Terms of Use

Accepting these terms

By using this website or signing in to the client workspace operated by Future State Advisors, LLC (“Future State Advisors”, “we”, “us”), you agree to these terms. If you are agreeing on behalf of a company, you confirm you have the authority to bind it.

How these sit alongside an engagement agreement

Our advisory work is provided under a separate signed engagement agreement covering scope, fees, cadence, and confidentiality. Where these terms and that agreement disagree, the engagement agreement wins.

These terms exist to cover the things the engagement agreement does not: use of this website, access to the workspace, and the conduct expected of the people who sign in to it.

What the website is, and is not

Everything published on this site, including the assessment domain pages, industry pages, and articles, is general information about how we work. It is not advice about your situation, and nothing on it creates an advisory relationship. Do not make a technology, security, insurance, legal, or financial decision on the strength of a web page.

Accounts and access

• Workspace access is granted to named individuals. Credentials are not to be shared, and each person who needs access should have their own.
• You are responsible for what happens under your account, and for telling us promptly if you think it has been compromised.
• You are responsible for removing people who leave your organisation. Tell us and we will revoke access the same working day.
• We may suspend an account immediately where we believe it is being used to harm the service or another client.

What we rely on you for

Our analysis is only as good as what we are given. By providing material to us you confirm that you are entitled to share it, that sharing it does not breach an agreement with somebody else, and that it is accurate as far as you know.

Please do not upload personal information that the work does not need. In particular, do not put health records, payment card numbers, or government identity numbers into the workspace. If an engagement genuinely requires that kind of material, tell us first and we will agree how to handle it.

Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• Attempt to access another client's workspace or any data you have not been granted.
• Probe, scan, or test the security of the service without our written permission.
• Upload malware, or content that is unlawful or infringes somebody else's rights.
• Scrape, resell, or republish the contents of the site or the workspace.
• Use the service to build a competing product, or to train a machine learning model on our materials.

Fees

• The Technology Leadership Assessment is a fixed fee, published on the pricing page, payable as set out in the engagement agreement.
• Retainers are a fixed monthly fee quoted after the introductory call and held for the term. Retainers run month to month after an initial 90-day term.
• Work outside a retainer is scoped and quoted before it starts.
• Fees exclude taxes and any expenses agreed in advance. Invoices are due on the terms stated on them.
• Where a portion of the assessment fee is credited against a retainer, the amount and conditions are set out in the engagement agreement rather than here.

Who owns what

Your material stays yours. Everything you provide to us, and the records built from it in your workspace, belong to you. You can export them at any time.

Deliverables become yours on payment. Once the relevant fees are paid, you own the reports, registers, roadmaps, and analyses we produce for you, and you may use them however you like inside your organisation, including handing them to another provider.

Our methods stay ours. The assessment instrument, the scoring model, the templates, the software, and the general knowledge and experience we bring remain our property. Nothing in an engagement transfers them, and we may use the skills and insights gained to serve other clients, subject always to our confidentiality obligations.

Confidentiality

We treat what we learn about your business as confidential and will not disclose it except to the people working on your engagement, to the providers listed in our privacy policy, or where the law requires it. We expect the same of you in respect of our proprietary materials. This obligation continues after the engagement ends.

We may describe the work in anonymised terms, without naming you or anything that would identify you, unless you agree otherwise in writing.

The nature of our advice

We provide technology leadership and advice. We are not a law firm, an insurance broker, an accountancy practice, or a security auditor, and nothing we produce is legal advice, an insurance recommendation, an accounting opinion, or a formal audit or certification.

Where we read an insurance policy against a risk register, we are telling you what the document appears to say and where the gaps look to be. Coverage decisions rest with your insurer and your broker. Where we describe a compliance obligation, you should confirm the position with counsel before relying on it.

Decisions remain yours. We will give you our honest recommendation, including “do nothing” where that is the right answer, but we do not make or execute decisions on your behalf unless the engagement agreement says otherwise.

Third-party services

The site links to third-party services, including our scheduling and payment providers. We do not control them and are not responsible for their content or their practices. Their own terms and privacy policies apply when you use them.

Availability

We aim to keep the workspace available and will give notice of planned maintenance where we can. We do not guarantee uninterrupted availability, and the workspace is a record of our work rather than a system your operations depend on. Do not use it as your only copy of anything.

Warranties

We will perform our services with reasonable skill and care, consistent with the standards of an experienced technology executive.

Beyond that, and to the fullest extent the law allows, the website and the workspace are provided as they are, without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including any implied warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. We do not warrant that any particular business outcome, saving, or score will result from our advice.

Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, neither party is liable to the other for indirect, incidental, special, or consequential loss, or for lost profits, lost revenue, or lost data, however caused.

Our total liability arising out of or relating to the services is limited to the fees you paid us in the twelve months before the event giving rise to the claim.

Nothing here limits liability for fraud, for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be limited.

Indemnity

You agree to indemnify us against claims arising from material you provided that you were not entitled to share, and from your use of the service in breach of these terms.

Ending the relationship

You may stop using the site at any time. Engagement termination is governed by the engagement agreement. On termination we will, on request, provide an export of your workspace and then delete or retain the data in line with our privacy policy.

We may suspend or terminate access for a material breach of these terms, for non-payment after notice, or where continuing would put us in breach of a legal or professional obligation.

Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of Michigan, without regard to conflict of law rules, and the courts of Michigan have exclusive jurisdiction. Before starting proceedings, both sides agree to raise the issue in writing and to spend thirty days trying to resolve it, because most disagreements are cheaper to fix in a conversation.

Changes

We may update these terms and will move the effective date at the top when we do. Material changes affecting active clients will be notified directly. Continuing to use the service after a change means you accept it.

Contact

Future State Advisors, LLC, 5799 S. Main Street #1051, Clarkston, MI 48347. Questions about these terms: legal@futurestateadvisors.com.