Startup Labs

Service · Leadership

A CTO for your company, without the CTO overhead.

Fractional CTO is not hourly consulting. It is ongoing senior leadership: your roadmap, architecture, delivery, and engineering quality, run by a CTO who is accountable for outcomes and available on a schedule that matches your company's stage.

One accountable leader

A vetted senior team behind them

  • Strategic alignment with your business goals
  • Architecture decisions you can defend to investors
  • Delivery on a cadence you can forecast
  • A defined path to a permanent hire

What you get

Six jobs stop being yours.

These are the decisions that usually fall on founders when there is no CTO. They become our job.

Architecture & roadmap

Systems designed and sequenced around the business, not around whoever built them.

Delivery management

Priorities, owners, and milestones with weekly reporting you can actually rely on.

Engineering quality

Code review, testing, and standards enforced so stability isn't a recurring surprise.

Team & hiring

Vetted fractional engineers when you need them, and senior input on every hire.

Vendors & budget

An independent view of external spend, so you pay for outcomes, not promises.

Board-ready reporting

Technical status translated into the language your investors and leadership understand.

Who it is for

A strong fit starts with a real decision to own.

We are most useful when leadership, delivery, or system risk needs sustained attention. If you need only a small fixed task, a full-time CTO already owns the mandate, or no internal decision-maker can participate, this model may not be the right fit.

The CTO gap

Fill a leadership gap

See the approach →

Legacy and aging systems

Modernize legacy systems

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Failed builds and recovery

Recover a failed build

See the approach →

First paid step

A diagnostic before a long-term commitment.

If the discovery call shows a deeper review would help, we can propose a bounded technical diagnostic. Its price, duration, access needs, and outputs are agreed before it starts. You can use the findings whether or not we continue together.

What a diagnostic may cover

  • Interviews and review of architecture, delivery, and business priorities.
  • Written findings with an ordered list of risks and trade-offs.
  • A proposed first 90-day plan with owners, sequencing, and decision points.
  • A review meeting to walk through options and open questions.

The exact deliverables depend on the systems and questions in scope, not a one-size-fits-all checklist.

Engagement options

Choose the level of leadership you actually need.

The discovery call is free. A deeper diagnostic and any ongoing engagement are separately scoped in a written proposal, with fee, cadence, deliverables, and boundaries confirmed before work starts.

Embedded leadership

Leadership + delivery

For a company that needs an accountable CTO and engineering capacity. Weekly priorities, decision access, and team size are agreed during discovery and documented in the proposal.

Advisory leadership

In-house team

For teams with engineers who need senior direction. Set a regular decision cadence, define which architecture and roadmap decisions are in scope, and agree how urgent issues are handled.

Interim leadership

Transition

For a leadership vacancy or transition. Define the interim mandate, decision rights, reporting cadence, and handoff or permanent-hire plan before work begins.

What your proposal will make explicit

  • Your CTO's expected availability and decision-making access
  • Meeting and reporting cadence, including escalation arrangements
  • What engineering capacity is included and what is additional
  • Scope, deliverables, term, currency, fees, and change process

We do not publish a universal fee: the level of leadership and delivery capacity differs by company. Ask for a written scope and price before committing.

Questions

Fractional CTO, plainly explained.

Start here

Fastest way to tell if a fractional CTO fits.

Start with a free discovery call. We will discuss fit and next steps, then scope any deeper assessment or ongoing work in writing before you commit.

No pitch decks. No obligations. Usually one working session.