How it works
What you're actually buying.
"Fractional CTO" is vague on purpose by most people who use it. Here's exactly what working together looks like, with nothing dressed up.
01
A senior operator, not a junior with a title
I'm not learning on your dime. I've made the early-company technical mistakes already — the premature rebuild, the wrong first hire, the architecture that buckles at 10x, the agency that bills for motion instead of progress. You're paying for the scars.
02
Decisions, owned
Most "advisors" tell you what they'd do and leave you to do it. I make the call and stand behind it. Hire this person, not that one. Don't rebuild — refactor these three things. Drop that vendor. Tell the board this.
03
A fixed weekly rhythm
A standing working session each week, plus async access for the decisions that can't wait. You're never sitting on a $50k decision for three days waiting for a meeting.
04
An honest exit
When you've outgrown a fractional CTO and genuinely need a full-time one, I'll tell you — and help you hire them. The goal is to make myself unnecessary at the right moment. A vendor who never says "you don't need me anymore" is a vendor you can't trust.
What I won't do
I'm not a body shop.
I won't take orders to build whatever you point at without telling you when it's wrong — that's the entire value, and it's the part agencies skip. And if you have 12+ engineers and real scale, you need a full-time CTO, not me. I'll say so on the first call rather than take a fee I shouldn't.