FAQ
These are the questions we are asked most often by founders, operators, and investors before they commission a first engagement. If your question is not covered here, write to contact@purechainadvisory.com and we will answer it directly.
Who is this firm for?
Pure Chain Advisory works with founders, operators, and investors at small and mid-sized brands in the wellness, supplement, and life-science adjacent space. Our typical client is making a decision about a vendor, a regulatory exposure, an acquisition, or a category position, and wants an independent senior advisor to walk through it on the record before they commit. We are not a fit for retail consumers, and we do not advise individuals on personal health questions.
What is the smallest engagement you will take?
Below the engagement-letter threshold we run a published rate card for desk items, starting at $40 for a single-source document review and stepping through $80 for a fifteen-minute founder consult, $120 for a one-question written response, $180 for a two-question briefing, and $250 for a three-page short brief. Single-document and public-source items do not require an NDA. Above the rate card, our smallest fixed-fee engagement under a written engagement letter is a $450 research note covering one tightly scoped question with three to ten cited sources and a five to fifteen page written document. Discovery calls of thirty minutes are free of charge and exist to determine whether desk-card work, an engagement, or no relationship at all is the right next step.
How long does an engagement take?
A research note typically runs three to ten business days from signed engagement letter to delivered document. A diligence engagement runs two to four weeks. A retainer relationship is quarterly, renewable. Timelines are committed in writing in the engagement letter and we provide weekly status updates on any engagement of two weeks or longer.
What is included in the fee?
Every fixed-fee engagement includes the intake call, the NDA, the engagement letter, the research and direct-verification work, the written deliverable, a walkthrough call, and a two-week clarification window after delivery. Material clarifications during that window are issued as a written addendum at no additional fee. The fee is fixed at engagement letter — there are no hourly overruns and no surprise invoices.
Do you work on retainer for vendors or manufacturers?
We do not accept retainers from vendors, manufacturers, or any party that is likely to appear as a named entity in a future deliverable for a buy-side client. Our independence is a structural feature of the practice, not a marketing claim. Accepting paid relationships on the supply side would compromise the value of our written work for buyers, so we decline those engagements.
How do you handle conflicts of interest?
Conflicts identified at intake are disclosed in writing in the engagement letter before the client signs. Conflicts discovered mid-engagement are disclosed within one business day of discovery, and the client decides whether to proceed, reassign, or terminate with a pro-rated refund. We do not accept success fees, equity arrangements, or referral fees from any party that may be named in a deliverable.
Are deliverables confidential?
Yes. Every engagement begins with a mutual non-disclosure agreement executed before any substantive conversation. The deliverable is the property of the client, and we do not share, republish, or reuse the contents of a client deliverable. We retain the right to discuss the existence of an engagement only with the client's written permission. Internal records are kept under reasonable safeguards described in our privacy policy.
Can you give legal opinions?
No. We are not a law firm and we do not issue legal opinions, regulatory filings, or formal regulatory submissions. We help clients frame the question, read the public regulatory landscape, and understand what licensed counsel will need from them. When a binding legal opinion is required, we recommend qualified counsel and we are happy to brief them on our findings.
Do you provide expert-witness testimony?
On a case-by-case basis and only on engagements where we have not previously advised either party. Expert-witness work is contracted separately from advisory engagements and is governed by a different fee structure. If you are considering retaining us for testimony, please raise it at the discovery call so we can evaluate conflicts before any privileged information is exchanged.
What if I disagree with your findings?
Disagreement is welcome and explicitly invited during the two-week clarification window. If you believe a finding rests on an incomplete source, an error of fact, or a piece of evidence we did not see, send it to us in writing and we will revisit. If a clarification materially changes a finding, we issue a written addendum at no additional fee. We do not, however, edit a finding to a different conclusion in the absence of new evidence — that would compromise the value of the deliverable for everyone who might read it.
Can I share the deliverable with my counsel, investors, or board?
Yes. Diligence packages and retainer briefs are written to be shareable with named counsel, named investors, and named board members under your existing confidentiality arrangements with those parties. We ask that the deliverable not be republished, posted publicly, or shared with parties named in the document itself without our written consent.
What is your refund policy?
If we discover at any point during an engagement that we cannot complete the work — because of a conflict, because the question turns out not to be answerable from available sources, or for any other reason of our own — we issue a pro-rated refund based on work completed at the time of termination. If the client elects to terminate after work has begun for reasons other than a conflict on our side, the engagement letter governs; we typically refund the unearned portion less a reasonable cost-of-work charge. Either way, the refund position is stated in writing in the engagement letter before any work begins.
How are payments handled?
Desk-item rate-card work is invoiced once at the listed item price, payable on receipt. Fixed-fee engagements under an engagement letter are invoiced fifty percent at engagement letter signing and fifty percent on delivery. Retainer engagements are invoiced quarterly in advance. We accept card, ACH, and wire. All invoices are issued by Pure Chain Supplements LLC, dba Pure Chain Advisory, with a US business EIN on the invoice for client records. We do not accept cryptocurrency or third-party escrow.
Do you operate outside the United States?
Our practice is US-based and the bulk of our work concerns US regulatory questions. We will accept engagements involving non-US suppliers, non-US regulators, or non-US acquisition targets when the question is one we can credibly answer from available sources, and we are explicit in the engagement letter about the boundary of our competence on any non-US matter. We do not represent ourselves as licensed regulatory counsel in any jurisdiction.
How do I know your sources are real?
Every source cited in a deliverable is verifiable by a third party. Public-record sources include the locator information you would need to retrieve them yourself. Direct-verification entries record the date of contact, the name and role of the responding person where available, and the verbatim wording of the response. If a third-party reviewer asks us to substantiate a citation, we will, with the underlying client's permission.
Can I commission an engagement anonymously?
We require a verifiable counterparty on the engagement letter — a named individual or entity that will be on the invoice and the NDA. We can keep the underlying purpose of the work confidential and we will not disclose the existence of the engagement. We will not, however, engage with a fully anonymous client, because doing so would prevent us from running our standard conflicts review and would expose both sides to unnecessary risk.
What happens if you find something concerning mid-engagement?
If during the work we discover information that materially changes the answer to the client's question — including findings that may be unwelcome — we surface it to the client in writing as soon as it is verified, rather than waiting for the final deliverable. Clients hire us for an honest read; surfacing concerning findings early is the entire point. The final deliverable then records both the finding and the moment it was raised.
How do you stay independent?
Three structural features. First, we do not accept paid relationships from parties that may be named in client deliverables. Second, every engagement is fixed-fee at signing, so there is no incentive to extend or expand the work. Third, we publish a written conflicts position in every engagement letter and surface conflicts in writing if they emerge mid-engagement. Independence is enforced by the structure of the engagement, not by good intentions.
Still have a question?
Discovery calls of thirty minutes are no fee and no obligation. Schedule a call or write to contact@purechainadvisory.com.