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Most organizations I work with don't lack ideas, customers, or revenue—they lack systems. The founder works harder than ever. Decisions pile up. Capable teams hesitate. New hires add stress, not capacity. Growth feels like pushing uphill, and the next level stays out of reach. I call it stalled momentum. After 25 years and 600+ clients—from startup nonprofits to $330M enterprises and Fortune 50 divisions—I've pinpointed the exact operational failure points in our first conversation. I'm not a generalist. I'm the specialist who fixes the structural gaps capping your proven model: knowledge trapped in heads, processes that don't scale, data reporting the past instead of the future. The solution? Repeatable systems and predictable insights, sequenced for fastest impact. What this looks like in 30-90 days: • End-to-end CRM automation (HubSpot, etc.) that teams actually use • SOPs and operational playbooks that stick • Sales pipelines, KPI dashboards, and onboarding infrastructure • Strategic roadmaps with real timelines (90-day priorities first) • For nonprofits: Donor pipelines, board governance, grant readiness, compliance-aligned ops I've built these for first-5-figure orgs, regional workforce programs, and multi-million operations. Scale changes. The ceiling doesn't. If you have real traction but keep hitting the same wall—let's diagnose it. First call is diagnostic only.

Most $100K-$500K technology failures start with one bad decision — and by the time you realize it, the money's gone. The founder approves the dev agency. The CEO commits to the AI platform. 6-12 months later: project stalled, budget burned, nothing shipped. I help you see the fatal flaws BEFORE you commit the capital. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 𝗪𝗛𝗔𝗧 𝗜 𝗗𝗢: I provide Fractional CTO Advisory — independent technical validation for founders, investors, and CEOs making technology decisions that can't afford to fail. When you're about to commit $200K to a dev agency, hire your first CTO, or approve a legacy system replacement — you need someone who's seen it go wrong 50 times. I find the fatal flaws vendor pitches hide: • Architecture constraints that make roadmaps impossible • Development estimates 3x too optimistic (blowing your runway) • Integration assumptions that break under real conditions • Missing decision ownership letting projects drift 6+ months My rate is $250/hour, but most work is structured as ADVISORY PACKAGES: 𝟭. 𝗧𝗘𝗖𝗛𝗡𝗜𝗖𝗔𝗟 𝗗𝗨𝗘 𝗗𝗜𝗟𝗜𝗚𝗘𝗡𝗖𝗘 𝗦𝗣𝗥𝗜𝗡𝗧 Question: "Should we invest/hire this agency/approve this project?" Deliverable: Go/No-Go recommendation (3-5 days) At stake: $50K-$500K | Fee: $5K-$8K ROI: One avoided bad hire pays for 5+ years of diligence 𝟮. 𝗣𝗥𝗘-𝗙𝗨𝗡𝗗𝗥𝗔𝗜𝗦𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗧𝗘𝗖𝗛 𝗣𝗔𝗖𝗞𝗔𝗚𝗘 Question: "How do we pass investor technical diligence?" Deliverable: Investor-ready docs + Q&A prep (1-2 weeks) At stake: $500K-$3M round | Fee: $4K-$7K ROI: Failed fundraising costs 3-6 months + founder credibility 𝟯. 