Blueprint
Know exactly what to build and how to build it — before you commit the budget
One to two weeks with senior AI engineers. We cut your scope to what actually matters and make the architecture decisions. If there's real technical risk, we prototype it. You walk into the build understanding your own project well enough to make confident decisions.
30 minutes. No obligation. If a Blueprint isn't the right fit, we'll tell you what is.
You're About To Spend Six Figures On A Build — And The Biggest Decisions Haven't Been Made Yet
You know you need to build something. You might even have a list of features or user stories. But two things haven't been figured out, and they're the two things that determine whether the money you're about to spend is an investment or a waste.
First: how much should you actually build? Not "what's your vision." What's the minimum you need to build to reach your next business milestone? That answer is completely different depending on whether you're trying to land a pilot customer, raise a seed round, validate with real users, or bootstrap to revenue. Most founders don't draw that distinction. They scope their MVP to their long-term vision instead of their next milestone, so they overbuild the parts that feel important and underbuild the parts that actually matter. They ship a polished onboarding flow and a half-broken core feature. That's not an MVP. That's an expensive guess aimed at no one in particular.
Second: how should it be built? Which model? What infrastructure? How does this thing handle messy real-world data at scale? Where are the technical risks that blow up budgets? Those questions haven't been answered either. And if you sign a build contract without answering them, they'll get answered during the build, one expensive discovery at a time.
The options in front of you don't solve either problem. A big consultancy will take eight weeks and hand you a slide deck with no prototype behind it. Their recommendations fall apart the moment a real engineering team reads them. A dev shop will skip the thinking entirely and build whatever you described, even if the scope is wrong and the architecture won't hold, happily charging you along the way.
This is what happens when the scope hasn't been rigorously defined and the architecture hasn't been vetted. The uncertainty has to live somewhere: in the build quote, in the timeline, or in your budget. Right now, you're the one absorbing it.
Imagine Walking Into The Build With The Hard Decisions Already Made
Imagine knowing, before you sign the build contract, exactly how much you need to build and exactly how it should be built. Not a 40-feature wish list, but a sharp scope: these three things matter now, these seven can wait, and here's why.
The architecture is decided. If there were technical risks that could blow up the build, they've been tested. Not on a whiteboard. In code, running on your real data. You've seen what works and what doesn't before you committed the budget.
And because the scope is disciplined and the open questions are answered, anyone quoting the build, us included, can do it with confidence instead of padding for what they don't know.
You're not paying for someone's learning curve during the build. You're not absorbing their uncertainty in your budget. You're not overbuilding the wrong parts and underbuilding the right ones. You're starting the build with the fog already cleared.
That's what a Blueprint does.
The Right Scope And The Right Architecture — Before You Commit
That's the Blueprint. Here's how it works:
Before we start: A 30-minute fit call where you tell us about the problem, what you've already tried, and what you're trying to decide. We'll tell you whether a Blueprint is the right move, or whether you'd be better served by a Kickstart if you're earlier than you think.
The engagement: We spend one to two weeks going deep on your problem. We start with your next business milestone: are you trying to land a pilot customer, raise a round, get real users, or generate revenue? The answer changes what you need to build. From there, we cut scope to exactly what that milestone requires. Most projects we see are overbuilt in the wrong places and underbuilt in the important ones. A polished dashboard with a brittle core. A feature list driven by investor optics instead of user reality. We draw the line between what's genuinely MVP for your milestone and what's not.
Then we dig into the architecture: your data, your constraints, your integrations, the edge cases a generic proposal would miss. If there's genuine technical risk, the kind that would blow up a build budget if discovered mid-project, we don't just document it. We test it. A prototype of the hard part, running on your actual data, so nobody's guessing about whether it works. Not every Blueprint needs one. When it does, you'll know before the build starts, not during it.
By the end, you have a concrete plan. What to build now, what to buy off the shelf, what to defer. How the pieces fit together. Where the risks were and how they were resolved. Because the scope is disciplined and the open questions are answered, anyone you hand this plan to can quote the build with confidence instead of guessing.
The debrief: We walk you through all of it. Scope rationale, architecture, trade-offs, and any prototyping results. You get opinions, not a menu. If we think you're planning to build too much, we'll say so and show you what to cut. If we think the build is simpler than you feared, we'll tell you that too.
What's included:
Pre-engagement fit call
One to two weeks of senior AI engineering time
Scope definition: what to build now, what to defer, and why
Architecture decisions: model selection, infrastructure, integrations, data pipeline. Made and documented.
If there's technical risk: a working prototype of the highest-risk part, running on your real data
A technical plan clear enough that any professional can derive an accurate build quote from it
A full debrief session with clear next-step recommendations
What's NOT included:
A production build (that's Build & Deploy)
Ongoing advisory beyond the engagement (that's Fractional CTO)
A slide deck that takes eight weeks and has no prototype behind it
A sales pitch disguised as consulting
Pricing: 12,000 CAD. Flat fee. No "starting at," no "depending on scope." If your problem is smaller than a Blueprint and can be answered in a day, we'll tell you that on the fit call and point you to a Kickstart.
Ready To Get The Uncertainty Out Of The Way?
