Discover — Crestics · Decide what's worth building

Decide what's worth building.

A 2–3 week sprint that cuts through the AI hype. We map your operations, score every workflow on impact × feasibility, and hand you back a prioritized roadmap with ROI models, reference architecture, and a fixed-scope build estimate. By week three, you know exactly what to ship first — and what not to ship at all.

2–3weeks

Timeline

$18K+

Starting investment

8–15

Stakeholder interviews

100%

Fixed scope & price

Six artifacts. One verdict: build, refine, or walk away.

Every Discover engagement ends with the same package. No 60-page consulting decks. Real artifacts your engineering and exec teams can act on the day we hand them over.

AI Opportunity Map

Every workflow we observe, scored on impact × feasibility, plotted on a 2x2 you can walk into a board meeting with.

Notion + Figma

Prioritized Roadmap

Exact sequence of what to build, why, and in what order. Sequenced for compounding — each ship makes the next one cheaper.

12-month horizon

ROI Models

Fully quantified returns on the top 3 candidates. Time saved, dollars saved, dollars earned. Conservative, base, and aggressive cases.

Spreadsheet + scenarios

Reference Architecture

System design for the highest-priority build. Models, infra, data flow, integrations, fail modes. Reviewable by a senior engineer in 30 minutes.

PDF + Miro

Fixed-Scope Build Estimate

If you green-light the next phase, you get a fixed price and timeline before we start. No hourly billing. No "discovery uncovered new scope" surprises.

SOW-ready

Stakeholder Read-out

Final live presentation to your team. Every interview surfaces back as direct quotes — not summaries. Your team sees what we heard.

90-min session

Three weeks, three milestones.

Discover runs as a focused sprint. Two senior engineers embedded with your team for ~10 hours a week of meetings, plus async work between. No 6-month consulting engagements. No "let us shadow you for a quarter."

Week 01 — Discovery

Stakeholder interviews + workflow capture

8–15 conversations across operations, eng leadership, and one exec sponsor. We sit in on real workflows. We watch where time gets burned. We ask "what's the dumbest part of this job?" until we get honest answers.

Stakeholder map Live shadowing Tooling audit Existing data review

Week 02 — Synthesis

Workflow mapping + AI feasibility scoring

Every observed workflow gets mapped, scored on AI feasibility (frontier model? RAG? agent? deterministic code?), and stress-tested for ROI. We separate the "this looks AI-shaped" from the "this is actually AI-shaped."

Process maps Feasibility scoring Cost/value modeling Mid-sprint check-in

Week 03 — Verdict

Roadmap, architecture, build estimate, read-out

Final week is execution-ready output. Roadmap, architecture for the top pick, ROI on the top three, and a fixed-scope build estimate if you want to keep going. Live read-out to your team in week three.

Roadmap deck Architecture doc ROI workbook Live read-out Build SOW

Two engagement sizes. Both fixed-price.

Pick the depth that matches what you're trying to figure out. Both end with the same artifact package. Both are fully credited toward a Build engagement if you keep going with us.

Lite

from$18K

2 weeks · 6–8 stakeholder interviews · Roadmap + ROI on top 3 · Build estimate. Best when you have a hunch about what to build and need it pressure-tested.

Standard

from$28K

3 weeks · 12–15 interviews · Full reference architecture · Technical spike on highest-risk component. Best when you're choosing between several AI directions.

Fully credited toward a Build engagement

50% on kickoff, 50% on read-out

Mutual NDA before any sensitive review

What clarity looks like in practice.

Two recent Discover sprints, anonymized. Both clients are now in Build with us.

Legal Services · 24-attorney firm

Identified $1.2M/yr in process-automation opportunity across 6 workflows.

Three weeks of partner shadowing. Twelve workflows mapped. Scored every one on AI feasibility. Top pick (contract review) shipped in 6 weeks and is now saving 340 attorney-hours/month.

$1.2M

Annual opportunity

6 weeks

From verdict to shipped

Series-B SaaS · 80-person team

Cut a roadmap from 11 AI ideas down to 3 — saving 9 months of misaligned build.

Internal team had 11 AI initiatives queued. Two weeks of stakeholder interviews + ROI modeling killed 8 of them — including two that would have failed on data quality alone. Top 3 are now shipping.

8 of 11

Initiatives killed

~9 mo

Misaligned build avoided

Things people actually ask.

What if you tell us not to build anything?

Then we say so. Roughly 18% of Discover engagements end with a "don't build this yet" verdict — usually because the data isn't ready, the workflow isn't actually AI-shaped, or there's a deterministic fix that's faster. You still get every artifact. The engagement is worth that answer alone.

How much of our team's time does Discover cost?

Plan for ~10 hours/week of meetings during the sprint, distributed across 8–15 stakeholders. Most individual contributors give us 2–3 hours total. The exec sponsor gives us a kickoff (60 min), a mid-sprint check-in (30 min), and the read-out (90 min).

Do we have to build with you afterward?

No. The roadmap, architecture, and ROI models are yours to keep regardless. About 70% of Discover clients move into Build with us — but it's not a requirement, and we'd rather you take the work to a better-fit partner than build with us out of inertia.

What if we already know what we want to build?

Skip Discover and go straight to Build. We'll scope it, give you a fixed price, and start. Discover is for when you're choosing between options, not when the choice is already made.

Will you sign an NDA before we share anything sensitive?

Always. Mutual NDA before any workflow review or data access. We work in environments you control — we don't take exports of customer data home with us.