Let’s look at it together.
Bring us whatever you’re wrestling with — a new architecture, a migration plan, a bill that keeps growing, a team that needs a sounding board. Thirty minutes, no pitch. We’ll tell you what we see.
Write to us
hello@mcfad.inWhat to include
- Your name, role, and company.
- One paragraph on the problem. What’s broken, what you’ve tried, what the deadline is.
- The kind of engagement you think you want — fractional, advisory, architecture review, tiger team, or “we don’t know, that’s why we’re asking.”
- Rough timeline and a budget band.
What a good inquiry looks like
A good inquiry is a paragraph from a technical buyer who knows the shape of the problem. “We’re moving off Oracle and we think we want Cassandra but our team has never run it” is a great first message. “Can you get on a call to discuss our AI strategy” is not. We’ll ask the same questions back and we’ll both lose a day.
When we say no
We say no to engagements that are a bad fit, and we try to say it in the first email. The common reasons:
- The work is generalist consulting rather than data or AI infrastructure. We’re not the right firm for a broad digital transformation.
- The budget is under the bands above. There are excellent consultants who work at that tier, and we’re happy to point you at a few.
- The timeline is wrong for our calendar. We take a small number of engagements each quarter.
- The problem is already solved and the team needs validation, not a second opinion. We’ll tell you that and save you the fee.
A no from us is not a judgment on the problem. It’s usually a scheduling or scope mismatch. Ask again next quarter.
Response time
We reply to every inquiry within two business days. If you don’t hear back inside a week, the message went to spam. Try LinkedIn.
Other ways to reach us
- linkedin.com/in/patrickmcfadin — open DMs, we read them.
- Expert networks
- GLG, AlphaSights, Guidepoint. If you already have a seat, booking through them is fine and often faster for large enterprises.
- Conferences
- We give several talks a year. If we’re at the same event, come say hi. Half our engagements start that way.