Four fixed-scope directions, each with its own length and its own exclusions.
Zervuqo runs four consulting directions out of one room in Austin, Texas: a strategy session, an operations audit, a pricing and packaging review, and a growth advisory retainer. This is the studio's full menu for small business consulting in Austin — not a longer list held back for later. Every one of the four is a fixed scope consulting engagement: you pick a direction, the studio states what finishes it and how long it runs, and the engagement ends there unless a new conversation opens a new one. Nothing on this page is a binding quote. Every fee below is a basis, confirmed once the studio has seen the actual numbers.
Independent business consultant, Austin, Texas
Four active engagements at a time, no exceptions
Read the one that matches the decision in front of you.
Each direction below has its own scope, its own length, and its own list of what it will not do. If none of the four fit, the studio will say so rather than stretch one to cover it.
Strategy & Positioning Session
A three-hour session for a single positioning decision, ending at the whiteboard, not in a deck.
02Operations Audit
A week spent finding where handoffs and tools are actually stalling work, ending in a numbered fix list.
03Pricing & Packaging Review
A line-by-line margin check against your last twelve invoices, before you touch your packages.
04Growth Advisory Retainer
Eight hours a month, billed to the half hour, month-to-month, for the decision that keeps recurring.
A single three-hour strategy session ends with a photographed whiteboard, not a deck.
This is the studio's entry point for founder advisory work in Austin — three hours built around one table, one whiteboard wall and one decision. One time, no follow-up meeting assumed.
What happens in the room
You bring one positioning decision — a repositioning, a new offer, a pricing tier you cannot name yet — and the person who actually owns that call. The studio works it at the whiteboard: what the business is, who it is for, what it is not for, and the two or three sentences a stranger would need to understand it. No slides get made. The marker does the work.
- One consultant runs the session; a second sits in for larger or more contested decisions.
- The whiteboard gets photographed at the end, in full, before anyone erases it.
- A short written summary follows within two business days, keyed to the photograph.
| Length | One session, three hours. Not four, not two. |
|---|---|
| Format | In person at the studio table, marker on the whiteboard wall. |
| Team size | One to twelve people. Bring the decision owner, not the whole team. |
| Price basis | Flat fee per session, confirmed once the decision is described. |
| Deliverable | The photographed whiteboard plus a written summary. No deck. |
What this session does not cover
It does not build the marketing plan, write the website copy, or run the campaign that follows a repositioning — that is separate work, done by someone else or in a later retainer. It does not stretch past three hours because a team is bigger; the room is booked for three hours and the studio ends on time. And it is not a diagnostic for a business that has no decision yet — if you are not sure what you are deciding, the Operations Audit below is probably the better start.
Fee basis: flat fee per session. The exact number depends on the decision and gets confirmed before booking — this is a basis, not a quote.
Start an inquiryA one-week operations audit produces a numbered fix list, ranked by what is actually stalling work.
This is operations audit consulting for a business that knows something is slow but not which part. One week, one review, one ranked list at the end — no ongoing engagement assumed.
What gets reviewed
Over one calendar week the studio walks through the tools currently in use, the handoffs between people, and the point in the process where work sits waiting for no clear reason. This is an operations review consultant's version of a walk-through, not a software audit: nobody is grading your tech stack, they are watching where a task actually gets stuck. Screens get reviewed soft-focus and described, never screenshotted with legible client data attached.
- Day one to three: interviews and a walk-through of the current handoffs, in person or by video.
- Day four: the studio drafts the fix list at its own table, ranked by what is costing the most time.
- Day five: the list is delivered, numbered, with the reasoning behind the order.
| Length | One calendar week of review. |
|---|---|
| Format | Interviews and a walk-through, then a fix list written at the studio table. |
| Team size | One to twelve people. |
| Price basis | Flat fee per audit, confirmed once the scope of tools and teams is known. |
| Deliverable | A numbered fix list, ranked by time cost — no fifty-page report. |
What this audit does not cover
It does not implement the fixes it finds — that is either done by your own team, working from the numbered list, or picked up later in a Growth Advisory Retainer. It does not review personnel performance or make hiring or firing recommendations; that is not what a week of process review is built to judge. And it does not touch your accounting software's underlying figures — the Pricing & Packaging Review below is the direction for that.
Fee basis: flat fee per audit. Confirmed after an initial call about what tools and teams are actually in scope.
Start an inquiryA pricing and packaging review checks the last twelve invoices, line by line, against actual margin.
This is pricing strategy consultant work, not a workshop about how to think about pricing. As a pricing and packaging consultant, the studio sits with your last twelve invoices and finds where the margin actually goes.
What gets checked
Twelve invoices go up on the corkboard, one per note, and the studio works through what each one actually cost to deliver against what it billed. Packages that look profitable on paper often are not once labor and scope creep are counted honestly; this review exists to find those before you build a fourth tier on top of a broken third one.
- Invoices are reviewed for delivered scope versus billed scope, not just the headline number.
- Packages are grouped and compared side by side on the board.
