For · Professional Services
Your product is your time. Your stack should protect it.
Praxis works as a fractional CTO for independent consultants, coaches, advisors, wellness practices, and small agencies: businesses where billable hours and client trust are the whole inventory. Based in Maryville, Illinois, serving the Metro East and St. Louis area, remote anywhere.
Five questions arrive before the call.
How does a fractional CTO help a professional services practice?
The fit, in one paragraphPraxis gives independent consultants, coaches, advisors, wellness practices, and small agencies a fractional CTO: founder Lexi Holder maps how your practice runs, ranks the risks with you, then right-sizes the stack around client work. The discovery hour is free, and focused engagements start around $3,500, sized for a business that bills by the hour.
Where do the billable hours leak?
The pattern repeats across consulting, coaching, advisory, wellness, and agency work. You are excellent at the work; the infrastructure around it grew one urgent purchase at a time.
Each one has a fix sized to a small practice.
Client data scattered everywhere
Notes in the inbox, files across three drives, contracts wherever each client preferred to send them. Every project starts with a search, and nobody could cover for you tomorrow.
Admin hours that should be automated
Scheduling, invoicing, follow-ups, content assembly. Work that fills evenings without ever reaching an invoice, done by the one person whose hours are the product.
Subscription sprawl
Tools bought one launch at a time, overlapping and half-used. You pay monthly for software nobody opens, and no single system holds the truth.
Compliance exposure
When client files include health notes, financials, or HR issues, informal storage becomes a liability you carry on their behalf. It deserves a plan made on purpose.
What does a focused engagement look like?
You see the shape of the work before the call, and the first build fits inside a working practice: phased, priced ahead, and measured.
Five questions, sent ahead
You see the agenda before the call, so you think instead of perform.
A proposal that maps your practice
Your status quo, your goals, and the risks you rated yourself, ranked and priced.
A phased build, with KPIs at baseline
Measured again at three and six months. When a number drifts from the plan, you and Lexi correct course early.
40 hours
to one.
Still weighing whether the role fits your practice? The guide Do you need a fractional CTO? walks you through the decision, and the St. Louis cost guide puts numbers on it.
Your calendar is the case file
Praxis starts with where the hours go: intake, drafting, review, and the follow-up that never gets billed. Lexi designs the stack around that map, so the tools fit the practice.
How should a practice handle client data?
Calmly, and on purpose. Three moves cover most of the exposure:
The exposure has a number. US small businesses hit by cyber attacks lost a median of $8,300 in 2023 (Hiscox Cyber Readiness Report 2023), and a practice holding client information carries that risk on someone else’s behalf. A technology risk assessment puts yours in a ranked list, rated by you, with the mitigation budget aimed at the top.
What does a right-sized stack look like?
One system of record, automation for the repeatable work, and AI matched to real use cases. Picked to fit the practice you run, at the pace you can absorb.
One home for client work
CRM · files · contractsA system of record that matches how a practice sells: relationships and referrals. Every client’s history in one place, findable in seconds.
[ The full role → ]Automation for the repeatable work
scheduling · invoicing · follow-upsThe admin that eats evenings runs on rails: booked, billed, and followed up without you touching it twice.
[ See pricing → ]AI, matched to the use case
drafting · notes · content assemblyPraxis matches AI to the right use case and says so plainly when the answer is skip it. Governance comes with it, so client files stay confidential.
[ AI Advisory → ]The discovery hour is free, and the five-question agenda arrives before the call.
What practice owners ask
How does a fractional CTO help a professional services practice?
Praxis gives independent consultants, coaches, advisors, wellness practices, and small agencies a fractional CTO: founder Lexi Holder maps how your practice runs, ranks the risks with you, then right-sizes the stack around client work. The discovery hour is free, and focused engagements start around $3,500, sized for a business that bills by the hour.
What does it cost for a solo consultant or small agency?
The discovery hour is free, and the five-question agenda arrives before the call. Operational system builds run from $3,500 to $15,000 and beyond by tier, and every proposal is priced before you commit. KPIs are set at baseline so the spend stays accountable.
How should a practice handle confidential client data?
Treat client data as a named risk with an owner. Praxis starts with a risk register, a list of what could go wrong ranked by you, then puts controls where you rated the danger highest: access rules, one governed place for files, and offboarding steps that revoke every credential when an engagement ends.
Can AI cut the admin hours in a service practice?
Sometimes, and Praxis says so plainly when the answer is skip it. AI gets matched to the use case: repeatable admin like drafting, notes, and content assembly responds well, while client judgment stays yours. Every recommendation has to save your time, reduce your risk, or support your growth enough to justify what it costs.
Is a solo practice too small for Praxis?
No. Praxis serves single-owner businesses through companies of about thirty people, and a solo consultant is squarely inside that range. The first engagement is sized to match: one workflow or a focused assessment, then whatever the KPIs justify. The one real requirement is being open to change.
Have a different question? [ Ask Lexi directly → ]
Last updated August 18, 2026