Technical Consulting
Make the right technical decisions from day one. We provide CTO-level guidance for startups that can't afford a full-time technical leader yet—architecture reviews, technology selection, team building, and strategic technical planning.
Strategic Technical Guidance
Architecture Review
Evaluate your current or planned architecture. Identify bottlenecks, scalability issues, and technical debt before they become expensive problems.
Technology Selection
Choose the right stack for your product and team. Database decisions, framework choices, cloud providers—get unbiased recommendations based on your constraints.
Scalability Planning
Design systems that scale from 100 to 100 million users. Prevent the "rewrite everything" crisis that kills startups at 10x growth.
Security Strategy
Build security into your architecture from the start. Compliance planning (SOC 2, GDPR), threat modeling, and security best practices that don't slow you down.
Team Building
Hiring roadmaps, interview processes, technical assessments, and team structure. Build an engineering team that can execute your vision.
Technical Due Diligence
For investors evaluating startups or acquirers doing M&A. Independent technical assessment of codebase quality, team capability, and scalability.
When Startups Need Technical Consulting
Before Writing Code
Non-technical founders choosing their first stack. Avoid expensive mistakes before they're committed to code. Technology decisions that impress investors and attract senior engineers instead of scaring them away.
Scaling Past the Prototype
Your MVP works but won't scale. Time to architect properly before technical debt kills velocity. Plan for 10x user growth, hire your first engineers, establish development processes that actually work.
Not Ready for Full-Time Yet
Can't afford or don't need a $300k+ CTO yet, but need senior technical guidance. Part-time strategic advice while you build the team that will eventually have a full-time technical leader.
Things Are Broken
App can't handle current users. Bugs piling up faster than fixes. Engineers quitting over bad codebase. Need independent assessment of what's wrong and how to fix it without rebuilding from scratch.
Flexible Engagement Models
One-Time Assessment
Fixed-scope engagements for specific technical questions or decisions.
- Architecture review
- Technology selection
- Security audit
- Technical due diligence
- 2-4 week timeframe
- Detailed written report
Fractional CTO
Ongoing strategic guidance as your part-time technical advisor and leader.
- 10-20 hours per month
- Weekly strategy calls
- Architecture decisions
- Team building support
- Code review oversight
- Investor/board updates
Advisory Retainer
Access to senior technical expertise whenever you need it, no ongoing commitment.
- Prepaid hour blocks
- Email/Slack access
- Emergency consultation
- Technology questions
- Interview support
- No monthly minimum
Where We Add the Most Value
System Architecture
Design systems that are simple, scalable, and maintainable. Avoid over-engineering while planning for growth.
- Microservices vs monolith decisions
- Database architecture and sharding strategies
- Caching layers and CDN configuration
- API design and versioning
- Message queues and async processing
- Load balancing and redundancy
Cloud Infrastructure
Choose the right cloud provider and services. Optimize for cost, performance, and developer productivity.
- AWS vs GCP vs Azure selection
- Serverless vs container strategies
- Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, CloudFormation)
- Cost optimization and FinOps
- Multi-region deployment planning
- Disaster recovery and backups
Development Velocity
Set up processes and tooling that help teams ship faster without breaking things.
- CI/CD pipeline architecture
- Testing strategy and coverage goals
- Code review processes
- Development environment setup
- Feature flag and deployment strategies
- Engineering metrics and KPIs
Hiring & Team Structure
Build engineering teams that can execute. From job descriptions to interview processes to org design.
- Technical hiring roadmaps
- Interview question design
- Take-home project creation
- Engineering level definitions
- Team structure for different stages
- Compensation benchmarking
Concrete Deliverables, Not Just Advice
Architecture Diagrams
Visual system design with data flows, integrations, and infrastructure
Technical Reports
Detailed written analysis with recommendations and implementation roadmap
Technology Roadmap
6-18 month technical plan aligned with business goals and hiring
Decision Documents
Written rationale for major technical choices to share with team and investors
Hiring Plans
Role definitions, interview guides, and assessment criteria for technical hires
Performance Optimization
Specific bottlenecks identified with concrete fixes and expected impact
Security Checklist
Prioritized security improvements with effort estimates and risk levels
Cost Analysis
Infrastructure cost breakdown with optimization opportunities
The ROI of Getting It Right Early
Bad technical decisions compound over time. Choose the wrong database, and you're migrating at the worst possible moment. Skip security early, and you're scrambling during a sales cycle. The cost of fixing mistakes later is 10-100x higher than preventing them now.
Avoid Expensive Rewrites
Most startups rewrite their entire codebase once. Good architecture prevents the "we have to rebuild everything to scale" crisis that costs 6-12 months and millions of dollars.
Impress Technical Investors
VCs ask hard technical questions during diligence. Sound architecture decisions signal competence. Technical debt and poor choices raise red flags that kill deals.
Attract Senior Engineers
Great engineers won't join companies with terrible tech stacks. Good technical foundations help you recruit the talent you need to execute your vision.
Ship Features Faster
Clean architecture and good processes mean faster development velocity. The difference between shipping weekly vs quarterly is often architectural, not talent.
Sleep Better at Night
Know your systems can handle 10x growth. Security is handled. Backups work. Monitoring catches issues. Independent validation that you're not building on quicksand.
Cheaper Than a Bad CTO
One wrong technical leader hire costs $300k+ salary plus 12 months of bad decisions. Fractional CTO guidance for $5-10k/month prevents expensive hiring mistakes.
What Technical Question Keeps You Up at Night?
Book a free 30-minute consultation. We'll listen to your situation, ask clarifying questions, and give you an honest assessment of whether we can help—no sales pitch, no obligation.