01 / Direction↗
Technical strategy & roadmap
A 12-month technology plan that ties to your commercial reality — not a wish-list, not a Gantt theatre. Re-cut quarterly.
Advisory · Fractional CTO · Monthly cadence
Fractional CTO
Advisory
for companies past the prototype.
Senior systems thinking embedded in your leadership team — on a monthly cadence. We act as the technology executive your company needs but doesn't yet need full-time: setting architecture, calibrating the roadmap, and reporting alongside your founders or board. A part-time CTO with the seniority of a full-time hire.
Best fit for
Post-seed SaaS · scale-ups · operationally complex mid-market
§ 01 / Definition
What is a
Fractional CTO?
A Fractional CTO is a senior technology executive who serves your company on a recurring, part-time basis — typically 16 to 32 hours per month — instead of as a full-time hire. They own technical strategy, system architecture, and engineering decisions at executive level, and report directly to your CEO, founders, or board.
Sometimes called a part-time CTO, outsourced CTO, or CTO-as-a-service, this model gives early- and mid-stage companies access to two decades of architectural judgment for the cost of a senior engineer. What you actually need at this stage is rarely more headcount — it's the right calls, made on time, by someone who has seen the failure modes before.
20.
Years of seniority
Architecture, scaling, hiring, vendor calls.
1.
Named operator
The same person every call. Always.
~55%
Cost vs full-time
Without the hiring risk or six-month ramp.
§ 02 / Scope
Six advisory disciplines.
One named operator.
What a Fractional CTO actually does, week to week. Drawn from twenty years inside SaaS, ERP, and operationally heavy mid-market builds.
02 / Foundations↗
Architecture & systems design
Data model, service boundaries, integration map. Decisions made on paper before they get expensive in code.
03 / Intelligence↗
AI integration roadmap
Where AI moves the operation, where it doesn't, and how to phase it in without burning the team's trust on demo theatre.
04 / People↗
Engineering hiring & team design
Org shape, role specs, technical interviews, comp calibration. We sit on the panel until you don't need us to.
05 / Stack↗
Vendor & tooling selection
Cloud, observability, CRM, data warehouse, AI providers — chosen for fit, contract terms, and exit cost. Vendor-neutral.
06 / Reporting↗
Board & investor reporting
Technology section of board decks, due-diligence support, defensible budget ranges, risk register. In the room when needed.
Note —Code review on request. Hands-on implementation runs as a separate, scoped engagement.
§ 03 / Decision framework
Fractional CTO vs
full-time hire vs
tech consultancy.
Three ways a company gets technology leadership. They cost different amounts and produce different outcomes. Use this to decide before you hire.
Dimension
RecommendedFractional CTO
AlternativeFull-time CTO
AlternativeTech consultancy
Monthly cost (EU mid-market)
€6k–€14k retainer
€15k–€25k loaded
€20k–€60k project-based
Time to value
~2 weeks
3–6 months (search + ramp)
4–8 weeks
Continuity
Same senior, every call
Permanent (until they leave)
Rotating team, account manager
Commitment
3-month rolling
Permanent + severance
Statement-of-work bound
Best when
Pre-Series A → early Series B
50+ engineers, IPO horizon
One-off build or migration
Risk profile
Low — exit any month
High — bad hire = 9-month reset
Medium — scope drift common
In the room with the board
Yes, when needed
Yes, always
Rarely
Rule of thumb —Fractional fits best until you have ~30 engineers or a deeply technical founder needs a permanent peer. Below that, a full-time CTO is overhead you'll regret.
§ 04 / The cadence
A four-week rhythm, repeated.
Every month runs the same arc. Predictable enough that founders stop chasing for status, structured enough that decisions actually compound.
Week 01 — Strategy
Set the agenda
A working session with the founders or CEO. We refresh the rolling 90-day plan, surface what's drifted, and pick the two or three calls that matter this month.
Week 02 — Review
Inside the engineering team
Architecture review, code review on critical paths, 1:1s with the lead engineer or hiring panel. Listening before prescribing.
Week 03 — Decisions
Document & decide
Written architecture decision records, vendor recommendations, hiring scorecards. Async-first — material lands in your inbox, not in another meeting.
Week 04 — Report
Founders & board
A two-page memo: what shipped, what didn't, what to watch, what to fund next. Board-ready when you need it. Plus async availability all month.
advisory.firstninety / decisions
tracked · 12-week window
Decisions documented
14
▲ ADR-grade
Vendor cost
−38%
re-negotiated
Hires made
3
senior · vetted
Week
Decision
Status
W·02
Cut multi-tenant from monolith → service boundary
▸ shipped
W·05
Replace observability stack · 3-vendor → 1
▸ shipped
W·07
Hire Staff Engineer · panel + comp band set
▸ closed
W·09
AI roadmap · 3 phases, board-approved
▸ approved
W·12
Board memo · technology section · DD-ready
handover
↳ Composite of two active advisory engagements. Identifying detail removed.
