Your best people are doing work AI can already do.
Renewals chased by hand. Member questions answered one at a time. The same document retyped for the fourth time. I'm an AI operations consultant for Capital Region associations and professional firms — I find the workflows quietly costing you a full-time salary, then build and run the systems that take them over. Fixed fees, fixed timelines, and you work directly with me.
Now accepting 3 founding clients for the August 2026 cohort →
CTO of a home-services marketplace · 16 months inside one of the largest professional associations in the world · co-founded a platform used by 50,000+ organizations
Start where the evidence is.
One week inside how your team actually works. Every repetitive workflow mapped, costed in staff hours and dollars, and ranked — delivered as a written plan pointed at real builds with real prices. It's yours to keep whether or not anything gets built.
AI Operations Audit
$4,500, fixed fee, one week. The audit is priced to stand on its own, and it does not credit toward a build — which means when I tell you what's worth building and what isn't, you know the recommendation isn't selling you anything.
Book the audit →- 01Where the hours actually goA map of the repetitive work across your team, ranked by hours consumed. It is rarely where people assume.
- 02What each one is costing youEvery workflow costed in staff hours and dollars, plus the revenue quietly leaking out of the ones nobody owns.
- 03What it would take to fixBuild effort, timeline, and price for the top candidates — so you can sequence them instead of guessing.
- 04A written plan you ownYours to keep. Build it with me, hand it to your own team, or sit on it until the budget is there.
The audit is the default, not a gate. If you already know the workflow costing you the most, I'll scope that build directly — see how an engagement works.
Built by someone who's been inside an association.
Professional associations, trade associations, membership nonprofits. A staff of six carrying the workload of twenty, most of it renewal chasing and inbox triage. I spent 16 months as the engineer inside one of the largest professional associations in the world, and I co-founded the event check-in platform used by 50,000+ organizations. I know where a small association staff's hours actually go — I've watched it from inside the systems.
- Renewal chasing that doesn't stop after the second email — and knows who already paid
- Member inquiries triaged and answered from your own bylaws, handbooks, and past responses
- Legislative session monitoring turned into member-ready digests, drafted for your review each morning
- CE and certification tracking without the spreadsheet
- Event communications — reminders, logistics, follow-ups — written and sent on schedule
Engagements are fixed-fee and scoped from your audit — see how it works below.
You bill for judgment. You spend the day on typing.
Accounting, legal, consulting, marketing, engineering. The work that pays is expert work — but the hours go to intake, summarizing, formatting, chasing clients for documents, and writing the same update for the eighth time. That is exactly the shape of work AI handles well today, and it's where the audit almost always finds the first expensive thing worth taking off your people.
- New client intake — forms, conflict checks, and onboarding docs prepared before anyone touches them
- The document grind: summarizing, extracting, comparing, and drafting first passes from your own templates
- Client status updates written on schedule instead of when someone finally gets to it
- Proposals and scopes assembled from your past work, not from a blank page
- Billing prep — time entries cleaned up and narratives drafted before invoicing
Engagements are fixed-fee and scoped from your audit — see how it works below.
Full page: AI for professional firms →
Also work with select health-related organizations and mission-driven nonprofits — same fixed-fee model, more care around how the data is handled.
Three steps, start to going live.
Fixed fees and fixed timelines throughout — you'll know the cost and the date before you commit to anything.
A 20-minute working call
You describe where the hours go. I tell you straight whether an audit or a direct build is the right entry — and whether I'm the right fit at all.
Scope, one of two ways
If you already know the workflow, you get a fixed-scope proposal within 48 hours — one page, one price, one deadline. If you don't, we start with the one-week audit: every workflow mapped, costed, and ranked, in a plan you own either way. I'll tell you which on the call.
Build, live in 2–3 weeks
Implementations are fixed-fee from $7,500, scoped before you commit. I lead the build and do the core engineering myself, pulling in a trusted specialist when it gets you a better result faster. I run it alongside your staff until it holds up, then hand you the keys or keep it running on an $850/month retainer — month to month, no contract.
I'm Chris Chalfant. Fifteen years building production systems across startups and large enterprises, plus a co-founded platform serving 50,000+ organizations.
Plenty of consultants can diagnose. Plenty of engineers can build. This practice is built on doing both — the person who writes the plan is the person who ships it, and accountability never changes hands.
I run operations software in production every day, so I'm reading your workflows the way someone who has to keep systems alive reads them. And I spent 16 months as the engineer inside one of the largest professional associations in the world, so I know where a six-person association staff loses its week. I've also done consulting work across nonprofit, B2B, and health organizations. You're not paying me to learn your industry — I've worked inside it.
Fixed fees, fixed timelines, and deliverables you own. I lead every engagement personally and do the core engineering myself. When a trusted specialist will get you a better result faster, I bring one in — and the accountability stays with me either way. You deal with me, not an account manager and not a handoff.
