Optimize & scale
The proof of concept proved it. The first year built it. This is the partnership that follows — the phase our longest clients have lived in for years.
Tenure is the evidence
What scale actually looks like
One partnership, told over years.
Along the way: two major customer wins, and revenue doubled — from roughly $125M when the partnership began. The scope today looks nothing like year one — and that is the design.
As capabilities mature — Co-Wright Intelligence, AI-assisted workflows — they enter the portal as part of the same engagement, not as upsells.
The top rung: 24-month and longer terms
Two structures, chosen to fit how your business budgets. Both carry the same team, the same platform, and the same weekly cadence.
Fixed retainer
Predictable budgeting that scales with the responsibility the contract carries. Suited to steady-state operations, where the platform's job is to keep the business running well.
Fixed plus variable
A floor retainer with a component tied to your success metrics: revenue growth, EBITDA improvement, expense reduction, or department-level KPIs — sales, recruiting, financial, supply chain.
In practice: for CFGI's recruiting engagement, SEAD's variable fee is 7.5% per hire — charged only on hires retained past 90 days — against the roughly 22.5% a typical contingency recruiter charges regardless of outcome. A third of the market rate, earned only on results. The same 90 days we ask partners to judge us by is the window we hold our own fees to.
The structure most partners choose.
Set by where your business is going
Partners have been burned in two directions: the subscription whose fees only ever ratchet up, and the consulting relationship where every new idea reopens a scoping negotiation. The mature phase of a SEAD partnership takes one of two shapes instead.
True scale
The business keeps growing and the projects keep coming. Unlimited data, unlimited users, unlimited development under a true partnership agreement — new projects, integrations, and offerings enter the partnership as they emerge, so innovation is never waiting on a change order.
These are the same terms the engagement started with — unlimited from day one — reaching their mature form.
Maintenance
The build is done and the platform is steady; the fee follows the work. Two shapes, set deal by deal from what we learned about your organization through Launch and Enhance:
SEAD-supported — we continue overseeing data pipelines and supplement roles within your organization, such as data analysis and portal administration. The fee reflects the responsibility we carry.
Customer-owned — your team operates the platform. The fixed fee decreases, with a variable component tied to the business itself — revenue, EBITDA — never to users or data volume, so SEAD scales with the business in either direction.
Most vendors only sign up for your upside
When the variable component is in place, SEAD benefits in your growth and shares the hardship in a downturn. That is the whole point of the structure.
The discipline comes from somewhere specific. Before SEAD, the founders built a hedge fund services portal holding roughly $2.7 trillion in assets under analytics — a world where incentives are aligned by contract or not at all. SEAD brought that discipline from Wall Street to Main Street.
The commercial arc, end to end
The first step is still a conversation
Thirty minutes on your systems and your questions. Nobody starts at 24 months: the ladder begins with a preview on your own data, or with the gaps you already know.