Fractional CTO
Fractional CTO Services
Executive-level technical leadership without the full-time commitment. Perfect for startups that need strategic guidance and hands-on expertise.
What is a Fractional CTO?
A Fractional CTO provides the strategic technology leadership your company needs without the cost of a full-time executive. You get C-level expertise on a part-time basis - typically 1-3 days per week.
It's not just consulting. A Fractional CTO becomes a member of your leadership team, attends board meetings, makes hiring decisions, and takes genuine ownership of your technical direction.
It's the best of both worlds: senior leadership when you need it, with the flexibility to scale as you grow.
Strategic Leadership
Setting technical direction, making architecture decisions, and aligning technology with business goals.
Team Building
Hiring engineers, establishing engineering culture, and mentoring junior developers into senior ones.
Investor Relations
Technical due diligence, board presentations, and building investor confidence in your tech.
What a Fractional CTO handles
Technical Strategy
Defining the technology roadmap, evaluating build-vs-buy decisions, and ensuring tech choices support business objectives.
Engineering Hiring
Writing job specs, screening candidates, conducting technical interviews, and building high-performing teams.
Architecture Oversight
Reviewing system design, ensuring scalability, and guiding the team toward maintainable, secure solutions.
Process & Delivery
Establishing engineering processes, sprint planning, code review standards, and deployment workflows.
Vendor Management
Evaluating third-party services, negotiating contracts, and managing technical partnerships.
Security & Compliance
Ensuring data protection, managing compliance requirements, and implementing security best practices.
Our hybrid approach
We often combine Fractional CTO services with an equity component - reduced rates in exchange for ownership stake. This aligns our incentives and reduces your cash burn.
Reduced day rate compared to full consultancy pricing
Typical equity stake with standard 4-year vesting
We're invested in your long-term success, not just billing hours
Fractional CTO vs alternatives
| Fractional CTO | Full-Time CTO | Consultants | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Strategic ownership | |||
| Cost efficient | |||
| Flexible commitment | |||
| Executive presence | |||
| Startup experience |
Need technical leadership?
Whether you're preparing for a funding round, scaling your team, or navigating complex technical decisions - let's talk about how a Fractional CTO could help.
Leadership Insights
Why We Stopped Being an Agency
After 15 years of building products for clients, we made a fundamental shift. Here's what we learned and why we now only partner with founders on an equity or hybrid basis.
Scaling to 100 Million Users: What We Learned
When you're handling billions of messages for millions of users, you learn things that tutorials don't teach. Here are the lessons that cost us sleep so they don't have to cost you.
Equity vs Consultancy: How We Structure Startup Partnerships
Should you pay for development or trade equity? After dozens of partnerships, here's how we think about it - and what works best in different situations.