Service · Software developmentSoftware development
A part-time CTO who explains the technical choices before you pay for them
Our CTO-as-a-service gives a founder or a small company a technical lead without a full-time hire: someone who audits what you run and what it costs, chooses the architecture with you, reviews code and vendor quotes, sets up the basics (environments, backups, access, security) and turns your business goals into a technical roadmap, explained in plain words.
What we do for you
- An initial audit: systems, code, hosting, costs, access, backups, the risks that matter
- A one-page architecture and a technical roadmap tied to your business goals
- Cloud and SaaS cost review, with what to stop, merge or renegotiate
- Review of agency or freelance quotes and of code delivered to you
- The basics put in place: dev/uat/prod environments, backups, access control, who owns which account
- Decisions on build vs buy, and on where AI genuinely saves time
- Help writing job descriptions and assessing technical candidates, when you hire
- A monthly session and an async channel for questions in between
Who it is for
- Fits: non-technical founders deciding how to build their product
- Fits: small companies whose tech grew by accident across agencies, freelancers and SaaS tools
- Fits: owners who receive technical quotes and cannot tell whether they are fair
- Does not fit: companies that need a full-time leader managing a large engineering team every day
What we bring from our own operations
We run our own stack and make these decisions for ourselves every week. After an audit of 34 cloud projects, our own Google Cloud spend was roughly halved; that is our figure, not a promise for yours. We consolidated more than 100 hosted projects onto our own server, moved apps off Cloud Run and Vercel to Docker Compose, moved 11 Supabase databases to self-hosted Postgres, and run every project with dev, uat and prod environments and builds on GitHub Actions.
We also built and run platforms for others: a creator-marketing platform in South Africa, a booking and customer platform for a restaurant group, a management SaaS for training organisations in France, a client cockpit for a wind-energy company. A CTO who has shipped and maintained real systems gives different advice from one who has only drawn them.
Typical decisions we help with
| Question | What we look at |
|---|---|
| Managed platform or our own server? | Traffic pattern, team skills, real monthly cost. A managed service such as Cloud Run removes idle instances and can bill per request; a small server with Docker Compose costs a fixed amount for always-on apps. |
| Build or buy? | Whether the process is your edge; the cost of adapting yourself to a tool versus the cost of maintaining your own. |
| Is this quote reasonable? | Scope, hidden recurring costs, who owns the code and the accounts, what happens if the vendor disappears. |
| Where does AI help? | Repetitive tasks with clear inputs and outputs, a person reviewing results, a measurable time saving. |
| Are we safe? | Backups tested, access by role, secrets out of code, daily snapshots, an owner for every account. |
How it works
- Audit. A short first phase to read what exists and interview the people who use it.
- Report. A short written report: what to keep, fix, stop, and in which order.
- Monthly rhythm. One working session a month, questions answered in between, decisions written down.
- Hands-on when needed. Our dedicated team or maintenance can execute; you are free to use others.
What we need from you
- Read access to your accounts, code and invoices
- Your business plan or goals for the next twelve months
- Someone who can make decisions when we bring options
Questions we get
Do you replace our developers or agency?
No. We help you lead them: clear priorities, honest reviews, better decisions. If you want us to build too, that is a separate choice.
Will you push your own hosting?
We will tell you what we would choose and why, and show the alternatives. Your systems stay in accounts you own whatever you decide.
Can you sit in investor or client meetings?
Yes, to explain the technical side plainly. We do not speak on your behalf without you.
How fast can you start?
With access to your systems, the audit can start right away. The first useful answers usually come in the first sessions.
Sources
- Google Cloud documentation: what is Cloud Run (checked 2026-10-06)
- Docker Docs: Docker Compose overview (checked 2026-10-06)
- Google Cloud documentation: create schedules for disk snapshots (checked 2026-10-06)