- The studio flags which offers are quietly losing money and which are underpriced for what they take.
| Length | About one week turnaround once the twelve invoices are provided. |
|---|---|
| Format | Line-by-line margin check against the last twelve invoices. |
| Team size | One to twelve people; suits any business with at least twelve invoices to review. |
| Price basis | Flat fee per review, confirmed once invoice volume is known. |
| Deliverable | A marked-up pricing sheet naming what to raise, cut or repackage. |
What this review does not cover
It does not set your final prices for you — that decision stays with the owner, because the studio is not the one who has to sell at that number. It does not draft or negotiate client contracts, and it carries no legal advice about pricing terms. Customer payment details and account credentials are never needed for this review and should never be sent; invoice totals and line items are enough.
Fee basis: flat fee per review. Confirmed once the studio knows how many invoices and package tiers are involved.
Start an inquiryThe Growth Advisory Retainer runs eight hours a month, billed to the half hour.
This is growth advisory work for a small business that has already been through a strategy session or an audit and wants a standing conversation instead of another one-off. Month-to-month. No long-term contract.
What the eight hours cover
Eight hours a month is one recurring call plus the follow-up thinking around it: reviewing what changed, deciding the next move, and holding the owner to the last decision made. Hours are tracked to the half hour and shown in a monthly log, so nobody is guessing where the time went.
- One scheduled call most months, split across the month if that suits the work better.
- A running decision log: what was decided, when, and what happens next.
- Direct message access between calls for anything time-sensitive, inside the eight hours.
| Length | Month-to-month. No long-term contract, cancel between months. |
|---|---|
| Format | Eight hours a month, billed to the half hour. |
| Team size | One to twelve people, usually a repeat client from another direction. |
| Price basis | Monthly retainer covering eight hours; the rate is confirmed at setup. |
| Deliverable | A monthly hours log and a running list of decisions made. |
What this retainer does not cover
No retainer runs past eight hours in a month without a new conversation about scope — the studio will say so rather than quietly bill overtime. It does not include hands-on execution: no one from Zervuqo is writing your ad copy, running your hiring process, or doing the marketing work itself. And it is not open to retail or restaurant clients; the margin structure and cash-flow rhythm are different from the software and services businesses the studio actually understands.
Fee basis: monthly retainer, eight hours. Confirmed at setup, reviewed if scope changes.
Start an inquiry
The studio has run these four directions since 2018, four clients at a time.
Nobody at Zervuqo runs a proprietary platform between sessions. The work happens with a marker, a printed sheet, a corkboard of sticky notes and a ruler for the rare diagram that needs one — the same tools shown here, on the same table at 93 River Road. That is deliberate: a small business consulting studio in Austin does not need software to sell you software.
The studio takes four active engagements at a time across all four directions combined, and does not start a fifth until one finishes. That cap is why the numbers above hold: three hours stays three hours, and eight hours a month stays eight, because nobody on staff is stretched across nine other clients at once.
All four directions, compared
One table, four rows. A single decision usually starts at row one; a small team business consultant relationship that turns ongoing usually ends at row four.
| Direction | Length | Format | Price basis | Best fit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Strategy & Positioning Session | Three hours, one session | Whiteboard, photographed | Flat fee per session | One specific decision, decided once |
| Operations Audit | One calendar week | Numbered fix list | Flat fee per audit | Work is stalling somewhere unclear |
| Pricing & Packaging Review | About one week | Marked-up pricing sheet | Flat fee per review | Packages built on unchecked margin |
| Growth Advisory Retainer | Month-to-month | Monthly hours log | Monthly retainer, eight hours | A recurring decision, not a one-off |
Who this is not for, answered plainly
A page that only lists what a studio will not do reads as defensive. Here is the short version, answered honestly instead.
What if our team is past twelve people?
Then Zervuqo is not the right studio, and the studio will say so on the first call rather than take the fee and stretch. Twelve is the upper edge of the team-size band across all four directions; past that, the coordination problem changes shape and needs a different kind of firm.
Do you work with retail or restaurant businesses?
No. The studio turns down retail and restaurant work outright. The margin structure and the cash-flow problems in those businesses are different from the software and services companies Zervuqo actually understands, and pretending otherwise would waste both sides' time.
Can we start straight into the Growth Advisory Retainer?
Usually the retainer follows a strategy session or an audit, because eight hours a month goes further once there is already a decision log to build on. It is not a rule written in stone; say what you need on the inquiry and the studio will tell you plainly if the retainer fits first.
Is any figure on this page a guaranteed price?
No. Every price basis above is exactly that — a basis. The studio confirms an actual fee only after it has seen the real scope: the decision, the invoices, or the handoffs in question. Nothing here is a binding quote, and nothing gets billed before that confirmation happens.
Still not sure which of the four fits? Use the engagement configurator to try the options against your own team size and timeline before you write anything.
Four directions, one room, four active clients at a time. Pick the one above that matches the decision you are actually facing, or build an outline first and let the studio confirm it fits.
Start an inquiry Build your engagement first