🛠️ Fractional CTO

You’ve got a great product idea. You’ve assembled a top-notch team of developers. Now what? How do you take your product from concept to reality? That’s where I come in — as a fractional CTO. I will help you evaluate your current technology processes, development team performance, and possible improvements. Then we sit down with your team to make sure we deliver a solid product. I will help guide your product development through your hands.

With my experience and expertise, I will ensure your product is developed efficiently and effectively, so you can bring it to market quickly and successfully. So contact me today if you’re ready to take your product from concept to reality. I’m prepared to help you turn your vision into reality.

The Process

Initial Consultation: The first step in our journey together involves a comprehensive discussion about your project. We’ll sit down together to talk about your business goals, the project timeline, and any specific requirements or constraints you might have. This conversation allows me to fully understand what you’re building and align my services with your needs.

Retainer Agreement: After our initial consultation, we’ll move forward with a retainer agreement. This involves a minimum commitment of 10 hours per month. The beauty of this arrangement is that you’re essentially prepaying for blocks of hours that can be used at any time, for any reason, without expiration. This provides you with the flexibility to utilize my services as and when you need them.

Review and Audit: Once onboard, my first task is to conduct a thorough review and audit of all the work done by your development agency, freelancers or in-house team. This involves examining the code, assessing the quality of work, and identifying any potential issues or areas for improvement. We’ll arrange an intensive one-day workshop with the key stakeholders to understand the status quo and what needs to be done to get to the point B.

Corrective Measures: If the audit with development agency reveals any immediate concerns, such as low-value work or misalignment with project requirements, we’ll need to address these promptly. I’ll discuss these issues first with you, and then with the developers to propose corrective measures. All fully transparent, once we agree on the course of action, I’ll ensure these measures are executed effectively.

Communication Management: I become the middle man to make sure your vision is translated properly. To ensure transparency and effective communication, all interactions between you and the development agency (or freelancers) will be facilitated through me. We’ll setup a Slack channel for collaborative work with key stakeholders and I’ll provide you with an email address to include in all communications. This allows me to keep track of all discussions, manage expectations, and resolve any potential misunderstandings.

Cost Savings: One of the key benefits of my role as a Fractional CTO is the potential for significant cost savings. By ensuring that your project is managed efficiently and effectively, I can save you tens of thousands of dollars. This is achieved through a combination of preventing unnecessary work, ensuring high-quality output, and avoiding costly mistakes or double work.

To summarize:

1. We meet, discuss your startup.
2. We agree on a retainer.
3. I do an audit of the status quo.
4. I setup a workshop with key people.
5. I take over all the communication with development.
6. I save you money with development agencies.
7. We build a great product together.

Even though I’m fractional from the business perspective, I’m “full” from the team’s perspective.

Advantages of Fractional CTO

Still not convinced?

A part-time or fractional CTO offers several distinct advantages that make it an attractive option for many businesses, also you. Here are some of the key benefits:

• Cost-effectiveness: Perhaps the most significant advantage of a Fractional CTO is cost-effectiveness. Hiring a full-time CTO can be a significant financial commitment, especially for smaller businesses. With a Fractional CTO, businesses can access high-level technical expertise at a fraction of the cost, paying only for the services they need when they need them.
• Quick Alignment with Business Goals: A Fractional CTO can quickly align with a company’s business goals and provide strategic guidance on how to leverage technology to achieve these goals. This can be particularly beneficial for startups and growing businesses that need to move quickly and adapt to changing market conditions.
• Brings an Outside Perspective: A Fractional CTO brings an outside perspective to the company, offering fresh insights and ideas that internal teams may overlook. This can lead to innovative solutions and strategies that drive business growth and competitive advantage.
• Experience from Working with Many Companies: Fractional CTOs often have experience working with a variety of companies across different industries. This broad experience allows them to bring best practices and lessons learned from other companies to your business, enhancing your technology strategy and operations.
• Quick Address of Information Security Issues: In today’s digital age, information security is a critical concern for businesses. A Fractional CTO can quickly identify potential security risks and implement measures to mitigate these risks, protecting your business from cyber threats.

You can learn more about my practices:

1. How I build remote teams so the stay efficient.
2. Managing technical debt at agile companies.
3. Teaching developers to estimate software projects
4. Handling process debt at big old companies that grew over the years.

The Result

The goal of this cooperation is — a delivered product and a development roadmap for the next 6-12 months. I can support your company as an interim CTO more closely during the first three months and eventually onboard a senior developer with a potential of becoming CTO to ensure you have all the expertise in-house. I will stay on board as part-time CTO until you’re satisfied with the processes and we have reached a proper development pace.

Contact me to discuss the next steps.