How I work

Owners bring me one thing at a time: a decision to make, a problem that will not resolve, an opportunity they cannot judge. I help them understand it, weigh the options and decide what to do, then stay close while their own team does it. I sell no software and no implementation, so the advice has nowhere to lean but toward you.

An advisory engagement

One matter · about three months · a fixed fee

Most engagements start with something specific: a proposal on the desk, an AI idea someone keeps raising, a project that has stalled, a product or a channel you keep wondering about. The work is shaped by that situation, not by a package.

Understand and investigate. I learn the business, the goals and the constraints, read the proposals, plans and systems involved, and talk to the people who know what I need to know, your staff and your vendors included. I am looking for the assumptions nobody tested, the alternatives nobody priced and the risks nobody named.

Recommend a direction. Realistic options, what each one costs and makes possible, and the course I would take if it were my business, with what has to happen next. You decide with the evidence in front of you, and you can defend the decision to anyone.

Stay available. Your team or your vendors carry it out. For the rest of the engagement you can bring me what they run into: a roadblock, a finding that changes the picture, a fork nobody planned for. I advise; I do not manage the project.

The fee is fixed and agreed before we start, usually paid over three months. It covers the matter we agreed on and the follow-up questions it throws off, so you never weigh whether a phone call is worth a new contract. Something large and unrelated gets its own scope. When the engagement ends, it ends: no renewal and nothing billing in the background. Owners come back when the next consequential question arrives.

What you are paying for is a better decision and direct access to the person who helped you make it. A written recommendation is often part of that, but it is not the point.

You reach me by phone, email or chat, and so do the people you name: a manager, a partner, whoever is running the project. I return every message within the next business day, usually faster, particularly between 9am and 6pm Pacific, but also on nights and weekends. You work with me and only me.

The first ten days are guaranteed. If you decide to stop within that time, for any reason, you get a full refund, no questions asked.

Let’s Talk It Through

Where owners usually start

Two small steps for owners who want to see how I think before committing to an engagement, and two kinds of engagement with pages of their own.

One question, answered in writing

Free · by email

Send me one job your team does every week, or one question you keep putting off. I send back one page: what I would look at first, and whether AI or new software belongs in it. No call and no charge.

Send me the job

A Working Session

$750 · 90 minutes · any question

Ninety minutes of my time on anything in your business: AI, an app, your ads, a quote, something you saw another business do. Bring one question or twenty, and within two business days you get written notes on what we covered and what I would do next. It is the quickest way to find out whether working together is worth it. Refunded in full if it was not worth it, and credited in full to an engagement you start within 30 days.

See the Working Session

A decision to check

A proposal, a set of quotes, a contract, an app or software build, an AI initiative, a platform switch, a project that is late. The Second Opinion is an engagement focused on that one decision: I test the assumptions that carry it, price the alternatives including doing nothing, and tell you what I would do if it were my money, usually within two weeks. Then I stay available while it plays out.

If the decision is an app, the review starts from a sharper set of questions: connected hardware · an app that shipped and stalled · an AI-built product going to production · health and wellness. Or any app build.

“Working with Giacomo gave us clarity and direction we had not found elsewhere. His insights and strategic approach saved us countless hours and dollars.”
CEO

See the Second Opinion

The security of software you already run

For when the question is narrower and sharper: what could someone actually do to us. I assess one production application and the systems directly behind it the way an attacker would, then give you a plain-English memo, severity-ranked technical findings, a walkthrough for your developers, and a retest once they have shipped the fixes. It is scoped up front as its own engagement. It is not managed security or ongoing monitoring.

See the Assessment

Three things I do not do

I do not sell subscriptions to my time. An engagement covers one matter and ends with it. If you never need me again, that is a good outcome, not a lost account.

I do not build your website or your software, or manage the people who do. I help you decide what to build and who should build it, and I am there when their work raises a question you need answered.

I do not resell a stack, a tool, or a vendor. No referral fees, no partnerships, no preferred implementer. That is the entire reason my read is worth paying for, and it is the one thing I will not trade away.

Who you are dealing with

Software and mobile since 2010, and one of the first app developers Apple featured. I work with owners and CEOs directly, with no junior handoff and no account layer in between. I hold an MBA and have built and run technology businesses of my own, so I read a decision for what it does to the business before what it does to the stack. I have sat on every side of these decisions: as the developer quoting the work, as the vendor's engineer, and as the buyer. That is how I know what each one leaves out of the proposal. I also run a portfolio of more than 100 apps of my own, which is where most of my opinions come from and where I pay for the wrong ones with my own money rather than yours.

Advice to owners is confidential, so you will not find a wall of client logos here. Examples on this site are illustrative unless they say otherwise. The apps I mention are mine, and you can find them on the App Store.

What I got wrong with my own money

I built the product and skipped the demand. This summer I shipped a pickleball scoring app built properly: scoring from an Apple Watch, live updates on the lock screen, sync across devices, a kiosk mode for clubs. It launched in six countries and did 47 downloads and $0 in its first 90 days, because almost nobody searches the App Store for what it does. I had tested the product far more carefully than the market. Now demand is the first thing I check, and the first question I ask an owner about any new build.

I trusted a channel I had never measured. For years I wrote pages for this site expecting search to bring clients. When I finally pulled the numbers, every Google click in a full year came from someone searching for my name or one of my apps. That is why I ask owners for the number before we talk about the tool.

Not sure where to start? Tell me what is on your mind, what it would cost to get wrong, and who is pushing for it. I will tell you whether I can help, or that you do not need me.

Let’s Talk It Through