A typical first workflow gives a small staff back 15–25 hours a month — and because everything is scoped fixed-fee up front, you'll know the expected number for yours before you spend a dollar.
From the people who've had to depend on this work.
These are colleagues and clients who needed something to ship and keep working after I left. That's the same test your workflow has to pass.
“Christopher is an incredible tech leader and engineer. He combines an extremely thoughtful and professional approach to software architecture, while being aware of underlying business needs/timing.”
“They have delivered a number of key features... all while being very responsive and professional. I would definitely recommend their services.”
“An exceptional developer... a critical resource for every project we worked on.”
Founding Clients
This is a trade, not a sale. The first 3 Capital Region clients get founding rates — on the audit, the build, or both — and in exchange I get the one thing a new practice can't buy: proof, on the record, with real numbers attached. A slot is a client, not a project. If you'd rather stay anonymous, pay standard; you get exactly the same work either way.
The cohort closes September 1 whether the slots fill or not — after that, everything is list price and the founding terms are gone for good.
Founding rates, either door
Founding clients pay the rates below in exchange for the four commitments listed here. The standard rates are $4,500 and from $7,500, and they stay there — this is the price of going first and being willing to be named, not a discount I hand out to close a deal. Everything else is unchanged: fixed fees, fixed timelines, and the $850/month retainer — month to month, no contract — only if you want me running it.
- Founding audit
- $3,000standard $4,500
- Founding build
- $5,000standard from $7,500
- 01A testimonial, written and on cameraA short written quote plus a two-minute recording — made once you've had the work long enough to actually mean it.
- 02Your name and logo, publiclyPermission to name you as a client here and in proposals. You see anything before it goes up.
- 03Two or three reference callsTwenty minutes each with prospects in your field, spread across the first year — not an open-ended commitment.
- 04A documented before and afterThe real numbers — hours given back, revenue recovered — written up as a case study I can publish. This one attaches to a build; audit-only founding clients owe the first three.
The things people ask before booking.
How do I know if we're a fit?
If someone on your staff does the same thing dozens or hundreds of times a month, it runs on text — email, forms, documents, member and client correspondence — and you can explain the rules to me in twenty minutes, it's probably a fit. That describes most member organizations and most professional services firms. If you can't point at a specific workflow yet, that's what the audit is for.
How long does this actually take?
The audit is one week, start to delivered plan. Builds are live in 2–3 weeks once scoped. If you're skipping the audit and bringing me a workflow you already know, you'll have a fixed proposal within 48 hours of our call. If something is going to take longer than that, I'll say so before you sign anything.
Why doesn't the audit credit toward a build?
Because it's a product, not a deposit. The moment the audit becomes a credit against future work, every recommendation in it is quietly arguing for more work — and you'd be right to read it that way. Paying for it in full is what makes it trustworthy, including the parts where the answer is "don't build this, fix the process" or "this one isn't worth it yet." You keep the plan regardless of what you do next.
What do you need from us?
For an audit: a week of intermittent access to the people who actually do the work, and permission to look at how it currently runs. For a build: access to the one system the workflow lives in, one person who knows how the work gets done, and about two hours of their time across the project. No committee and no IT roadmap required.
What happens to our data?
Wherever possible it stays in the accounts you already own — your inbox, your CRM, your document storage. I don't train models on your data, I use business-tier providers with no-training terms, and I'll sign your NDA or BAA. For health-related work, we scope the data handling before we scope the build.
What happens after the pilot?
Your choice. Keep it and run it yourself — you own what I build. Or I stay on a $850/month retainer and keep it running, monitored, and improving as your process changes. Most clients start with one workflow and add a second once they've seen the first one hold up. The retainer is month to month — there's no long-term contract either way.
What if we don't know which workflow to start with?
That's the normal case, and it's exactly what the AI Operations Audit is for: one week, and you walk away with every workflow ranked and costed in a plan you own. It's a fixed $4,500. Sometimes we find the answer on the call in twenty minutes, because it's usually the one your staff complains about — if that happens, I'll tell you and you can skip straight to the build.
Who is this not a fit for?
Organizations looking for ongoing staff augmentation or a generalist IT vendor — I do scoped engagements, not seats. Startups wanting an AI product built from scratch. And anyone hoping to replace their staff: this frees up the people you have, it doesn't eliminate them. I don't currently take on home-service or trade businesses.
Bring me the work that eats your team's week.
Two ways in. Book the one-week audit and get every workflow in your operation mapped, costed, and ranked. Or, if you already know the one that's bleeding hours — the renewal chase, the document grind, the 9pm client update — bring it to a twenty-minute call and I'll scope that build directly. Either way you'll get an honest answer about what's worth doing, what it costs, and how fast it could be live. If the answer is “don't bother yet,” I'll tell you that too.
Terms Audit $4,500 · implementations from $7,500 · optional $850/month retainer, month to month
Book a 20-minute working callTwenty minutes · straight answer either way