Eight functional roles, staged across three phases of growth. Every role is grounded in something you said on the May 15 call. They activate as you activate them.
Phase 1·Now·alignment and near-term revenuemonths 1 to 3
1.1 · Founder Alignment Lead
Founder Alignment Lead
Runs the prework for a founders’ alignment session and turns the self-funded vs. scaled question into a decision document the two of you can resolve.
“Do we agree on that part of it, or we haven’t agreed yet?”
Discovery call, May 15 · ~39:25
Designs the path from monthly-re-decided revenue to real annual commitments. Pricing models, account expansion mechanics, near-term enterprise terms.
“we are not a SaaS model. So even if the customer says, I’m going to commit to a million dollar to you in twenty twenty-six, every month that that million dollar, he has no obligation to commit to that number, whatever happens, because it’s really a spend per month.”
Discovery call, May 15 · ~11:49
Tests the Meta / Scale AI opening as a positioning wedge. Reworks how SmartOne presents itself to fix the articulation gap named on the call.
“we’re highly immature right now as to what we show to the market, and highly immature as to how we’ve evolved compared to other players in the market.”
Discovery call, May 15 · ~11:49
Sizes the Physical AI / World Model market against the labeling baseline. Validates claims like the 20x ratio before they go on a slide. Tracks comparable bootstrapped plays week over week.
“Data annotation, three billion dollar market, three, four billion dollar market in ’25, ’26. Physical AI, the stuff that you play around with, maybe, eighty-something billion dollars in twenty twenty-five? 26, something like that. The data tells you where you need to play.”
Amyn · ~22:09
Phase 2·Inflection·geographic and workforce scalingmonths 4 to 9, conditional
2.1 · Europe Growth
Europe Growth
Scales the existing French presence into structured account wins. You already have a team in France covering Europe and SMARTONE EU SAS in Paris. The job is converting that footprint into signed enterprise engagements.
“the LLM and the fact that the market is now a little bit more fragmented, that people are used to now building their own toolbox has made it for countries like France to be able to have the gap that they had in terms of AI adoption go a little bit smaller. And so they’ve basically jumped up the ladder, versus the American players. So they’re not at the level of what we see in America, but we’re now seeing ICPs that we used to see in the US in France.”
Discovery call, May 15 · ~11:49
Activates when the robotics pilot lands. AI augmentation playbook that protects the Madagascar workforce while opening enterprise pricing.
“could you improve them if you increase the efficiency of your people? And if you do win that big contract, do you need to go out and hire three hundred more, or do you just need to hire a hundred more and you pocket a bunch of Yeah, you have a higher profit margin.”
Amyn · ~32:55
Phase 3·Scale·platform and defense, only when readymonths 10+, conditional
3.1 · Platform Architect
Platform Architect
Activates when alignment is settled and revenue is stabilizing. Turns SmartOne’s open-source tool stack into a platform. The 70/30 split applied.
“Heck, take the 10-20 open source tools, string them together with a fun little UI, I could hack something together in a week, right? And call it your platform. You have one for data annotation that 10x this is the speed or 100x the speed And that’s your competitive differentiator. It’s things you’re already doing, it’s just not being marketed appropriately or not being packaged.”
Amyn · ~32:55
Dormant until the founders decide. Activates only if SmartOne pursues a firewalled structure for US or NATO-ally defense data. Explicit on the call: this is not the focus of work ahead.
“This might be something for the back pocket, and I don’t think it’s pertinent for now, but there are a ton of multinational defense orgs, like BAE Systems is a British company, but they’re also an American defense manufacturer. All it requires is a level of firewall between the parent organization and the American organization.”
Amyn · ~22:09
Each role produces named artifacts on a weekly or monthly cadence. The artifacts are versioned and dated. You see what is current.
The roster scales with your decisions, not on a fixed timeline. Phase 2 activates when the alignment question is resolved and the first hill is moving. Phase 3 activates when alignment is settled and revenue is stabilizing.
If a role is not earning its weekly hour, we retire it. The team you have at month 18 is not the team you had at month 1.
If this thinking is useful, the team activates when you are ready. Fractional Chief AI Officer packages, with the agent subteam included in every engagement, start at approximately $5K per month, scaled by whether the engagement is more advisory or more hands-on. The first 30 days are dedicated to resolving the question on the Watch page before any productization work begins. Send the use-case snapshot and tools list when you can, and we will book the next call.