30 minutes to talk through your problem and figure out if a Kickstart is the right move. No charge, no pitch.
Don't Take Our Word For It
"Their ability to demystify AI and deliver on real business-ready systems sets them apart in the industry."
— Andrew Fursman, CEO, 1QBit
"Ehsan demonstrated remarkable expertise in building and scaling AI-powered products from ground up... taking ReplayzIQ from initial team formation to market launch."
— Dave Kennet, Founder & CEO, ReplayzIQ From team formation to acquisition by Highspot.
Adaly: avoiding the technical dead end. Adaly needed AI-powered marketing tools that connect to their proprietary datasets through MCP. We helped them pick the architecture, avoid the dead ends that would have burned their runway, and secure a multi-million dollar investment on the back of a technical story that held up to scrutiny.
Still Have Questions?
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A Blueprint is worth paying for because we go deep on your actual problem (your data, your constraints, your edge cases) and because when there's technical risk, we prototype it instead of hand-waving it. That takes real engineering time. If your question can be answered in a day, we'll steer you to a Kickstart instead.
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That's one of the most valuable outcomes a Blueprint can produce. You'll have a clear explanation of why, what the alternatives are, and where to spend your money instead. Saving you from a six-figure mistake is worth more than the Blueprint fee.
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No. That's the whole point. You bring the domain knowledge: what the problem is, what the business needs, what success looks like. We handle the architecture and explain the trade-offs in plain language.
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Yes, and it's a common reason people bring us in. We'll pressure-test their scope and architecture against what a production system actually requires and tell you where it holds up and where it doesn't. If there's a high-risk piece, we'll prototype it so the question stops being theoretical. You'll walk out with enough clarity to evaluate their quote, or anyone else's, on solid ground.
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Not as a single number on a page. What it gives you is something more useful: a plan clear enough that any competent team, us included, can quote the build accurately instead of padding for uncertainty. The scope is sharp, the architecture is decided, and where there was technical risk, it's been tested. That's the information a builder needs to give you a confident number, and it's the information you need to evaluate whether that number is fair.
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You might be right. But most projects we see are overbuilt in some places and underbuilt in others. Features that feel essential but aren't, and core pieces that got less attention than they deserve. If your scope is already sharp, the Blueprint confirms it fast and we move on to architecture and pricing. If it isn't, the Blueprint saves you from building (and paying for) the wrong version.
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A sharp scope (what to build now vs. later). Architecture decisions (documented, not just discussed). A prototype of any high-risk piece, if one exists. A technical plan detailed enough to hand to any build team and get an accurate quote. Written in plain language, not consultant-speak. You own all of it.
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Yes. The plan is written to be actionable by any competent team, clear enough that they can quote the build accurately and start working without a discovery phase. Nothing in the Blueprint locks you to us.
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It's yours. Code, data, everything.
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The Blueprint is a real engagement with a real deliverable. Many clients take the plan and execute it with another team. If you want to keep working with us on Build & Deploy, great, but there's zero pressure and nothing in the Blueprint that only we can execute.
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Absolutely. The more context in the room, the sharper the architecture decisions.
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This is remote by default, since there’s a good amount of work where we’ll be off on our own thinking, analyzing, and designing. If you're in the Greater Vancouver area, we can arrange an in-person session up front for some extra bandwidth. Otherwise, we run the whole thing remotely.
Why AICE?
A big consultancy will charge you for an eight-week engagement and hand you a slide deck. No one who's tested whether the recommendations actually work in code. You take their deck to a build team, the build team disagrees with half of it, and now you're paying for the real decisions to be made during the build anyway. You've spent the strategy budget and the discovery budget, and you're no further ahead than if you'd skipped the strategy firm entirely.
A dev shop will skip the thinking entirely and build whatever you described, even when the scope is wrong and the architecture won't hold. The decisions get made on the fly, and you absorb the cost of every wrong turn as billable hours or change orders.
We do something different: we're senior AI engineers who think and ship. We'll tell you you're planning to build too much before we'll agree to build it. The people who cut your scope and design the architecture are the same people who'd prototype the risky parts, and the same people who'd build it. A Blueprint from us isn't a strategy document. It's a plan that's been pressure-tested by the people who actually know what production looks like.
And because the scope is sharp and the open questions are answered, anyone quoting the build afterward, us or another team, can do it accurately. No padding for unknowns. No discovery phase baked into the first two sprints. The thinking has been done, in one to two weeks, not eight.
Ready To Make The Build Decision With Confidence?
30 minutes. We'll talk through your situation and tell you if a Blueprint is the right move. No pressure. If it's not the right fit, we'll point you in the right direction.
Our guarantee: If you finish the Blueprint without a plan you're confident acting on, whether that's building with us or with someone else, we keep working on it. On our time, not yours. Until you do. We take the fit call seriously for exactly that reason: if your problem isn't a good match for a Blueprint, we won't sell you one.
We Only Take A Few Blueprints Per Month
Blueprints are intensive: senior engineers, real architecture work, hands-on technical vetting. We keep the number small so every engagement gets our full attention. Scheduling is first come, first served. The sooner you book the fit call, the sooner the uncertainty is out of the way.