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Client Intake Questionnaire

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Client Intake Questionnaire

Company: [NAME] · Date: [DATE] · Completed by: [NAME/ROLE]

1. Company Snapshot

  • What does the company do, in one or two sentences?
  • Stage (pre-seed / seed / Series A+ / profitable & bootstrapped / enterprise / nonprofit)?
  • Team size, and engineering team size specifically?
  • Current CTO/technical leadership situation — none, part-time, recently departed, overwhelmed founder-CTO, etc.?

2. The Problem

  • What's the specific situation that brought you to this conversation?
  • How long has this been a problem? What's been tried already?
  • What happens if this isn't addressed in the next 3-6 months?
  • Who else is affected by this (investors, customers, the board)?

3. Technical Snapshot

  • Primary tech stack / architecture (brief)?
  • Where does the code live, and who has access?
  • Any known major technical debt, outages, or security concerns worth flagging up front?
  • Current hosting/infra setup?

4. Scope & Fit

  • Is this closer to: (a) hands-on ongoing technical leadership, (b) a one-time audit/assessment, (c) an ongoing outside second opinion, or (d) something else?
  • Rough timeline expectation — urgent (weeks), near-term (this quarter), exploratory?
  • Who's the decision-maker, and who else needs to be involved before signing?

5. Budget

  • Is there a budget range already in mind, or is that part of what this conversation should establish?
  • Is this coming out of an existing budget line, a new allocation, or investor-directed spend?

6. Logistics

  • Preferred communication cadence and channel (Slack, email, weekly call)?
  • Any compliance/security requirements before Consultant can get system access (SOC 2, HIPAA, background check, NDA in place first)?
  • Anyone else on Client's side this proposal should go to?

7. Next Step

  • Send Statement of Work
  • Send Master Consulting Agreement
  • Send Mutual NDA first, SOW to follow
  • Needs another call before proposing scope
  • Not a fit right now — [reason, for the pipeline notes]

Notes:

[FREE-FORM SPACE FOR ANYTHING THAT DOESN'T FIT ABOVE]