--- title: "BoldOrion — Clarity is the new speed." description: "BoldOrion helps founders and leadership teams decide what to build, and what not to, then builds it. Strategy, architecture, delivery, and fractional CTO." url: https://www.boldorion.com/ --- # Clarity is the new speed. We help founders and leadership teams work out what to build, and what not to, then build it. [Talk it through](https://www.boldorion.com/contact) [How we build](https://www.boldorion.com/process) Teams we’ve worked with - FaithSocial - OneHope - Forever Open - John Maxwell Company - Lifework Leadership - LX Partners - InCommon - Edublox - The Oaks - Sakraan - LUMO Project - Palm Beach Atlantic University - Feed - Bethesda Bridge - Stormie Omartian - Mainsail - Openfin Technologies Services ## Three ways to bring us in. Each starts with the problem you can see. The answer usually reaches further than the question did. 01 Systems architecture ### How should it all fit together? We map how the business works and design the system it needs: data, tools, people, and where AI belongs. - **You leave with**: A map of the business as it really runs, and a design to build from. Six weeks · fixed price [How it works](https://www.boldorion.com/services/systems-architecture) 02 Delivery ### Who’s going to build it? A senior team builds the first version fast, because the thinking is done. A product, an internal tool, or the platform underneath both. - **You leave with**: Working software in use, and a team or partner ready to carry it. Fixed scope, in phases [How it works](https://www.boldorion.com/services/delivery) 03 Fractional CTO ### Who’s making the technical calls? A senior technical leader at the table for a set term, then a review. We make the calls with your team, and stand behind them with investors. - **You leave with**: Decisions made and written down, and a team that can carry them. Two quarters, then review [How it works](https://www.boldorion.com/services/fractional-cto) Strategy evaluation ### Not sure where to start? Let’s evaluate together. A short, fixed engagement. We look at the plan, the product, or the AI idea, find the problem behind it, and tell you straight what we’d do, before the money is committed. - **You leave with**: A written recommendation, the trade-offs behind it, what not to build, and which of the three you need, if any. Sometimes it’s none. Two weeks · **$7,500** fixed [How it works](https://www.boldorion.com/services/strategy-evaluation) Credited in full if we carry on together within 60 days. How we think ## We start by listening. Not to the org chart or the pitch deck. To how your business really moves. Once that’s clear, deciding what to build or where AI fits is the easy part. The answer is often already in the room. Where we look - What still lives only in someone’s head - The conditions your users really work in - What each new customer costs you - What you’d build that nobody needs ## Think slowly. Build fast. The expensive mistakes happen at the start of a project: accounts nobody needed, a stack an investor won’t trust, and screens built before anyone settled the problem. We take our time there, so the building can move fast. 1. Listen 01 ### Understand the business How it makes money, how decisions get made, and where the friction really is. Strategy evaluation 2. Think slowly 02 ### Design the system What should exist, what shouldn’t, and how the pieces fit together. Systems architecture · Fractional CTO 3. Build fast 03 ### Build what matters The simplest version that adds value, built fast. Delivery 4. Then 04 ### Hand it over To a team, a partner, or a process that can carry it forward. Every engagement Delivery ## When it’s time to build, we build fast. Because the thinking comes first, the building is fast: a first version in two or three months, not a year. And we plan who carries it forward from day one. Work ## Every brief has a better question inside it. Every engagement turns on seeing what’s really going on, early. Here’s what that looked like. [All case studies](https://www.boldorion.com/work) Voice AI startup · Plumbing and HVAC · 2021–2022 ### They asked why the team was so slow. The team had never seen the whole product. Two founders pictured an AI voice that answered for plumbers stuck under a sink: book the job, run the card, reschedule. Their engineers were busy, but slow, building the screens they could follow. We drew the product with the founders until everyone saw it whole, cut it to a first version, and hired two engineers to build it. The product took its first live calls in January 2022, before ChatGPT. - **first live AI calls, in January, eleven months before ChatGPT**: 2022 - **engineers, once the right two were hired**: 5 → 2 - **faster shipping, by our estimate**: 10× [Read the case study](https://www.boldorion.com/case-studies/voice-platform) Tax credit platform · Fintech · 2023–2024 ### They asked what to build next. The IRS kept raising the bar for proof. The voice AI founders came back with a new company, helping businesses claim COVID-era tax credits. The engineers we’d hired for them had momentum, but no clear next step. Every claim had to point to the government orders that hurt the business, and the IRS kept asking for more. We designed a careful path through each claim, and an AI pipeline that sorted thousands of overlapping orders. - **government orders, sorted with AI**: 13K+ [Read the case study](https://www.boldorion.com/case-studies/tax-platform) Business launch platform · With Openfin · 2026 ### They asked for a system to help people launch a business. Customers needed a person checking the AI's work. Mainsail’s founders wanted to help experienced people go out on their own. AI could do much of the work, but on its own it makes noise, and people doing all of it cost too much. With Openfin, we designed and built a platform where agents draft seven deliverables from one short intake, and an experienced person reads every page before the customer sees it. - **from the first idea meeting to the first paying customer**: 90 days - **to draft and review a full launch kit**: 72 hrs - **of the effort done by agents**: 80%+ [Read the case study](https://www.boldorion.com/case-studies/mainsail) Social platform · Web, iOS, and Android · 2018–2022 ### They asked for features that brought people together. Every new member shortened their runway. A faith-based social network, growing fast on web, iOS, and Android. Duncan joined as an advisor in 2018 and became CTO in 2020, balancing three pressures: keep members connecting, make the runway last, and be ready for investors. We cut the server bill from over $22,000 a month to under $10,000 while members grew from about 20,000 to 100,000, and they kept finding each other: some became lifelong friends, and some married. - **a month for servers, down from over $22K**: <$10K - **members, to 100,000**: 5× - **engineers led**: 30+ [Read the case study](https://www.boldorion.com/case-studies/faithsocial) In their words > They delivered landing pages, microsites, and automated workflows that looked great and got results. They have also been a generous resource ever since, helping solve problems beyond the scope of our projects. **Tricia Gleghorn** Former VP of Implementation and Strategy, Maxwell Leadership Foundation Talk it through ## Bring the question you can’t quite phrase yet. That’s usually the right place to start. A conversation, not a pitch. If we’re not the right fit, we’ll say so, and point you to who is. [Talk it through](https://www.boldorion.com/contact) [hello@boldorion.com](mailto:hello@boldorion.com)