"What do you do as a Fractional CTO?

What problems do you help your clients with?"

Use Cases of a Fractional CTO

• Transition from outsourcing to an in-house team
• Make key tech decisions
• Define scalable hiring processes
• Set deterministic software development processes
• Find product-market-fit

Here are my top 5 most common use cases.

Before diving in, I must say that like most questions in life, "it depends".

As I wrote in my recent thread, different companies have different challenges when they hire me as a Fractional CTO.

5 Things Fractional CTOs Do

I've worked as a Fractional CTO for a few years now with around 15 clients in different types of capacity and over a range of industries and tech stacks.

My 5 most common use cases so far have been:

1. Transition From Outsourcing to an In-house Team

Many startups start scrappy with a low budget. They simply hire a dev shop or a couple of freelancers to build their MVP.

Once they get traction & funding, a key goal is to build internal capabilities. I help them hire and transition.

2. Make Key Tech Decisions

I'm often asked to decide on the tech stack, select tech vendors, coordinate key integrations, ramp up compliance, and define underlying processes.

As companies get market traction, they want to professionalize their tech operations.

3. Define Scalable Hiring Processes

When companies enter the hyper-growth phase, many realize they lack proper HR or interview processes. Some don't have anyone in the team who has gone through it.

I help them define the roles to hire, where to source, and how to interview and onboard.

4. Set Deterministic Software Development Processes

Many Founders reach out to me in despair:

"For each feature, we introduce 2 new bugs", or "It takes ages to ship a new feature", etc.

I introduce things like CI/CD, testing processes, "defensive" deployments, and overall hygiene.

5. Find Product-Market-Fit

For very early stage startups, I take a more Product Management stance, as they need to test hypotheses and find scalable revenue streams.

Some have revenue, but not repeatable. I help them use technology to iterate fast toward finding PMF.

Interestingly, after a few years, I've found my optimal "client persona".

These are the clients where my profile and experience can create the highest impact:

• Early stage startup
• With solid funding (Seed or Series A)
• Without full time CTO
• In the Fintech vertical

If you'd like to learn more about Fractional CTOs, you can have a look at this thread I wrote recently.

If you feel I could be helpful to your company, my DMs are open. I love to bounce ideas with entrepreneurs.

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