𝗖𝗧𝗢 𝗔𝗗𝗩𝗜𝗦𝗢𝗥𝗬 𝗥𝗘𝗧𝗔𝗜𝗡𝗘𝗥 Question: "Who do we call for CTO-level judgment without a CTO?" Deliverable: On-call guidance (5-8 hours/month) At stake: $100K-$300K quarterly spend | Fee: $3K-$5K/month ROI: One bad vendor/architecture choice costs $150K+ to unwind 𝟰. 𝗖𝗨𝗦𝗧𝗢𝗠 𝗔𝗗𝗩𝗜𝗦𝗢𝗥𝗬 CTO transitions, dev agency evaluation, legacy modernization, AI feasibility — pricing based on complexity and capital at risk. 30-minute discovery call (free) to assess what you're protecting and recommend the right model. I do NOT provide hands-on dev, team management, or embedded roles (20+ hrs/week). I provide independent judgment preventing costly mistakes. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 𝗪𝗛𝗬 𝗧𝗛𝗜𝗦 𝗠𝗔𝗧𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗦: Technology failures hide in: • Dev proposals skipping hard integration questions • "Modern stack" pitches ignoring your operating constraints • AI demos working in labs but failing in production • Roadmaps assuming 5 things go perfectly — all 5 wrong 6-12 months post-contract: budget spent, runway shortened, asking "how did we miss this?" You missed it because the pitch looked credible, the agency spoke confidently, the contractor said "feasible" — and no one asked questions exposing fatal flaws BEFORE commitment. I ask those questions. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 𝗪𝗛𝗔𝗧 𝗜'𝗩𝗘 𝗣𝗥𝗘𝗩𝗘𝗡𝗧𝗘𝗗: 25+ years as CTO across defense, water infrastructure, energy, fintech, edtech — 14M+ endpoints, zero-downtime environments. Recent outcomes: • $250K dev contract avoided — assessment revealed team lacked integration experience (founder negotiated 40% better rate elsewhere) • $1.2M seed secured — package removed investor concerns (diligence passed first review, 30-day close vs 60-90) • $180K AI killed at 60 days — retainer ID'd misaligned case before $140K more spent • $320K migration, zero downtime — rollback protocol designed, 12% under budget • $150K saved on CTO hire — assessment caught skill gaps founder couldn't evaluate I understand startup urgency AND enterprise reliability — critical when burning $50K-$100K/month. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 𝗖𝗟𝗜𝗘𝗡𝗧𝗦: "Finding Daniel was hitting 'Triple 7's'! Grasped our concept immediately, provided extremely valuable insight. Tasked him with vetting dev teams — methodically found perfect fit. Without Dan, wouldn't have achieved our progress. Cannot recommend enough." — Steve, ZinZuu "In the first few minutes Daniel showed us he's a true professional and expert. He provided more value than we asked for and really simplified complex technical things in terms our whole team understood. Highly recommend for advice on development projects." — Robert, Private - Startup Initiative "Knew within minutes we found who could lead us to launch. Detail oriented, professional, responsive, excellent communication. Knowledgeable, experienced leader. Recommend without reservation." — Jen, GoShimmy "Hired for Windows app requiring deep IoT I/O understanding. Took loose specs, unraveled details, developed fast/reliable solution. Highly recommend as Sr. engineer for any magnitude." — Heath, Mueller Water ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Ready to de-risk your next decision? Request a 30-minute discovery call.

