For startups and entrepreneurs
From idea to product, without burning your first investment
We decide with you what to build, we build it and we put it online. A CTO when you need one, not on payroll.
Who it's for
You have an idea
You want to know whether it holds up and what it costs to build, before you spend.
You run a startup without a CTO
You need to decide stack, architecture and priorities, and nobody in-house knows how.
You run a company and want a digital product
Software or a platform to sell or to use, built properly.
How we work
From the MVP scope to the product online, up to the handover to your team.
- 01
We validate
We check that the problem exists, look at what competitors do and set the MVP scope, with a list of what stays out.
→ MVP scope and roadmap
- 02
We build
We write the code, not just the slides: application, APIs and infrastructure, with the architecture decided first and not discovered halfway.
→ Product in production and documentation
- 03
We hand over
We set up processes a small team can sustain, and hand everything over to the in-house team.
→ Defined process and trained team
We did it for ourselves first
ShopBrain, BookBrain, ShipBrain and SiteBrain are our own products: we designed and built them, and you can open and try them right now. Before that, eleven years across large consultancies and companies in energy, fintech and media.
See the productsWith a partner law firm: contracts, GDPR, company formation and intellectual property, decided together with the architecture, not afterwards.
Frequently asked questions about Fractional CTOs
What a fractional CTO is and how it works with startups and SMEs in Italy
What is a Fractional CTO and what do they do?
- A Fractional CTO is a part-time technical director who leads a company's technology decisions without the cost of a full-time hire. They define the architecture, choose the stack, set up development processes and bridge business and engineering.
How much does a Fractional CTO cost in Italy?
- The cost depends on the number of days or hours agreed each month. That's the whole point: you get senior technical leadership paying only for the time you need, a fraction of the cost of an in-house CTO with salary, benefits and equity.
When does a startup or SME need a Fractional CTO?
- When it has to make important technical decisions (stack choice, MVP, scaling, tech hiring) but isn't yet big enough or doesn't have the budget for a full-time CTO. It's also useful for technical due diligence or to lead an external development team.
How is it different from a regular tech consultant?
- A Fractional CTO takes ownership of the technical direction over time, not just a one-off opinion. We built our products for businesses ourselves — ShopBrain, BookBrain, ShipBrain and SiteBrain — and they are online right now, so we bring both the architecture decision and the code we then have to maintain.
Do you work remotely or on-site?
- We work mainly remotely across Italy, with on-site meetings when the project calls for it. The processes we set up are designed for distributed teams and asynchronous work.
Do you write the code too, or only the strategy?
- Both. On the technical side we write and review code: web applications, APIs, infrastructure. That is why the architecture decisions we propose are decisions we then have to live with.
Tell us what you need to build
Eight questions, then we talk with something concrete to work from
The answers are there to work out whether the project makes sense the way you picture it, and to tell you where we think it doesn't.