Alpaca AI Advisory

You don't need a full-time Chief AI Officer. You need one in the room when it counts.

I guide founder-led companies between $5M and $50M through the AI decisions that move the business — what to build, what to buy, what to ignore — and coach your team to own it. A thinking partner, not a deck and an invoice.

Book a 30-minute intro call

01 — How we work

Two ways to work together

The relationship is the product — ongoing advisory, in the room with you. The audit is an optional fixed-scope on-ramp when you want a concrete plan before committing.

The core offering

Advisor Retainer

$7.5K/mo

Your fractional Chief AI Officer on retainer. I coach your exec team through the AI decisions that matter and stay in the room as they play out — not a one-time engagement, an ongoing partnership.

What you get each month

  • • 2× 60-minute strategy sessions with the founder/CEO + relevant execs
  • • Async Slack and email access (responses within 24 business hours)
  • • 1 board or leadership briefing per quarter — live, not just slides
  • • Ongoing roadmap iteration as the AI landscape and your business shift
  • • Vendor and tool opinions on demand (“buy X, build Y, or wait?”)
  • • Continuous translation between your data/engineering and exec teams

The outcome

By month 3, your exec team can confidently answer any AI question from the board, your customers, your investors, or your own team — and you have a written 12-month roadmap that's actually being executed.

Tiers (negotiable in proposals)

  • • $5K/mo — light: 1 session/month + async, no board briefing
  • • $7.5K/mo — standard
  • • $10K/mo — high-touch: weekly sessions + active roadmap involvement

3-month minimum, month-to-month after. Net-15. Cancel any time past the minimum.

Book a call

Optional fixed-scope on-ramp

AI Readiness Audit

$20K · 6 weeks

Want a concrete plan before committing to a retainer? Six weeks, fixed scope. I sit with your team, map where AI actually moves the business, and hand you a 90-day roadmap with owners, costs, and milestones — yours to keep, with or without me.

Sign a retainer within 30 days and 50% ($10K) credits toward your first 3 months.

Or scope an audit →

02 — Who it's for

Who this is for

  • • $5–50M annual revenue
  • • Founder-led (founder is the buyer or the founder's direct report is)
  • • Exec team has started asking the AI question and not getting good answers internally
  • • Hiring a full-time CAIO is overkill at your stage but you need more than ad-hoc reading and YouTube

Who this is not for

  • • Pre-revenue startups (you need a builder, not an advisor)
  • • Companies needing production AI engineering staff (different hire)
  • • Enterprises >$100M (you should hire full-time)
  • • Anyone looking for a body to attend meetings and rubber-stamp decisions

03 — Why me

Why me

Nathan A. Mahan. Last year I built a 14-day AI boot camp for the C-suite of a Fortune 500 brand — running AI Enablement across North America. I built workflows that turn 20-page RFPs into drafted answers from prior responses. I taught executives who knew their business cold but didn't yet know the technology.

Before that, seven years inside that same enterprise on tech and innovation across every department. And before that, at PwC, leading software implementations inside the insurance industry — my first stretch of living where business and technology have to talk to each other.

Alpaca is where I bring that work to founder-led companies — the ones that need a Chief AI Officer's judgment but aren't ready to staff one full-time.

How I work

I won't hide behind frameworks. I'll shoot you straight, and I'll tell you when I don't know the answer — and we'll find out.

When something flops in front of your team — and it will, that's how you learn — I stop, walk through what I'm seeing, and show you how to fix it.

That's the muscle I'm teaching.

The same one you built learning how to Google: brand new, takes practice, and once you have it, you don't lose it.

What I don't do

  • • I don't build production AI systems for clients. (I'll spec what to build and who should build it. If you need build capacity, I'll refer you out and stay involved as advisor.)
  • • I don't replace your data team, engineering team, or any in-house technical hire. I make those teams more effective.
  • • I don't sell tools as an affiliate, take vendor kickbacks, or carry favored partnerships. My vendor opinions are paid for by you and only you.
  • • I don't take engagements that overlap with my day-job employer's competitive scope. If we have a conflict, I'll say so and decline.

04 — Get started

How to start

  1. 1. Book a 30-minute intro call
  2. 2. We talk through your situation — no pitch, no slides.
  3. 3. If there's a fit, I send a proposal (audit, retainer, or both) within 48 hours.
  4. 4. Sign + kickoff within 1 week of proposal acceptance.
Book a callEmail nate@alpacaadvisor.ai