Someone who owns the technical decisions, a few days a month.
You do not need a full-time CTO yet. You do need someone experienced who is answerable for the technology choices your company is making right now.
- Pre-seed to Series A
- Flexible retainer
- Remote, from London
- What gets built, and what does not
- Whether the work is any good
- Which suppliers to trust
- Who to hire, and when
- Whether it holds up at real volume
The decisions you should not be making alone
Not extra hands to write code. Judgment on the calls that are expensive to get wrong, and someone answerable for them afterwards.
Direction
What to build first and what to leave out, how the product should be put together, and whether today's choices still work when the business changes. The scope is set by what you are trying to learn, not by a feature list.
Oversight of the work
An independent read on whether your developers or agency are doing good work, whether a milestone is genuinely done, and whether an estimate is reasonable. You get an honest answer from someone who is not the one building it.
Suppliers and tools
Choosing between building, buying, and assembling what already exists, reviewing contracts and quotes before you sign, and making sure you own what you paid for.
Team
When to make your first engineering hire, how to run a process that reveals judgment rather than trivia, and how to keep the work accountable once someone is in the seat.
Light to start, easy to change
An ongoing partnership rather than a one-off report, sized to what you actually need right now.
A free 30-minute call
We talk through where you are and the decisions in front of you. If a fractional CTO is not what you need, I will tell you that on the call.
A scope that fits
A flexible monthly retainer, typically a few days a month, matched to the decisions actually coming up. It moves up or down as things change.
We work
I stay close enough to steer the calls that matter, review the work honestly, and be there when something needs deciding. You are never deciding alone.
Priced on the work, not on hours logged
A monthly retainer, sized to the days you need. It is a fraction of a full-time technology leader's salary, because it is a fraction of the week.
- Agreed up front. You know the number and the scope before we start.
- No lock-in. Month to month. If it stops being worth it, you stop.
- Judged on decisions, not activity. The point is the calls that get made well and the mistakes that do not happen.
When this is not what you need
Most pages like this one will tell you the answer is always yes. It is not.
You have not spoken to enough customers yet. Get the evidence first, the technology can wait.
You need people to write code. That is a developer or an agency, not this.
You need deep expertise in one narrow area. Bring in that specialist instead.
You already have a technical leader you trust. Adding a second senior voice usually adds confusion.
Let's find out what your product actually needs
Book a free 30-minute call. We'll talk through where you are, what to build next, and whether working together makes sense. No pressure, no jargon.