter |
| Low | The monolith everyone wants to rewrite.Leave it alone | Leave it alone |
Illustrative. None of these come from a client.
- Serious
- Moderate
- Low
What I look at
- Architecture and scale
- What breaks at the next 10x of traffic, data, or team size, and what it costs to fix before then.
- Money movement
- Payments, ledgers, reconciliation, and the audit trail behind them.
- Security and operations
- Who can access what, how incidents get handled, and what happens when something fails at 3 a.m.
- The team
- Who owns which systems, where one person is a single point of failure, and who to hire next.
- The roadmap
- Whether the plan fits what the system and the team can actually carry.
How it runs
- 1
Kickoff call
We agree the scope, the questions that matter most, and the access I need.
- 2
Reading and interviews
I read the code and the architecture docs, and talk with the people who build and run the system.
- 3
The memo and a walkthrough
You get a written memo, then we go through it together with whoever should hear it.
What's in the memo
- The risks, ranked by what they would cost you if they went wrong.
- What I'd fix first, and roughly what it takes.
- What I'd leave alone, and why.
- Where the team needs more senior help, if it does.
It's yours to act on with me, with your own team, or with someone else.
Questions about the review
What does a review cost?
It's a fixed fee, starting at $9,000. If we keep working together afterward, the fee counts toward what comes next.
How long does a review take?
It takes about two weeks from the kickoff call to the written memo. Bigger systems take a little longer, and I'll tell you that up front.
What do you need from us?
Read access to the code and the architecture docs, and a few conversations with the people who build and run the system.
What do we get at the end?
A written memo that ranks the risks by consequence and says what I'd fix first and what I'd leave alone. We walk through it together, and it's yours to act on with me, with your own team, or with someone else.
Tell me what you're building.
Thirty minutes on a video call. You'll leave knowing where I'd start, and if I'm not the right person for it, I'll tell you.