Where this actually breaks
Nobody owns the technical direction
The product is built by an agency, an early hire or a CTO who has since left. With no strategy, standards or processes, everyone builds their own way, and the mistakes surface when they are expensive to undo.
Trade-offs nobody weighed
Speed or stability, build or buy, ship now or fix later. In a small company each of these shapes the product for years, and without technical leadership they get decided one at a time, until one of them costs you badly.
AI spending without a plan
The board and customers want AI. With nobody owning the decision, the money goes into pilots that never reach production, or into tools that reach data they shouldn’t.
Due diligence exposes the gaps
An investor or enterprise buyer asks about architecture, security, backups and data residency. Without clear answers, the round slows down or the deal stalls in procurement.
What happens every month
Each month follows the same four steps, and each one ends in something written down. Over time, those notes become your company’s technology record.
How the work actually runs
Most engagements start with a short technology review and continue month by month. The same senior person runs both, from the first conversation onward.
A technology review to start
A fixed-scope review over two to three weeks: where the product, platform, team and costs stand today, and which decisions need attention first. Useful on its own before fundraising or a key hire, and the natural starting point for ongoing work.
Ongoing, month by month
The four monthly steps above, within an agreed number of days, typically two to four a month, plus a direct line for decisions that can't wait. A fixed monthly fee, cancellable on a month's notice, and adjusted as the company grows
What senior-only means here
One person does all of it: reviews the systems, works through the decisions, writes the records and briefs the leadership. Nothing is lost in a handover, and the advice comes from someone who stays accountable for it month after month.
What you hold, month by month
The retainer's value compounds in the documents. After a year, the company has a technology memory iwhich belongs to the company, not to the advisor.
➖Decision register.Every significant technical decision, with the alternatives considered, the reasoning, and what would reopen it.
➖Monthly brief. What was decided, what changed, what is at risk, and what needs a business decision next month.
➖Engineering standards. How the team designs, reviews, tests and ships code, written down and updated as the team grows.
➖Due-diligence pack. Security, architecture and compliance answers, kept ready for investors, enterprise customers and security questionnaires.
➖Technology roadmap. Kept current against what was delivered and what the business needs, with the reason for every change.
➖Health check. Changes in the product, platform, costs and security each month, read from the systems themselves.
➖AI policy and use cases. Ranked AI opportunities, approved tools, and clear rules on what data AI can and cannot use.
➖Vendor and hiring reviews. A written view on vendor proposals and renewals, and on technical candidates when a hire is planned.
Our Way
Much of my work has been modernizing systems that had become expensive to change. Almost every one traced back to a few early decisions: a platform picked because the partner knew it, a rewrite started because a new lead preferred a newer framework, a product bought on the strength of a demo. Each made sense at the time. Nobody was there to ask what it would cost in five years.
That is the job of a fractional CTO in this practice: to be in the room while those decisions are still cheap to change, weigh the trade-offs openly, and write down what was decided and why. A decision with its reasoning on record can be revisited calmly when circumstances change.
It also means saying when you don't need me. Some months the honest brief is short, and the fee stays flat so there is never a reason to invent work. When the company is ready for a full-time CTO, the brief will say so, and I will help with the search
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The cheapest time to get a technology decision right is before anyone has built on it.
Questions people ask before they book
What technology decision is on your desk right now?
Bring it to a 30-minute call: a fundraise, a CTO who has left, an AI plan, or a vendor proposal you are unsure about. You will leave with the trade-offs laid out, whether or not we work together.