The Fractional CTO Model Actually Works
Most early-stage startups don't need a full-time CTO. They need someone who's built things before, can make the critical early decisions, and won't burn $300K/year doing it. That's the fractional model, and after working with multiple companies this way, I'm convinced it's the right fit for more teams than people realize.
The first technical decisions are the most expensive. Choosing your database, your auth system, your hosting provider, your frontend framework — these feel like small decisions when you're making them. They're not. They're decisions you'll live with for years, and switching later costs orders of magnitude more than getting them right upfront. A fractional CTO has made these decisions before, multiple times, and knows which ones matter and which ones don't.
You don't need 40 hours a week of architecture. The dirty secret of most CTO roles at early-stage companies is that the actual architecture and technical strategy work takes maybe 10-15 hours a week. The rest is meetings, management, and overhead that doesn't exist yet when your team is three people. A fractional arrangement means you're paying for the high-leverage hours — the ones where real decisions get made — without subsidizing the filler.
It forces clear communication. When I work fractionally with a team, everything has to be documented. Decisions get written down with their reasoning. Architecture choices come with ADRs. Code gets reviewed with context. This discipline is actually better for the company long-term than having a full-time CTO who keeps everything in their head. When the company is ready to hire their own technical leader, the institutional knowledge is already externalized.
The transition is built in. The best fractional engagements have a natural endpoint. I help make the early decisions, set the patterns, build the first critical systems, and then help hire and onboard the person who'll take it full-time. That's not a failure mode — it's the plan. The company gets experienced technical leadership when they need it most (early) without the commitment of a C-suite hire before they're ready.
What makes it work. The fractional model breaks down when there's no trust or when the company needs someone physically present 50 hours a week herding a 20-person engineering team. It works best when: the team is small (under 10 engineers), the founders are technical enough to have a conversation but need someone more experienced for the big calls, and there's a clear scope of work. If that sounds like your situation, it's worth considering before you start that full-time CTO search.