I am an MBA-trained (Kelley School of Business, Indiana University) strategist with 10+ years of experience, offering premium consulting services at an introductory rate to build my Upwork profile. ​While I typically consult for large enterprises and pharmaceutical firms, I am opening my schedule to help startups, small businesses, and solopreneurs get organized and execute their plans. You get the same level of rigor I provide to Fortune 500 clients, but for a fraction of the cost as I establish my reputation here. ​How I can help you: - ​Business Planning: Drafting solid business plans, pitch decks, and roadmaps. - ​Market Research: Competitor analysis, SWOT analysis, and industry trends (recent work: SWOT for a local food truck launch). - ​Financial Strategy: Modeling, pricing strategy, and budget forecasting. ​- Ad-Hoc Strategy: Acting as a sounding board or "Chief of Staff" to help you solve operational bottlenecks. ​I am US-based (Eastern Time), responsive, and ready to hit the ground running. If you are ready to professionalize your strategy or prepare for a fundraise, click 'Invite to Job' to schedule a brief introduction.

...do you have a have a startup idea that you need to validate & build? ...or an existing business that you need to fine tune with research & development, to be Go To Market Ready? Hello I'm Elissa & thank you for visiting my profile! I am a 5★ UpWork Expert Vetted All-In-One startup and business consultant from Arizona, United States, and in the past 15+ years, I've have partnered with over 250+ founders around the world to achieve startup success in various stages of development: DISCOVER, PLAN, LAUNCH & GROW STAGES. No matter where you are in your startup journey, I provide all resources from A-Z. ***Let's set up a free (15-min) call to discuss your needs, and set up a game plan*** MY EXPERTISE AT A GLANCE: ★ Market Research & Feasibility Analysis: Actionable insights to validate and refine your business ideas. ★ Startup MVP Development: From concepting to wireframing, ensuring your product meets market needs. ★ Strategic Business Planning: End-to-end business plans, financial modeling, and investor-ready pitch deck presentations. ★ Branding & Positioning: Unique strategies that make your brand stand out in competitive markets. ★ Go-to-Market Strategy: Execution plans tailored to target demographics, including customer journey optimization. HIGHLIGHTS OF SUCCESS: ★ $10M+ investor funding unlocked for various clients with market-ready business plans. ★ Led 250+ startups to success, including SaaS, tech, healthcare, and consumer brands. ★ Empowered WIN Energy Drink to refine its buyer personas, optimize feasibility studies, and craft an investor-winning pitch deck. ★ Partnered with LocalFarmOK to build a robust urban farm event business plan, attracting new markets and investors. CLIENT FEEDBACK SPEAKS VOLUMES: “Her business plan and market insights transformed our pitch deck into a winning tool. Within months, we secured our first round of funding!” – Local Farm OK, Founder “Elissa's guidance on scaling our MVP saved us six months of trial and error. A game-changer for our operations.” – WIN Energy Drink, CEO WHY CHOOSE ME? ★ Over 15 years of startup experience and entrepreneurial excellence ★ Expert Vetted by UpWork, having coached over 250+ startups worldwide ★ "Quality and professional" work is the core standard for all deliverables ★ Proven ability to drive long-term growth while mitigating risks ★ Transparent, collaborative, and committed to your success HOW CAN WE START? Book a free (15-min) consultation call today to discuss your business goals. Together, let’s: ★ Solve your most pressing challenges. ★ Align your vision with a data-backed strategy. ★ Create results that make your startup thrive. Ready to elevate your business? Let’s start now.

Thank you for visiting my Upwork "Top-Rated" profile. I'm a 3x founder and 3x Senior Executive at publicly-traded companies with deep experience across Growth/GTM, Finance, Product Management, and Strategy. I help companies launch and scale market-dominating products. I work with companies on: - Growth/Go-to-Market Strategies - Product Roadmaps/Strategy - Technical Writing (business plans/go-to-market playbooks/feasibility studies) Although I have a lot of experience in investor fundraising (I'm an angel investor myself and ran due diligence for a large angel syndicate) I do not offer investor introductions, outreach, or success-fee-based fundraising, since founders should generally do this work themselves. I engage with clients through: - Fractional leadership (CPO, COO, CFO) - Growth Audits I'm always happy to hop on a call if your project is well structured and you are ready to be collaborative/coachable. Please check out the already established projects I offer for quick ways to get started working with me.

I’m a consulting anthropologist specializing in B2B research and strategy. I help organizations understand what customers, clients, and stakeholders think, do, need, mistrust, value, and struggle to act on, and then translate that insight into clearer decisions, stronger positioning, and more useful reports. I’m especially useful for customer interviews, churn research, stakeholder research, survey design, brand strategy, market positioning, and turning research into clear strategic direction. What I do: - Customer and stakeholder interviews - Market and competitive analysis - Positioning and messaging frameworks - Brand and narrative strategy - Synthesis of qualitative and quantitative data into clear direction How I work: Most projects start with ambiguity. My role is to define the problem clearly, identify the 3 questions that matter most, and build a point of view that clients can use to make decisions. I focus on clarity over cleverness, creating frameworks that are simple, defensible, and usable. If you’re trying to understand your customers more clearly, I’d be glad to help. Background: PhD, University of North Carolina Author of a published book on organizational dynamics and employee experience Experience across B2B, SaaS, and professional services Led research and strategy for brand audits, positioning work, and thought leadership