That's about 5% of the value. The other 95% is orchestration. And almost nobody outside engineering is there yet. Cordado embeds with one non-technical department at a time and builds it into a group of AI-fluent operators. Four-week engagements. Boutique by design.
Engineering at growth-stage startups orchestrates AI: Cursor, Claude Code, and Copilot woven into how the work gets done. The teams that drive the top line, including sales, marketing, operations, legal, HR, finance, and executive leadership, mostly use it as a smarter search bar, not as an operating layer.
We embed with a single non-engineering department for four weeks. We shadow the real work, then train the people who will drive adoption.
No junior consultants, no slide-deck theater. The person scoping the work is the person doing it. Upfront pricing, no surprises.
A small number of engagements per year. We don't pitch. We listen, assess fit, and tell you honestly whether we can help.
When you can feel the distance between your AI-fluent engineers and the rest of your business, let's assess fit.
One non-technical department at a time. We shadow broadly to understand the actual work, then train a focused cohort of your top performers: the people who will carry adoption across the rest of the team.
Map org structure, tools, workflows, metrics, and pain points through structured interviews and direct shadowing across the department. Output: an Operating Baseline document.
Foundational training for a focused cohort of top performers: Claude, Cowork, plugins, and connectors, with role-specific prompt libraries built around their actual workflows.
Live usage with light coaching. We identify where adoption sticks, where it stalls, and where the real leverage is.
A written transformation plan: prioritized workflow changes, a change-management approach, a measurement baseline, and projected impact.
Refined training, prompt-library handoff, an internal AI champion identified, and a 90-day stabilization roadmap.
Pricing is published deliberately. It reflects the upfront-pricing ethos and filters for fit.
A six-week functional-zone engagement for organizations restructuring under real pressure. We work across functional zones, used as a scoping conversation rather than a rigid partition, to rebuild how the remaining team operates with AI at the center.
The first week builds a structured Operating Baseline: a clear-eyed picture of how the department actually works before anything changes. Shadowing scope and training scope are deliberately distinct: shadow broadly to understand the real work, train only the people who will drive adoption.
Reporting structure, headcount, tenure, recent transitions, the informal influence map, and interfaces with adjacent departments.
Where the department's work touches everyone else: the handoffs, dependencies, and friction points that span team boundaries.
Tools touched weekly, sanctioned vs. shadow, integration state, and any AI tools already in use.
Recurring processes per role: trigger, steps, tools, handoffs, frequency, time spent, quality bar, and failure modes, all validated through direct shadowing.
Formal and informal measurement, sample outputs, reporting cadence, and downstream consumers.
What consumes time, what feels low-leverage, AI anxieties and aspirations. Confidential 1:1; themes (not names) summarized for leadership.
We observe most or all of the department to understand the real work. We train a focused cohort of top performers (the people who will actually drive adoption), not the whole room.
If a client insists on whole-department training, we'll make the case for the cohort model, or decline the engagement. The methodology isn't something we compromise.
Sensitive systems like email are accessed only through employee-driven observation sessions. Client-provisioned hardware is available as an option.
Your data, your documented workflows, and the artifacts produced for you are yours. Our methodology and frameworks travel with us.
We don't pitch. We listen, assess fit, and tell you honestly whether we can help. Lead flow is reactive by design: a small number of engagements per year keeps quality and fit ahead of volume.
Tools don't change organizations. People do. I help the people.
I came to operating from sociology, not engineering. The questions that drew me to the humanities (how groups organize, how culture changes, how people find meaning in their work) turn out to be the exact questions that determine whether a transformation effort lands or stalls.
I spent nearly twelve years at DocuSign before Cordado, climbing from inside sales rep to Senior Director. I built the Market and Partner Development functions that became core to the go-to-market motion. I scaled the PDR team from three to fifty-six. I led twenty teams through a 70% reduction in force while productivity went up 56%. I co-designed DocuSign's AI-assisted prospecting GTM in 2023.
I know what it takes to redesign how people work, because I've done it under real pressure, with real stakes. That's the experience I bring to every Cordado engagement.
At DocuSign, from inside sales rep to Senior Director.
Scaled the Partner Development team.
Led 20 teams through a reduction in force while productivity rose.
Co-designed DocuSign's AI-assisted prospecting GTM.
If you're at Series B through early growth and starting to feel the gap, let's assess fit.
A twenty-minute introductory call to assess stage, size, and fit. If there's a match, we'll set up a longer scoping conversation.
Cordado works with non-technical teams at Series B through early-growth tech startups, roughly 100–600 employees.
Email me with three things and I'll be in touch to set up the call:
erik@cordadoconsulting.com · Responses within two business days.