I’ve been building products for twenty years and spent fifteen of those in SaaS. Both sides of the table: sales and growth leadership, and engineering. Government, enterprise, small businesses, one-person operations.
Paper Rocket is what I do now: consulting and building for businesses who want depth and judgement, not the latest tool pitched at them.
- Principle I
Problem first, tool second.
Most digital work starts with someone selling you a thing. I start with the problem. The tool, the build, the AI agent. Those are second-order decisions.
- Principle II
You're the expert on your business.
I bring judgement on the digital side. You bring everything else. The work goes faster when that division of expertise is respected.
- Principle III
Honest before clever.
A clear no is worth more than a polished pitch. If the right answer is do less, that's the answer you'll get. No vendor cheques, no referral commissions.
- Principle IV
Build on what works.
Custom isn't always the answer. Often the right move is to extend, connect, or quietly improve what's already in use. Replacing is the last resort, not the first.
- Principle V
Real products, not prototypes.
What I ship is production-grade. Tested, monitored, properly deployed, with the audit trails and version history that real work demands.
- Principle VI
Leave it clean.
Handover doc, monitoring, a clear exit if you want one. Or an ongoing relationship if you'd rather not own the maintenance. Never a project I'm quietly hoping you forget about.
- 01 · Day 0
Conversation.
We work out whether this is even worth doing.
Short call or fifteen-minute chat. You describe the situation, I listen. By the end I either know the next move, or I tell you the work doesn't need doing. Free.
- 02 · Days 1–3
Discovery.
If it's worth doing, ninety focused minutes.
Either in person or by phone. The problem gets framed properly, the trade-offs spelled out. Within forty-eight hours you get a written position you can take to your team. $240, credited back against any engagement within thirty days.
- 03 · Week 1
Scope.
Fixed price, fixed timeline, fixed scope.
Whenever it's possible to scope it that way, it's scoped that way. No padded estimates. No "we'll figure it out as we go". The surprises live in the design phase, not in the invoice.
- 04 · Weeks 1–6
Build.
Real products, shipped in weeks.
Weekly demos. You see it grow. Change your mind early and it's free. Change your mind at the end and we re-scope. Either way, no surprises in the invoice.
- 05 · Ongoing
Handover.
Either I leave clean, or I stick around.
Production deploy, monitoring, handover doc, training. Then either a clean exit, or a Paper Rocket Monthly retainer if you'd rather not own the maintenance.
Sales and growth leadership inside tech companies. The other side of the table from the people building it. Knowing what makes a product sell, not just what makes it work.
Apps, tools, websites, integrations, internal systems. Long enough to know what holds up and what doesn't.
Sales and growth, and engineering. Most consultants do one. The combination is what makes the consulting useful.
Government and enterprise through to small businesses and one-person operations. Same job at every size.
Central Otago. In person within an hour's drive of Wānaka and Queenstown. Remote available nationally.
I don't take referral fees from vendors. What I recommend is what I think you should use.