Book a Call
Startup CTO
The CTO decisions that decide your runway.
From pre-seed through Series A, the engagement depth scales with your stage.
Stage-Specific CTO Leadership: Pre-Seed, Seed, and Series A
A startup CTO does very different work at each stage. We adapt the focus — and depth of involvement — to where you actually are.
-
Pre-Seed
Validate your technical assumptions before spending engineering budget. Scope the MVP that tests your core hypothesis. Build a technology story credible to angel investors — and make the first architecture decisions you'll live with for years.
Focus Areas
Idea validation, MVP scope, first hire brief, angel pitch narrative, early architecture choices
-
Seed
Build an architectural foundation that survives 10x growth. Establish engineering processes, hiring criteria, and documentation your team can actually follow. Prepare the technical narrative for institutional fundraising before the round opens.
Focus Areas
Architecture decision records, scalability review, due diligence package, engineering team structure
-
Series A
Prepare for technical due diligence by institutional investors. Articulate your technology moat. Establish governance structures — incident management, security posture, SDLC — with investor-grade documentation to match.
Focus Areas
Due diligence prep, CTO succession, engineering KPIs, investor-grade documentation, board reporting
What We Deliver: Startup CTO Services with Documented Outcomes
Tangible artifacts that survive fundraising, guide your engineering team, and prevent the costly mistakes that drain early-stage runway.
Startup CTO services for founders in the US and Canada who need senior technical leadership without a $200K–$380K salary. Structured, deliverable-led work — not coaching or open-ended mentoring — covers technology roadmap, architecture decisions, engineering hiring, and hands-on build when needed.
How Our Startup CTO Engagement Works
A structured program designed to leave you stronger and more independent — not to create ongoing dependency on an outside advisor.
-
Free · 60 min
Discovery Call
Map your landscape and the three riskiest decisions in the next 90 days.
Prioritized Risk Register: You leave with a prioritized risk register regardless of next steps. For a deeper baseline, the Technology Health Check provides a written report.
-
Week 1
Engagement Design
Define scope — which deliverables, what depth of involvement, what cadence. Advisory-only, embedded part-time, or full hands-on build. No open-ended retainer without clear milestones.
Technology Roadmap: A prioritized technology roadmap aligned to your fundraising milestones and product bets. You get: The north star your investors, first engineering hires, and product team will all reference.
Architecture Decision Records: Documented stack, infrastructure, and scalability decisions formatted as architectural decision records. You get: Removes ambiguity for your dev team and survives technical due diligence by investors.
-
Weeks 2–12
Structured Delivery Sprints
Work in bi-weekly sessions with async support; add hands-on delivery where advice is not enough.
MVP Specification & Delivery: Scoped, prioritized feature list with acceptance criteria — and hands-on delivery when your team needs it. Each working session produces a decision log, architecture record, or other artifact. You get: A working MVP your team owns, not a prototype that dies when we leave.
Engineering Hiring Plan: Role definitions, compensation benchmarks, screening criteria, and interview process for your first engineering hires. You get: Everything you need to hire with confidence — including the brief your recruiter actually needs.
-
Week 12+
Handoff & Independence
All decisions documented, artifacts handed off, team briefed. Assess whether continued engagement adds value — we never recommend ongoing retainers you don't need.
Investor-Ready Technical Narrative: Architecture, scalability story, and build-vs-buy rationale written to survive a VC's CTO review. You get: The technical section of your pitch deck — not generic slides, a credible engineering story.
Due Diligence Prep Package: Architecture diagrams, security posture, scalability constraints, and known technical debt documented before investors ask. You get: Answers every question an investor's technical advisor will raise — before they raise it.
Decision gate:
After the discovery call and after each sprint, you decide whether to deepen the engagement. No multi-year contracts, no lock-in at any stage.
THE DIFFERENCE
Full-Time CTO vs. Startup CTO Services
Why the full-time hire doesn't make sense before Series A.
| Metric | Reyem Tech Startup CTO | Full-Time CTO Hire |
|---|---|---|
| Time to first value | 2 weeks (Health Check) | 3-6 months (hiring cycle) |
| Annual cost | Scales with engagement depth | $230K–$380K total comp |
| Commitment | Sprint-based, cancel anytime | 12-24 month runway commitment |
| Depth of involvement | Advisory through full execution | Full-time only |
| Artifacts on day one | Risk register after session 1 | Onboarding for weeks first |
| Equity dilution | None | 0.5–2% typical founder package |
Who This Is For: Founders Who Need a Startup CTO Without the Full-Time Price Tag
Founders and early-stage leaders at every technical comfort level — from first-time entrepreneurs to experienced product builders.
-
The Non-Technical Founder
Translate infrastructure choices into business outcomes and keep engineers accountable to the roadmap.
-
The First-Time CTO
Get senior guidance on engineering leadership, hiring, and board strategy without the politics of hiring above yourself.
-
The Founder Preparing to Fundraise
With a raise three to six months away, prepare investor-ready architecture and a scalability story before VC review.
-
The Solo Technical Founder Drowning in Build
As CTO and sole engineer, make architecture and hiring decisions before scaling into a corner.