§ 05 / What changes
What the first 90 days actually look like.
Weeks 1–2Diagnostic · written brief
Weeks 3–6Architecture decisions · vendor trims
Weeks 7–10Hiring panels · team shape
Weeks 11–12Board memo · roadmap signed
"We were three weeks from offering a full-time CTO role. Twelve weeks later we'd shipped more than that hire would have in six months — and we hadn't burnt the cash."
— Founder · Series A SaaS · NDA
Discuss your first 90 days →§ 06 / Signals
When founders
reach for a Fractional CTO.
You probably already know if this fits. These are the patterns we see most often when companies first call us.
S · 01stage signal
Post-seed, pre-Series B
You've shipped a working product, you have paying customers, and the founder-as-CTO model is starting to crack. You don't yet need a full-time exec — but you can't keep flying blind.
S · 02commercial signal
Technical due diligence is coming
A funding round, an acquisition, or a major enterprise customer is about to put your stack under a microscope. You need a senior name in the room and a defensible architecture.
S · 03team signal
A strong team without a senior peer
Your engineers are good, but there's no one with twenty years to push back on them. Decisions either drag, or get made too fast. A Fractional CTO closes that loop.
S · 04decision signal
A specific call you can't unmake
Build vs buy. Cloud vendor lock-in. AI strategy. Re-platform. The wrong call here costs you a year — and that's exactly the kind of decision a senior part-time CTO is built for.
§ 07 / Questions
Frequently asked,
honestly answered.
What founders, CEOs, and boards typically want to know before signing a Fractional CTO retainer.
Q · 01What does a Fractional CTO actually do day-to-day?+
Strategy, architecture decisions, hiring panels, vendor reviews, board reporting, and 1:1 coaching of the lead engineer or first technical hire. Roughly: one strategic working session a week, async availability throughout, written deliverables at month-end. We don't run standups, we don't write tickets, and we don't perform JIRA theatre.
Q · 02When should we hire a Fractional CTO instead of a full-time one?+
Three rough markers: you have fewer than ~30 engineers, your founder is still close enough to the code that a permanent peer would create friction, or you need senior judgment now and can't absorb a six-month executive search. Past those markers, a full-time CTO usually wins. We'll tell you honestly which side of the line you're on — including when it isn't us.
Q · 03How is this different from a tech consultancy or agency?+
A consultancy bills hours and rotates teams. A Fractional CTO is one named senior person, retained monthly, sitting inside your leadership cadence. We sign NDAs, attend board meetings, hold equity-style accountability, and own decisions — not just deliverables.
Q · 04How much does Fractional CTO advisory cost?+
For European mid-market, retainers typically sit in the €6,000–€14,000 per month range, depending on hours and intensity. That's roughly half the loaded cost of a full-time CTO hire (salary, equity, employer contributions, ramp time, hiring risk) — and you get senior judgment in week two rather than month six.
Q · 05Will the Fractional CTO write production code?+
Generally no — and on purpose. The value here is judgment, not throughput. We'll review code on critical paths, prototype an architecture spike when it shortens a decision, and pair with your senior engineers when useful. Hands-on implementation runs as a separately scoped engagement under our build practice.
Q · 06Can the engagement transition into a full-time CTO?+
Yes — and we plan for it. Many of our advisory engagements end the day you hire your first full-time CTO. We sit on the panel, write the role spec, calibrate the comp band, and run the technical interview. Our incentive is to make ourselves redundant on the right timeline.
Q · 07Do you handle NDAs, IP assignment, and board confidentiality?+
Always. Every advisory engagement starts with an NDA, an IP-assignment clause, and explicit board-confidentiality terms. We routinely sit inside privileged conversations — including funding, M&A, and personnel — and operate under the same expectations as any executive.
Q · 08What stages and sectors does this work best for?+
Best fit: post-seed to early Series B SaaS, ERP/CRM-heavy mid-market, fintech, logistics, health-tech, and any operationally complex business where technology is the bottleneck. We work in English, Spanish, and German across the EU and remotely worldwide, primary base Málaga.
Two Q3 advisory seats currently open
Bring a senior CTO
into the room.
A 30-minute conversation with the senior who'd lead the advisory. No deck, no pitch — just a useful call about whether this is the right fit. If it isn't, we'll often know who is.