Executive-level mentorship

Develop AI-native product ownership in yourself or a company protégé.

For founders and mid-market B2B software companies. We develop the founder judgement that decides what deserves to be built and the engineering judgement that answers for what ships. What the protégé becomes is the person who runs your build function.

Schedule a 30-minute call clay@sclayturner.com No gatekeepers, no intake form.

The workweekly working sessionsdirect access between them

The commitment$4,000 / monthbilled quarterly in advance · no obligation past the first quarter

Capacitythree to five at a timewhen the roster is full, the next conversation waits

Afterthe kit stays with youinstalled in week one, configured to your situation

Who this is for

The engagement starts by naming the situation you're actually in.

It's the configuration everything else gets built against. Open the one that sounds like yours.

The engagement

Designed to leave capability inside your company — not a retainer behind it.

Every engagement runs on the Viable Coder kit — the same private app sold on its own as the Playbook, at four prices set by who holds the licence. We install it in week one, configure it to your situation, and it stays with you when I leave.

01 · START

Honest capability assessment

Where you are. What's realistic. The technical debt and constraints that shape what comes next.

02 · SETUP

AI-native product roadmap

A clear plan for what you'll build, what tools you'll use, what your customers will feel.

03 · EVERY WEEK

Weekly working sessions

Structured, purposeful, tied directly to your product reality and the person doing the work.

04 · AS NEEDED

Direct access between sessions

Questions don't wait for the calendar. Real decisions get real input when they matter.

05 · NETWORK

Community of builders

Introductions, meetups, and workshops with current and past mentees doing the same hard thing.

06 · HANDOFF

Built to end well

Engagements conclude when ownership has genuinely transferred — and the kit, configured to your situation, stays with you. So does the shop it compiles: your agents and house rules, portable to every repo you work in after I leave.

Participation in the inquiry is optional

I conduct an ongoing public inquiry — measuring the long-term viability of building this way across nine dimensions, on the inquiry side and Data. The subject of that inquiry is me, by default. Mentees who want their own work studied the same way can opt in to the cohort, with granular consent. It is never required. The mentorship engagement does not ask you to share data, change how you work, or participate in any measurement. If you want only the mentorship, you get only the mentorship.

Proof in practice · Louisville, KY

Stonewood Financial owns its own product roadmap.

From customer-support employee to Director of Product Development & Software. They own their own product destiny — not because they hired a vendor, but because someone internal was developed into a real product owner.

On teaching

Clay is a natural teacher. He's able to convey highly technical knowledge in a way that's easy to understand for both the technical and non-technical alike. He connects big, transformative ideas to the day-to-day work we're engaging in.

Becky SwansburgCEO, Stonewood Financial

On the work that came out the other side

The biggest thing I've gotten from working with Clay is confidence backed by real capability. A year ago, I wouldn't have even attempted something like this. Now I've built a full system — integrations, AI workflows, data models — the whole thing. And I did it in a way that actually holds up.

Eddie SmithVP, Product Development & Software, Stonewood Financial

Investment & capacity

Doing this well matters more than doing it often.

Limited to three to five engagements at a time, alongside my active work building AI-native software companies. Engagements run remotely, with periodic in-person time where it makes sense — often in the US, Canada, the UK, and the EU.

Monthly retainer

$4,000 / month

Covers weekly sessions, between-session access, and community.

Billing

Quarterly, in advance

No obligation past the first quarter — continue only if it's working.

Capacity

3–5 at a time

When the roster is full, the next conversation has to wait.

Or · equity arrangement

Equity in lieu of fees

Open to equity compensation for early-stage startups where the work warrants it and the cash equation hasn't caught up yet.

Self-directed · the Playbook

The same kit, from $95, one-time.

The private kit app I install with every mentee — curriculum, exercises, working agents, telemetry, dashboards, and the portable shop your configuration compiles for your own repos. Four prices, set by who holds the licence: $3,900 for a company (five seats and one working session with me), $995 for an individual, $495 for a qualifying startup, $95 for a student.

The kit

Why this is paid — and what is freely given

The corporate engagement is paid because the expertise behind it was earned on what was, for several years, a fairly lonely hill — well before companies had the appetite to invest in it. That learning carries real cost, and real value. Students, recent grads, and people my own kids' ages are a different conversation: the kit has a student price under a hundred dollars, and the conversation itself is not a paid one. Schedule time with me directly — I keep room on the calendar for it. More on that on the About page.

Not a consultant. Not a vendor. Someone in the arena.

S. Clay Turner

Thirty years of building software companies, with multiple exits — the pattern recognition that only comes from doing it repeatedly. Currently technical co-founder of two AI-native startups, Soaring Titan and Maximum Automotive Intelligence. This is not theory; it's what I do every week. The mentorship I offer is the version of the work I'd want from someone who'd actually done the thing — not a deck, not a framework, not a certification. Real builds, real decisions, real ownership transfer.

About Clay LinkedIn

Start where you are.

Same kit, two paths. The difference is access to me, not access to the doctrine. Students and early-career builders: the conversation is free.

See the kit → Talk to Clay →

One list, no drip.

New Resources, Research, Data readings, and kit editions. This list is the only announcement I send.