The questions founders actually ask.

A Fractional CTO is a senior engineering leader who owns your technical direction part-time. In practice I set architecture and the technical roadmap, lead and hire the engineering team, act as the technical counterparty for the board and investors, and stay hands-on in the codebase. It's the same accountability as a full-time CTO — outcomes, not hours — at 1–2 days per week. I work with pre-seed to Series A startups.

It's quoted per engagement after the free discovery call — stage, scope and days a week move it too much for a rate card to be honest. What I can tell you before the call: the review is a fixed fee for a fixed five days, and if it doesn't give you a decision you can act on before your date, you don't pay it.

Where it matters, yes. I'm based on Paul Street in Shoreditch, so London startups get me in the room for workshops, kickoffs, board meetings, and critical hires, and remote the rest of the week. Across the rest of the UK I work remote-first and travel for the moments that need a room. For US clients the engagement runs remote by default and I fly out for the set pieces — kickoff, board meetings, a hiring push.

Yes. My afternoons cover the East Coast working day and I stay online into the West Coast morning, so you get live overlap for standups, architecture calls, and investor prep rather than a once-a-day handover. Mornings UK time are heads-down build time, which is usually when the code your team wakes up to gets written. Contracts and invoicing work fine in USD.

Hire fractional when you need senior technical leadership — architecture, hiring, a technical voice for investors — but a full-time CTO is not the right hire yet. That's most pre-seed to Series A startups. It's ideal when you have 2–15 engineers (or none yet), a founder whose expertise is the market rather than the codebase, or a raise coming up. Once you're post-Series B and need someone in the building full-time, a Fractional CTO is the wrong fit and I'll tell you so.

An advisor gives you a few hours a month of guidance and takes no ownership. A consultant delivers a scoped project and leaves. A Fractional CTO is embedded and accountable: I own technical decisions, run the team, write production code, and report to the board — I don't just advise, I build. That ownership is the difference.

I do — every week. Writing production code keeps the strategy honest: every architectural call I make, I'm also accountable for living with as a contributor on the same codebase. I ship in Java, TypeScript, Node, Python, and Solidity, and pair with the team on the hard problems.

Deliberately few — enough that every client gets real attention rather than someone splitting their calendar eight ways. Whether there is room for you right now is the first thing the discovery call establishes, and I will tell you on the call rather than after it.

Most seats open with The Second Opinion: five working days, a written verdict on the decision you have to make, at a fixed fee quoted after the free discovery call. If the report says someone needs to check the verdict gets done, that is the seat — 1–2 days a week, in your own accounts and repos, on 30-day rolling notice. If it says you don't need one, it says so.

Pre-seed to Series A. Usually 2–15 engineers. If you're post-Series B and need someone full-time, I'll tell you on the discovery call.

Yes, and it works differently. For a larger company the engagement runs as fixed-fee phases with a written acceptance criterion against each one, not a seat and not a monthly retainer. It starts with Phase Zero: three weeks, one named person, and a paper written for your steering group — with a proof on your own data where there is something to prove. The fee is quoted after the first call, once we know what your discretionary approval limit is, and UK and US paper with USD invoicing is ready to go. There is a page for it at /enterprise.

No — there's no rate card on the site, because a number without your scope attached is meaningless to both of us. Stage, scope, and days per week move it enough that quoting blind would either overprice you or set an expectation I'd have to walk back. The discovery call is free, and I quote on the follow-up.

Remote-first and London-based, working with teams wherever they are. The London base is really a timezone: mornings reach Asia and the Gulf, afternoons cover the US East Coast and run into the West Coast morning — so founders and engineers in different halves of the world can both get a working session on the same day. I travel on-site for workshops, kickoffs, board meetings, critical hires, the first week with a new team, and any other moment where being in the room actually matters.

You do. Standard work-for-hire terms in every engagement contract — no ambiguity, no IP carve-outs.

30 days either side. Seats open with the five-day review rather than a tie-in; the notice period starts once the seat does.

Yes. 5–7 day turnaround, fixed fee, written report ready for investment committee.

Yes — I've run full pre-seed fundraising with founders from the inside. Contracts (SeedLegals), financial modelling, investor DD, and deal negotiation. Not as a placement agent or introducer: as the technical co-founder-equivalent who owns the workstream alongside you.