Strategic advisory · Engineering delivery
The strategy firm
that ships the software.
Theodore Harrison Holdings sets the direction, builds the system that carries it, and leaves your team able to run it. One team from the first diagnostic to the production handover, because the gap between the plan and the build is where most companies lose the year.
- Senior-only
- No junior bench, no hand-off after the sales call.
- 2 weeks
- From kickoff to a written diagnostic you can act on.
- Fixed scope
- Priced work with a defined end. No open-ended burn.
- You own it
- Source, infrastructure, and documentation transfer to you.
The problem we exist for
Strategy firms hand over a plan they will never have to build. Development shops build whatever the plan says, whether or not it is the right thing. The company absorbs the cost of that gap, usually two quarters late, and usually without ever naming what went wrong.
We close it by refusing to be either one. Every engagement starts with a diagnostic that can conclude you should not do the project. Every recommendation is written by people who will be accountable for building it. And every build ends with your team holding the keys.
What we do
Four disciplines, one accountable team.
Most engagements draw on more than one. They are separated here because buyers arrive with different problems, not because they are delivered by different people.
- 01Detail
Strategic Vision & Advisory
Decide what the company is actually building, and why it wins.
A written, defensible direction for the business: where the market is moving, which position you can hold, and the sequence of moves that gets you there.
- 02Detail
Custom Software Development
Ship the system the strategy requires.
Product and platform engineering delivered by the people who scoped it: web applications, internal tools, integrations, and the unglamorous infrastructure underneath them.
- 03Detail
AI & Automation
Put AI where it pays, and nowhere else.
Applied AI and workflow automation aimed at specific, measurable operational cost, with the evaluation harness that proves it works before it touches a customer.
- 04Detail
Fractional CTO
Senior technical judgment, without the seven-figure hire.
Embedded technical leadership for companies whose decisions have outgrown their in-house depth: architecture, hiring, vendor selection, and the discipline that keeps delivery honest.
Why firms call us
The difference is who carries the consequence.
Advice is cheap to give when you never have to implement it. Everything below follows from refusing that arrangement.
The usual arrangement
- Sells you a deck and leaves before implementation.
- Staffs the work with whoever is on the bench that month.
- Bills hourly, which quietly rewards taking longer.
- Builds a dependency on themselves and calls it a partnership.
How we operate
- Owns the outcome through production and hands over a system that runs.
- The people in your first call are the people doing the work.
- Fixed scope, fixed price, priced changes when scope moves.
- Designs every engagement to end, with a written handover.
The method
Diagnose. Direct. Build. Transfer.
The same four phases run every engagement, whether it ends in a strategy memo or a production platform.
- 01Weeks 1–2
Diagnose
We interview the people who actually do the work, read the systems rather than the org chart, and look at your numbers. Most engagements surface a constraint different from the one in the original brief. Better to learn that in week one than in month six.
- 02Weeks 2–4
Direct
A decision that lives only in a meeting is not a decision. We put the thesis, the sequence, and the cost of each path on paper, then stress-test it with the people who have to execute it. What we disagree about, we write down too.
- 03Weeks 4–12
Build
Work is cut into phases short enough to hold in your head. Each one lands something real and ends at a decision point where continuing is a choice, not an assumption. Scope changes get priced when they are proposed.
- 04Final 2 weeks
Transfer
Every engagement is designed to end. We hand over source, infrastructure, documentation written for whoever inherits it, and a working session with your team or your next vendor. Continuing with us should be a preference, never a dependency.
Questions
Before you write in.
The things most companies want settled before a first conversation.
How is this different from hiring an agency?
An agency sells capacity: you bring the plan, they staff it. We will not take a build brief we do not believe in, and every engagement starts with a diagnostic that can conclude you should not do the project at all. The people who scope the work are the people who deliver it.
Do I have to start with a diagnostic?
In almost every case, yes. It is short, fixed-price, and ends in a document you own whether or not we work together again. Quoting a build before understanding the constraint is how engagements go wrong, and we would rather lose the deal than start there.
What size company do you work with?
Typically companies between roughly $2M and $100M in revenue, plus funded startups past their first product decisions. Below that, the honest answer is usually that a full engagement is not yet the right spend, and we will say so.
Who owns the code and the strategy work?
You do, in full, on payment. Source code, infrastructure, accounts, credentials, and documentation transfer to you at handover. We keep no license requiring you to stay with us.
How does pricing work?
Fixed price per phase, agreed in writing before work starts, invoiced on a schedule set in the statement of work. Retainers are monthly. We do not bill hourly, because hourly billing rewards the wrong thing.
Next step
Tell us what is actually in the way.
Send a short note about the business and the constraint you are hitting. You will get a considered reply within two business days: a real assessment, not a sales sequence.