Architecture
The prototype path does not match the security, latency, scale, integration, or ownership requirements of production.
Founder-led production AI advisory
Your AI works. Is the system ready for production?
YakData helps teams identify, pressure-test, and resolve production AI risks before they become expensive failures.
Where production AI goes wrong
The failure is often outside the model.
A prototype can look convincing while the operating system around it is still undefined. YakData pressure-tests the decisions that determine whether the system survives real use.
Context and data
The model is blamed for errors that actually begin with missing context, weak retrieval, stale data, or undefined business semantics.
Evaluation
The team has demos and anecdotes, but no acceptance logic that proves the system is good enough for the decision it supports.
AI economics
The system works technically, but model choice, review cost, throughput, or engineering complexity makes the operating economics unattractive.
Operational risk
Failure modes, fallback behavior, monitoring, escalation, and human review are added late or left implicit.
Decision ownership
Everyone can describe the technology, but nobody owns the consequential business decision or the standard for releasing it.
Production judgment
Business consequence first. Technology second.
YakData is led by Stephen McDaniel, an enterprise analytics and software operator whose work has spanned Netflix, Tableau, SAS, Microsoft, and production AI systems.
65% lower model costApproximately 98% of top-model performance retained after production optimization.
Enterprise operatorLeadership and product work across analytics, software, data, and business decision systems.
Faculty and invited lecturerINFORMS, American Marketing Association, TDWI, Princeton, Brown, UW, NC State, and University of Chicago.
Stephen looks at what the business needs and works back to the technology. This insight is invaluable for improving ROI and driving quick wins from the analytical investment.John LodmellCFO, Nordstrom Credit Services
How YakData engages
Start with the smallest engagement that can resolve the decision.
The goal is not to sell more consulting. It is to apply enough experienced judgment to determine what is wrong, what evidence is missing, and what level of ownership is actually required.
Primary entry point$2,500
Private Analysis Review
For one consequential AI system question that needs independent diagnosis before the team commits more time, capital, or organizational credibility.
- Two 30-minute private sessions
- Pressure-test assumptions, evidence, risk, and alternatives
- Written findings and decision record
When the Review finds a concentrated problem$7,500
Private Working Day
A concentrated problem-solving engagement for a decision that needs deeper joint work, not eight hours of generic consulting.
- Focused on one defined system problem
- Architecture, evaluation, economics, or decision work
- Usually follows a Private Review
Offered when a Working Day is the right next step.
Deeper ownershipFrom $38,000
Private Engagements
For architecture, production readiness, economics, evaluation, system definition, or consequential AI decisions that require sustained founder-led ownership.
- Advisory or delivery ownership
- System-level problem definition and resolution
- Limited concurrent capacity
Selected Field Notes
See the decisions, evidence, and tradeoffs.
YakData content is not a separate learning product. It shows how production AI problems are diagnosed, tested, and resolved.
Production system case
77 Rules: Make the AI earn the right to be trusted.
See how evidence, explicit rules, scoring, review, and ownership were separated so a probabilistic system could support a consequential operating decision.
Open the production case
AI economics
The 8X Engineer
A higher weekly rate can still produce a much cheaper project when role consolidation, AI leverage, and loop compression change the delivery system.
Open the Field Note and calculatorBring the system, not a sales pitch
What is the consequential AI decision your team is carrying right now?
Bring the architecture question, economics, evaluation problem, production risk, or unresolved system decision. YakData will determine whether a conversation, a focused Review, or deeper ownership makes sense.
Discuss Your AI System
Start With a Private Review
One system. One consequential decision. Start with the smallest engagement that can resolve it.