Your founding team,
forward deployed.
Forward deployed engineers, product specialists, and strategists who've shipped inside NASA, Cargill, 3M, GE, AI research labs, and startups. We embed with your teams to take AI and digital initiatives from pilot to production.
6+
Years at NASA Mission Control, delivering software
20+
Enterprise, federal, and academic organizations we've built with
0→1
Launch new enterprise initiatives, special projects, or AI rollouts
Who we've built with
Experience across our team's prior roles and engagements.
Most companies don't fail at strategy.
They fail at execution.
There's a gap between knowing what to build and shipping it to production. It's where AI initiatives stall, new product lines get stuck in pilot, and compliance debt accumulates.
You can hire consultants who'll write you a deck. You can hire contractors who'll build what you scoped. Neither closes the gap.
Founding Crew closes it. We deploy senior engineers and product leaders into your organization — forward deployed, accountable for outcomes, not staff augmentation.
What we do
Three ways we unlock value.
Discovery & AI Strategy
We help you identify and scope value opportunities: new workflows, technologies, and AI use cases. We find where the value is, size it, and define the first build. Discovery ends in a scoped engagement, not a report.
- AI opportunity assessment
- Workflow & process discovery
- Technology & vendor evaluation
- Value case & roadmap
- Scoped first build
Who it's for: Leaders who know something needs to change but haven't scoped what.
Digital Solutions0→1 Product Development
Digital products, platforms, internal tools, AI solutions, and connected hardware and software — built from concept to launch. Product direction, design, and engineering as one accountable team, inside your environment.
- Product strategy
- UX & product design
- Full-stack engineering
- AI & automation build
- Hardware & embedded systems
- Replacing third-party systems
- Launch & rollout
Who it's for: Enterprise and intrapreneurial teams that need a new product or platform shipped, not scoped.
Training & Implementation
Delivery isn't done until your team owns it. We run the rollout, manage the change, train the people who will operate the system, and document everything before we leave.
- Implementation & rollout
- Change management
- AI training for your teams
- Documentation & handoff
- Ongoing enablement
Who it's for: Leaders who need a delivered system to be adopted, run, and extended by their own teams.
Where we work
Built for regulated, mission-critical environments.
Supply Chain & Manufacturing
Planning, logistics, plant-floor, and operations systems. AI for forecasting, exception handling, and workflow automation.
Team experience: Cargill · Sysco · Tyson · FedEx · J.B. Hunt · Walmart · Target
Industrial
Asset-heavy, safety- and process-critical environments. Integration with legacy and OT systems.
Team experience: 3M · GE · ExxonMobil · Intel · Micron
Healthcare
HIPAA-aware AI and product work. Local and private data processing for PHI.
Team experience: Johns Hopkins · Emory · Biobot Analytics
Aerospace
Mission-critical, high-reliability software. Six years inside NASA Mission Control.
Team experience: NASA Johnson Space Center
Education
Institutional systems, research platforms, and AI adoption for universities.
Team experience: Cornell · Johns Hopkins · Emory
Across all of them
Security and compliance are part of every engagement. We can deliver SOC 2, NIST 800-171, and HIPAA programs, and DevSecOps and cloud architecture are standard capabilities.
The process
How we work.
Diagnose
One discovery call. We figure out if we're the right team for the problem. If not, we'll tell you who is.
Scope
Fixed-fee, procurement-ready proposal in 5 business days. Clear deliverables. Clear timeline. No retainers.
Deploy
Our engineers work inside your environment and your team — standups, shared channels, on-call for launches.
Hand off
We document everything and train your team to own it. Then we leave. That's the point.
The bench
A bench built for enterprise scope.
Founding Crew includes a vetted network of operators, engineers, and specialists. When your project needs it, we pull in the right people — already trusted, already proven.
Track record
What we've shipped.
Mission-critical procedure tracking deployed at NASA Houston Mission Control.
NASA Johnson Space CenterSix-year engagement doing full-stack work on systems used for International Space Station operations.
0→1 hardware + software product business shipping to McDonald's, KFC, and Target Field.
Cargill HorizonsProject built from concept to enterprise contracts with metered funding. CES Innovation Award honoree.
SOC 2 in 6 months. NIST 800-171 work underway. $2M+ ARR unlocked in a new vertical.
Confidential client
Compliance program project that opened regulated enterprise markets for a new product line.
FAQ
Common questions.
Consulting firms write decks. We ship production systems. Our engineers are forward deployed inside your organization, accountable for outcomes, and we hand off working systems — not slide recommendations.
Senior engineers and product leaders work inside your environment, alongside the people who own the problem. Your standups, your channels, your systems. We ship into production, then transfer ownership before we leave.
As part of the team, not around it. We integrate with your engineering, IT, and security functions and with the vendors already in place. We're there to ship the outcome, not to replace your stack or your people.
We can deliver SOC 2, NIST 800-171, and HIPAA programs, and we build to those standards by default. Where data can't leave your environment, we run AI processing locally or in your private cloud. Nothing moves without your security team's sign-off.
Yes. Most enterprise work touches systems that predate the cloud. We've shipped inside Fortune 500 and federal environments where legacy and on-prem systems are the norm, and we don't require a rip-and-replace to deliver value.
We've shipped inside Cargill, 3M, and NASA. We understand compliance requirements, procurement, and the politics of large organizations. Regulated markets are a specialty, not a limitation.
Fixed-fee per project. No hourly, no retainer. You know what you're getting and what it costs before we start. Scope changes require a new proposal — no scope creep, no surprise invoices.
Three to six months for a defined project. Shorter sprints of six to eight weeks work for focused assessments or compliance programs. We don't do indefinite retainers — we complete the work and hand it off.
You own it. Documentation, training, and implementation support are part of every engagement, and your team is operating the system before we step back. If you want ongoing enablement, we scope that separately — never as an open-ended retainer.
Fixed-fee, fixed-scope proposals with clear deliverables — the format procurement teams prefer. Master service agreements, security questionnaires, and vendor onboarding are a standard part of getting started.
Let's talk.
Book a discovery call. We'll tell you whether we're the right team for the job.
Detailed proposal within 5 business days.
Book a discovery callOr email us directly: nate@foundingcrew.io