Case studies
Five engagements.
Anonymized. Each one names the first problem and what the work became.
01. Healthcare. Women's health practiceWhen the system stops serving the people
A large regional women's health practice. For a long stretch of road in every direction, they were basically it. Patients did not have a Plan B. One practice manager was carrying the whole tech load. Their charting system lived on servers in the building. Same vendor for about twelve years. That relationship had gone soft. A move to the cloud had started and then stalled, with no clear owner inside the practice.
We did not open with a rip-and-replace conversation. First we put out the brush fires so the floor could breathe. Screens were hanging on load. Doctors were closing the software and opening it again just to keep a day moving. That cleanup alone gave the team back roughly a full workday of productivity. About ten hours of doctor time a day, across the practice. At a $500,000 physician salary over 250 working days, that is about $600,000 a year.
Then we sat with the owner and asked the quieter question: is this still the right system, or is it just habit? That opened the door to looking at alternatives side by side, without panic.
About $600,000 a year in doctor time back, across the practice.
02. Healthcare. Founder-led startupOwn the demand before the stack
A founder building a healthcare business from scratch. Ambition was high. So was the urge to own every piece of the stack on day one.
We started with the boring guts. A product catalog he could actually run. Pricing, revenue, and incentive math. A fair market valuation. Plain feedback on the website. We also connected him to someone who runs Meta ads for real, not as a side hobby. And we pushed for monthly recurring revenue early, because that is what shows up in enterprise value and exit multiples.
Where we pushed back was the build-it-all instinct. Standing up his own clinic network and pharmacy network before he owned demand would have slowed time to market. Own the customer first. Work up the supply chain later. We also handed him a full profit architecture and ops folder system already loaded with his numbers, so he was not starting from a blank drive.
Own demand before you build the stack.
03. Software. Founder-ledThree slipped launch dates
A founder who knew his industry cold spent six months with a development team and still could not get his software over the finish line. Three launch dates slipped. The conversations with the vendor stopped being productive. Translating what he saw in his head into what they were building had broken down.
He brought in someone to sit between the vision and the build. Discovery first: what are the moving parts, what do you perceive the problem to be, where are you trying to go, what are your limits, how much time do you have. Then everyone on the same page. A plan with a defined outcome, a realistic timeline, the right people, the resources, and runway. The horse has room to gallop.
Execute while building MVP1, and at the same time strategize the business around the software: how to generate sales, what to charge, what the value proposition is, who the customers are, what the offer is, whether the economics work. Revenue model, cap table, capital raise stack, investor deck, full business plan, all built alongside the product.
The rescue was coordination, not code.
04. Cannabis. Retail and cultivationFrom one sales report to the whole operation
A cannabis operator running retail and cultivation for five or six years in one of the hardest markets in the country brought someone in as fractional CFO and COO. First job: sales reporting his team could actually use. Shelf space, what is moving, where the gaps are, red light green light on performance.
That turned into broader fractional CXO work. A new accounting firm found and negotiated. Commission models built on real sales data. A CRM implementation that had stalled finally moved. Route-loop maps for quarterly store visits. Customer, strain, and SKU masters built so cultivation data, accounting, and shelf data finally talk to each other.
A loyalty program with receipt uploads and points. A website for his trimming company with calendar-based scheduling for cultivators across Michigan. And an online ordering portal being facilitated now.
Start with the number the owner can see, end up running the whole operation.
05. Food manufacturing. Two production linesSeventeen hours a week back
A hundred-million-dollar fruit processor with two production lines brought in a fractional CTO because their ERP had not worked right for five years. Situational assessment first: where are the biggest gaps between the vendor and the operations side. Then the software got to its highest functioning capability across every segment, with the right reporting in the CEO's hands. Two years in, that same person also navigated systems administration and the rest of the corporate tech load.
The AI work started with a four-week hackathon on Claude Enterprise and kept going. Out of it came a daily production planning tool across both lines and packaging, board-level financial reporting with the presentation deck that goes with it, a quality control document management system, and a sugar resource planning tool that replaced four spreadsheets and the PLC interfaces. Production planning now gives back about 17 hours a week: about two hours a week from the planning tool, plus about three hours a day.
Next: point the same tools at a read-only copy of the database and see what else the data already knows.
Seventeen hours back is not the point. Knowing what else the system can see is.
RecommendationsWhat they say
“I had the opportunity to work under Elliot Swift for about a year at Fresh Coast, where he served as Chief Revenue Officer. From day one, Elliot set the tone for what leadership should look like. He was always hands on first one in, last one out and really led by example when it came to getting things done. Elliot played a big role in helping me grow in my position. Whether it was building out reports, one pagers, sales insights, sparkplug, or understanding vendor days and store sell through, he was always willing to take the time to teach and explain. He’s very patient, and he genuinely wants the people around him to understand their role and succeed in it. What stood out most to me was his strategy and organization always on point, always exceeding expectations. He’s also someone who knows how to prioritize people, build collaboration, and take real ownership of outcomes. I can honestly say I grew more into my role and built more confidence during my time working with Elliot as a field representative. I’d definitely recommend him as a leader to any team looking for someone who’s going to show up, lead from the front, and elevate the people around him.”
“I’ve had the pleasure of working with Elliot and the team he built for many years. He’s always remained committed to quality and optimal operations. You could tell just by interacting with him and everyone of his associates that he has this thing figured out. While others in Michigan cut corners to remain successful, He didn’t have to because he already was optimized and prepared. The Industry would be a better place with more people like him.”
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