I help founders turn growth plans into product direction, the right team, and working software - and lead the changes alongside them.
Choose the situation closest to yours. We’ll agree the scope around the decision or change you need to make.
Start with a clear plan
An independent product and engineering assessment examines your priorities, working evidence, team and technical context. I gather input through a short questionnaire, selected individual conversations and existing work, with the approach agreed around your team’s size and the decision.
You receive a concise decision document: what is limiting progress, what your team needs, and a prioritised plan with proposed owners and success checks. We work through it together.
Review a hiring plan
You’re preparing to open engineering roles and want an independent view of which hires are justified, what they should own and which should come first.
The Hiring-plan second opinion reviews one proposed hiring plan against your product goals, team shape and available delivery evidence. You receive a short decision memo with recommendations, assumptions to test and questions that could change the conclusion.
This is a standalone, fixed-fee review. We agree scope, inputs and schedule before starting.
Explore the Hiring-plan second opinion →
Lead the changes
I take responsibility for agreed work alongside you and your team: product priorities, people management and hiring, architecture and hands-on implementation, or improving how discovery and delivery connect. We select the priorities your business needs.
We begin with a defined outcome and a bounded piece of work. You see the decisions, what has shipped or changed, and what the evidence says. That review sets the next priorities.
How we agree scope, responsibility and fees
Before starting, we agree the changes I will lead, the decisions I can make and those that remain with you or existing leaders. We set my involvement, your team’s responsibilities and the cadence for reviewing progress.
Ongoing work has its own scope and monthly fee, separate from the assessment. Duration and review points are agreed for your situation. As the changes take hold, we review what support remains useful and transfer responsibility to your team where appropriate.
If you already have a clear plan, an assessment is not a prerequisite.
From prototype to production
You’ve validated an idea with a working prototype, perhaps built with AI. I work hands-on to strengthen the application, decide what to build next and establish the smallest team needed to take ownership.
We review product and customer evidence first, then agree scope and fee. You can start without an existing engineering team.
Explore From prototype to production →
How we work together
Clarity. Progress. Ownership.
- Understand the decision
Examine the product, people and evidence. Agree what matters and what needs to change.
- Make useful progress
Set priorities, lead agreed work and review what changes for customers and the business.
- Build lasting ownership
Give your team the knowledge, responsibilities and practices to carry the work forward.
Working together
Recommendations
Karol is one of the best people I have worked with. I have followed his careers for over the past ten years now and I have watched him grow from someone deeply hands-on with the technical side into a leader with real strategic and people responsibility, without losing what made him great in the first place: there’s a real person behind every technical problem. Give him a messy customer issue and he will quickly turn it into a clear, thoughtful product decision. That combination is rare. I trust him completely, and his work speaks for itself.
Ella Fraase Storm
Chief Customer Officer
Karol has a true “whatever it takes” mindset and a level of ownership I’ve rarely seen in my entire career -when he gives you his word, you can consider it done. I’ve seen him grow from CTO to CPTO brilliantly, combining extremely deep technical expertise with a rare ability to understand product and business challenges. If I were starting a company tomorrow or needed someone I truly trusted for advice, Karol would be at the very top of my list, 100%.
Florian Stenström
COO
I had the pleasure of working closely with Karol on several fintech partnerships as Head of Partnerships. He brings a rare combination of strategic clarity and operational rigor, able to translate complex partnership requirements into product decisions the whole team could execute against with confidence. Karol was instrumental in driving these initiatives from concept to real, shipped outcomes, always deeply engaged and exacting in his standards. A CPTO who genuinely partners with the business side, not just supports it.
Maud Blanchard de La Brosse
Head of Partnerships
Who I work with
Founders of growing product companies, from a validated prototype to organisations of roughly 50 people across product and engineering.
You’re open to testing your assumptions and giving me access to the people and work needed to understand the situation. Existing product and engineering leaders are part of the engagement.
My path at Smily has spanned business and product decisions, people management, organisational change, hands-on engineering and acquisition diligence.
Tell me what needs to change
You don’t need to choose an offering first.