“To study and not think is a waste. To think and not study is dangerous” — Confucius
It’s no secret that I love working with startups, and my number #1 request from founders is to help find developers or CTOs.
I’ve been working on scaling to help more people and over the last couple of weeks have started to take bookings as a fractional CTO.
I meet many non-technical founders giving away more equity than makes sense (and to the wrong people) so that they have some “confidence” when building a tech product.
I think this is where the value of getting someone part-time early on so that you aren’t forced into taking on a lousy cofounder or parting with sweet, sweet equity long term.
What is a Fractional CTO?
Fractional CTOs (Chief Technology Officers) usually work for startups and small businesses as independent contractors, usually providing technical guidance to the company.
The benefits of hiring a Fractional CTO are many, but the most important ones include being able to access high-level technical expertise without having full-time commitment or cost. The scaling also works in your favour; you can hire when things seem busy at work and then scale back if necessary.
Where can a Fractional CTO Help?
A Fractional CTOs role is not just limited to technology; they also can get involved in hiring, product strategy, budgets/costs etc to give confidence to a leadership team that isn’t as experienced in the domain.
There is a wide variety of areas that CTOs can help, and each comes uniquely with their own background and expertise.
So it’s worth quizzing to see if the expertise overlaps your needs.
For instance, if you hire a Fractional CTO with no Machine Learning architecture experience for your hot new Artificial Intelligence designs, you might be set up for some disappointment.
Typical Scope of a Fractional CTO:
Roadmaps
Software Architecture
Day-to-day delivery management
Auditing outsourced projects/vendors
Filling the void of a sudden departure of a senior technical leader
Fundraising and creating supporting documents
Hiring/firing
What are the usual rates for a Fractional CTO?
Ah yes, the money!
A subject I’ve seen people beat around the bush a lot (I discovered this when even trying to validate my own pricing).
Depending on the experience levels, I’ve seen a typical range of about €150 — €300(US$157.38-US$314.73) per hour.
I’ve also seen some outliers, where particularly intense technical design work can cost up to €1000 per hour.
Also worth noting, this is usually dependent on how many hours per month you request and how many months you book.