Who This Is NOT For
- You need a permanent, full-time CTO on your leadership team (consider our Fractional CTO service)
- You're post-Series B and need enterprise-scale engineering org design
- You want someone to manage your existing dev agency or outsourced team without technical depth
- You're looking for generic business coaching without hands-on technical accountability
The Reyem Tech ladder
Four buyable rungs. Pick the one that matches where you are. Each step is a real, productized engagement — not a vague consultation.
Technology Health Check
For founders, the Health Check zeroes in on the early decisions that quietly burn runway — risky architecture and the wrong or missing first hires. It's the standard $2,000 fixed-scope review of your stack, architecture, team, and risk, with a written report and a 60-minute readout in about two weeks. Ongoing CTO leadership and hands-on build live in the advisory and hands-on tiers.
Advisory
Ongoing Startup CTO advisory on retainer: technology roadmap guidance, architecture decision support, vendor and build-vs-buy evaluation, engineering hiring plan, and investor-ready documentation — you drive the roadmap, we keep you from costly wrong turns.
Hands-on management
We embed as your part-time technical leader: owning architecture decisions, running engineering sprint reviews, unblocking your team on hard technical calls, and directly writing architecture decision records and investor-grade documentation — not advising from a distance.
Full execution
End-to-end MVP delivery: we take full ownership of your technical build — architecture, engineering, QA, and handoff — from validated spec to a production system your team inherits. No agency management overhead; we are accountable to the outcome.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does a startup CTO actually do for an early-stage company?
A startup CTO makes the decisions that are easy to get wrong and expensive to undo: which technology stack to build on, when to build versus buy, how to structure your first engineering hires, and how to document your architecture for investors. At the earliest stages, they are often also hands-on — writing code, reviewing PRs, and setting technical standards that the team inherits. Our Startup CTO engagement covers all of this, scaled to your stage.
How is a startup CTO service different from a fractional CTO?
The terms overlap, but the emphasis differs. Fractional CTO typically means a part-time executive embedded in your leadership team — recurring operational presence, board meetings, team management. Startup CTO services covers a broader range of depth: from structured advisory programs (deliverables, fixed timeline) through full fractional embedding. We match the engagement model to your actual stage — advisory is right pre-seed; embedded fractional CTO is right when you are scaling engineering toward Series A.
How much does a startup CTO service cost in the US and Canada?
Pricing follows our engagement ladder, scoped to your stage. The $2,000 Technology Health Check is the entry; advisory is from $2,750/month; embedded fractional-CTO leadership is from $8,000/month (scaling with days per week); and end-to-end MVP delivery — fractional CTO plus developers at $50–$100/hour — typically runs $30K–$150K. Compare to a full-time CTO at $230K–$380K in total comp — or a bad early architecture decision costing $200K+ to undo at Series A. These are typical averages for planning only — actual cost is assessed per project and scope, and is not a guaranteed price. We share specifics on the first call.
We're pre-seed and building fast — do we really need a CTO partner this early?
Founders who get structured technical guidance before committing to a stack spend 40% less Series A engineering budget on rework. The decisions that are hardest to fix — monolith vs. microservices, cloud provider, auth architecture, data model — are the ones you make in the first 90 days. Early guidance does not slow you down; it stops you from building yourself into a corner.
We don't have a technical co-founder. Can you fill that gap?
That is exactly what this service is for. We function as your technical co-pilot: translating business goals into architecture decisions, evaluating vendors and candidates you cannot assess on your own, and ensuring your technology story is coherent before investors test it. We do not replace a future technical hire — we get you to the point where you can make that hire confidently.
Can Canadian startups use SR&ED or IRAP grants to offset Startup CTO costs?
Pure advisory fees typically do not qualify for SR&ED on their own, but the engineering work that flows from the engagement — novel integrations, custom architecture, systematic technical experimentation — often does. IRAP grants can cover a broader scope of advisory activities when the engagement involves mentoring your engineering team or supporting technical development projects. We are not SR&ED or IRAP specialists, but we structure our work to support a claim and strongly recommend pairing with a qualified funding consultant for eligibility questions.
Do you take equity?
Our standard model is fixed-fee — predictable cost, no dilution. For very early-stage startups with constrained capital, hybrid arrangements (reduced fee plus a small equity stake) are considered case-by-case. We are transparent about all terms in the first conversation.
What happens after the 90-day program ends?
You own all artifacts — architecture decision records, roadmap, hiring plan, investor documentation. Options at the end of a program: continue with another sprint, transition to an ongoing fractional CTO retainer, or execute independently. No lock-in by design. Our measure of success is leaving your team stronger, not creating dependency on us.
How long does it take to get started?
The Technology Health Check can typically be scheduled within 1-2 weeks of first contact. A structured advisory engagement can begin within 2-3 weeks — after a 60-minute discovery session to confirm fit and scope the right engagement depth. We do not take every engagement that comes in; the fit conversation matters.
Keep reading
More from the blog
$2,000 · ~2 weeks · credited on month 3
Not sure where to start?
Vendor-neutral · priced before we start. A Technology Health Check is a fixed-scope engagement. Two weeks, written report, clear next steps — no open-ended commitment.