A senior operator inside the business, working on the strategy itself.
Software alone gives you answers. What changes the number is somebody senior who has done this before, sitting with your team, deciding what to do about them. That person comes with Liffey.
Twenty years in the seat, from scale-up to PLC.
Each member of our team has 10+ years of hands-on operational experience delivering revenue growth in businesses like yours. People who have carried the number, built the team, and rebuilt the pricing when the market moved.
That range is what makes the advice usable at your size. The problems a company hits at €3m are the ones a PLC solved a decade ago, and the discipline a PLC runs on is what a scale-up needs before it can grow into it.
It starts at 20 hours a month, and moves with what you need.
The first weeks go into the foundations, working alongside your team. From there it scales up when you are pushing on something, and down when the rhythm is running on its own.
You can watch the strategy being built.
Most fractional and consulting work is invisible until months in, and you take somebody’s word for what happened between the days they were with you. Your brain is open the whole time.
The work shows as it is done
Components fill, decisions lock, evidence attaches, and the week’s meetings feed back in. From the first week there is something to look at and argue with, before any report gets written.
You can interrogate any of it
Every locked decision carries the evidence behind it, the date it was made and who made it. When you want to know why a position was taken, the answer is in the brain without anyone having to remember.
Your architect arrives current
The brain records what happened while they were elsewhere, so a session opens on the decisions in front of you. This is what keeps a part-time seat attached to the business between its days.
Who owns what.
The strategy stays yours. That is the point of building it inside your business.
Your architect brings
- The method, and the judgement to apply it to your business
- A read on what each pattern is worth, before your team acts on it
- The outside perspective that comes from having seen this before
- The discipline to keep the rhythm running when the quarter gets busy
You keep
- Every decision. The architect proposes; a named owner in your business commits
- The strategy itself, written down and current, inside your own workspace
- Your data, in your workspace, on EU infrastructure
- The commercial brain, which stays yours and stays useful
Against the other ways to buy senior commercial thinking.
| Liffey | A senior hire | Fractional CRO | Consultancy project | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seniority | Twenty years, scale-up to PLC | Depends what the salary reaches | Typically senior | Senior partner, junior delivery |
| Time to first value | Days | Three to six months, after a search | Weeks | Weeks, at the first readout |
| What remains after | The strategy, written down and current, in your workspace | Whatever is in their head, until they leave | Whatever is in their head | A document, accurate on the day it was printed |
| Cost shape | Monthly, adjustable by quarter | Salary, equity, employer costs | Day rate | Fixed fee, scoped up front |
| Keeps itself current | Nightly, and judged weekly | While they are in the room | On the days they work | Until the market moves |
The brain raises what changed. The architect decides what it is worth. Your team decides what to do about it.
Software surfaces the pattern, and a senior architect decides what it is worth.
Your commercial brain reads what changed this week and puts a shortlist in front of somebody. Whether a signal in three accounts is the start of something or a coincidence, and whether it is worth a change of plan, is a call that needs somebody who has made it before.
Three things have to be present for that to work, and they come from three different places. The architect brings the judgement, from having made the call before. Your architecture supplies the method, so a new pattern is weighed against an agreed position. The brain holds the memory, keeping evidence for months so a pattern can build. Take any one of the three away and the other two stop being worth much.
So an architect weighs each one. What reaches your team has been evaluated and agreed, and the volume stays low enough that people read it.
It also means the strategy gets challenged. It also means the strategy gets challenged. The architect argues the other side of a position whenever the evidence supports it.
Those judgements are kept as a record: what was challenged, what changed, and what was confirmed under challenge. A position that holds up when the evidence comes at it is a result, and it is recorded as one.
Questions about the engagement.
How much time does a commercial architect give?
From 20 hours a month, and a day a week or more where the business needs it. At the largest scale the time is scoped with your leadership team. The engagement moves up or down with what the quarter needs.
How senior are Liffey’s commercial architects?
Twenty years operating commercial teams, from scale-up to PLC. They have carried a number, set pricing, built go-to-market motions and handed customers between teams. Deciding whether a signal in a handful of accounts is worth a change of plan takes somebody who has made that call before.
Can we use a commercial architect if we already have a commercial leader?
Most engagements run alongside one, and the comparison with a fractional CRO sets out which is the right fit. The architect works on the strategy itself rather than the day-to-day, brings an outside read on what the evidence is worth, and leaves the thinking written down where the team can use it. Where there is no commercial leader yet, the architect carries more of the load.
How is a commercial architect different from a consultancy project?
A consultancy project ends with a document that is accurate on the day it was printed. This is a standing engagement: the strategy stays in your workspace, keeps itself current from your own systems, and is judged weekly. The same senior architect who scopes the work is the one who delivers it, every month.
What happens if we stop working with a commercial architect?
Everything stays yours. You can export the full commercial architecture, and the underlying content is deleted or returned within 30 days at your choice. The terms are in the data processing agreement.
Start with a conversation.
Twenty minutes with a commercial architect.