The whole engagement, on the table.
An engagement runs in three stages: a fund-level read of the portfolio, a company-level roadmap, and the build. The first two are free, because they are how we choose the clients we build with; the third is where we earn.
The free stages are complete on their own, and every stage ends at a decision that is yours. Nothing rolls forward without you.
The whole portfolio, read.
The baseline reads every company the fund owns: where AI pays now, and where it should wait. It asks under three hours of your time, it runs about two weeks end to end, and it is complete on its own.
How it runs, step by step
The readout, page by page
The readout arrives cut for your seat: operating partners get it in board-deck and bridge terms, deal partners get it IC-first, with the DDQ answer and the exit story broken out.
The same discipline, inside one company.
Where the baseline finds a company ready and its leadership wants it, the next stage is Your Company AI Roadmap: the deeper read inside that one business, built in working sessions with its leadership and owned by them. It is carried in under your sponsorship, at the company’s request, and it is also free, for the company as well as the fund, for the same reason the baseline is.
It runs the way the baseline runs: three hours of the leadership’s time around working sessions, the desk work on ours, and a plan the team can start running the week it lands, with the first win sequenced to land inside a quarter. It also keeps the same right the baseline has: where AI would not earn its keep in the business yet, it says so.
Much of this page is written for your sponsor, because the first stage belongs to the fund. Yours doesn’t. Your stage has its own page, written for your seat: whose roadmap it is, your team’s part, and what your board sees.
The work we charge for.
We can also build what we find. Where a roadmap calls for building and the company wants it built, we stay involved at the level the work actually requires, from a defined project to senior operating support. We know which recommendations are executable because building this work is what we do.
Most engagements use a fraction of this. The point is that when a roadmap names work worth doing, we can bring the people who do it.
The readout’s lane section already told you where we would lead, where we would bring a partner, and where it isn’t us; the build follows those tags. The people we bring are senior operators and specialists, engaged per project. No one is sitting on our payroll waiting for the answer to be build, which is part of why the roadmap can afford to say no.
A build is engaged by the company it serves, on the company’s own paper, the way operational work after close normally runs. The company engages only the work it chooses, and the costs are in front of its leadership before anything is agreed.
Why the free work is free, and why there isn’t more of it.
The free stages are how we choose the companies we build with long-term, and we only make money if you decide to continue. You are never buying a package, and you are never obligated.
We take four free engagements a month, fund baselines and company roadmaps combined. Every read is senior time, delivered personally, and four is the number that keeps it that way.
The line between the free work and the paid work is diagnosis versus execution, not partial versus complete. The baseline and the roadmap are finished documents you could run without us, and they say so in writing.
And the build is not the only way to continue: a fund that wants the same judgment on hand across the whole portfolio can retain it in advisory form. Either shape is chosen, not assumed, and neither commits you to the other.
The questions we would ask in your seat.
What is The Portfolio AI Baseline?
A free, fund-level assessment from Stetson Value Creation Partners: every company in a private equity fund’s portfolio, read for where AI can move EBITDA and where it is not the answer yet. It asks under three hours of the sponsoring partner’s time, runs about two weeks end to end, and arrives as a finished, board-ready readout with the method shown. Stetson VCP takes four free engagements a month, fund and company levels combined, so that every read stays personally delivered.
What is Your Company AI Roadmap?
A free, company-level AI plan for a single portfolio company, sponsored by its fund and owned by the company’s leadership. It is drawn up with the company’s own team in working sessions, sequenced so the first win lands inside a quarter, and written so the team can run it. Where AI would not earn its keep in the business yet, the roadmap says so.
Why is the work free? What’s the catch?
The free stages are how we choose the companies we work with long-term; we only make money if a client decides to continue. So yes, we would like that to happen. What should make you comfortable is the structure, not our intentions: both free stages are complete on their own, you could run either without us, and every recommendation is tagged with where we would earn if you continued.
Isn’t a free assessment just lead generation?
It is how we choose clients, and we say so wherever the work is described. The structural difference from a funnel: nothing is held back to force a second conversation. The readout is the whole diagnosis, the documents say in writing that you can run them without us, and the recommendations that would pay us are tagged as such on the page.
Why only four a month?
Because every read is done personally, not templated by a leveraged team, and four across fund and company engagements is what doing that properly allows. It is also what makes no affordable: a practice with four slots a month can afford to tell a fund not here, not yet. A volume lead-generation machine cannot.
What does the baseline ask of us?
Under three hours of the partner’s time: a 30-minute framing call, a 90-minute working intake, and a one-hour playback. The data request is handled by your team, not by you, and the two weeks of analysis run entirely on our side.
What kinds of work can you actually deliver?
Transformation strategy at depth, AI systems architecture, AI automation and working systems, business reporting and analytics, go-to-market and revenue execution, positioning discovery and refinement, senior marketing and revenue leadership up to a fractional chief marketing seat, and team enablement. Every engagement is scoped from what a roadmap found, and every recommendation is tagged with whether we would lead it, bring a partner, or step aside.
Who does the work?
Every baseline and roadmap is read and written personally by our founder. Where a build follows, the people are senior operators and specialists, engaged per project. Who they are, by name and record, is on the About page.
What if we’d rather execute the roadmap ourselves?
Then you should, and the documents are written for it: both free stages are complete without us, and each names where outside help is genuinely needed and where it is not.
What does the paid work cost?
It is scoped per engagement, against what the roadmap found, and priced when it is scoped. There is no menu and no package: the work runs from a defined project to senior operating support, and a proposal names one scope and one price. Proposals default to the company’s paper, with the cost placement put in front of the company plainly before anything is agreed.
What work do you decline?
Anything our own roadmap would advise against. Beyond that, the categories where we are not the right firm: ERP replacement, staffing, audits, and standalone IT work. Regulated specialist domains go to named partners, introduced as partners.
Does the portfolio company have to take part?
No. The company stage happens at the company’s request, its leadership owns the result, and nothing obligates the company or its sponsor to take any of it further.
Thirty minutes tells us both whether a baseline fits your fund. If it doesn’t, we’ll say so.
Book the 30-minute framing call