The CTO you need, at the rate of one.
For founders without a senior engineer in the room. Hiring, tech selection, due diligence, architecture review — the call you need before you sign that contract. Monthly retainer, fixed scope, no long lock-in.
Sometimes you just need one senior voice on the call.
The first technical hire
Writing the job spec, sitting in on technical interviews, gut-checking offers. The cost of the wrong first engineer is the next 18 months. We've made that hire before, including the bad versions.
Vendor and stack selection
"Should we build it ourselves or buy?" "Is this proposal reasonable?" "Are these monthly costs going to kill us at scale?" Independent technical opinion from someone who has no incentive to sell you anything.
Due diligence — buy- or sell-side
Reading the codebase, talking to the engineers, surfacing the technical debt that the executive summary doesn't mention. Pre-acquisition or pre-fundraise. Discrete, NDA-first, written report.
Architecture and rescue review
When the team says "we need to rewrite everything," they're usually wrong. When they say "it's fine," they're sometimes wrong. We come in for a week, look at the actual system, and tell you which it is.
It's a phone call. That's the worst it can get.
No discovery deck. No 45-minute "qualification" call. 30 minutes, your problem, my opinion. If we're a fit, you'll know by minute 12.