[01]/cto

Senior technical leadership, on retainer.

A fractional CTO engagement for teams that need real technical leadership without a full-time hire. You pay a monthly retainer; we scope specific projects and campaigns inside it — software, marketing, AI, and the long tail in between. Typical range: $20–40k/month, 16–24 hrs/week, 6–12 month initial term, optional equity for early-stage.

Start onboarding →Book a call What you can scope

How it works

Retainer → scope → ship

Predictable access to senior bandwidth. Discrete projects scoped inside the engagement. Delivery in visible slices.

01

Retainer

A monthly engagement that secures senior CTO bandwidth — decisions, reviews, architecture calls, and hands-on work as needed. Predictable cost, predictable access, named individual on the engagement.

02

Scope

Inside the retainer we scope discrete projects and campaigns with explicit goals, milestones, and exit criteria. Larger builds become named workstreams; smaller asks stay lightweight.

03

Ship

Work is delivered in slices with visible progress, honest tradeoffs, and artifacts your team owns afterward — code, docs, dashboards, and decision records.

Days 1–90

Land → lead → compound

What the first three months look like. The shape adapts to your context, but the spine is consistent.

Days 1–30
1. Land
- ▹Audit the existing technical landscape: stack, infra, repos, vendors, in-flight work, technical debt that matters.
- ▹Meet the team: 1:1s with engineers and adjacent leaders, light interviews with sales/marketing/product to understand the cross-functional context.
- ▹Land the operating cadence: weekly leadership sync, weekly engineering sync, monthly priorities review, quarterly strategic review.
- ▹Identify the three highest-leverage workstreams for the first 90 days and write them down in a shared roadmap doc.
- ▹Surface the top three risks (technical, team, vendor, regulatory) — flag in writing, owners assigned.
Days 31–60
2. Lead
- ▹Workstream 1 (highest-leverage build) is in flight, with milestones and a named owner.
- ▹Architecture decision records start landing in the repo for material decisions — no more 'why did we do this?' threads.
- ▹Hiring loop tightened where applicable: job specs rewritten, interview design corrected, technical screens running.
- ▹First quarterly roadmap drafted with you, surfaced to your team or board.
- ▹AI / regulated-industry posture work begins if applicable (PHI/PCI mapping, PTOI catalog scoping).
Days 61–90
3. Compound
- ▹Workstream 1 either shipped or at a defensible milestone; workstream 2 in flight.
- ▹Engineering team operates with the new cadence as default — review SLAs, escalation paths, on-call expectations are documented and used.
- ▹First strategic review with the founder/CEO: what's working, what's not, what to revisit at quarter end.
- ▹Hiring pipeline produces named candidates if hiring is in scope.
- ▹Decision: extend at current bandwidth, raise the floor, or transition toward a permanent CTO with the engagement supporting the search.

What you can scope

Most things a CTO would own

Examples of work that fits inside a [01]/cto retainer — not an exhaustive list.

▹Tech strategy and roadmap
▹Architecture and code review
▹Software builds (web, internal tools, integrations)
▹AI initiatives — use-case selection, integration, evals
▹AI agent compliance work using the PTOI catalog
▹Marketing engineering and instrumentation
▹Hiring, interviewing, and team design
▹Vendor and stack selection
▹Security, ops, and incident hygiene
▹Technical due diligence
▹Quarterly board-level technical reporting
▹…and whatever else your roadmap demands

Browse the longer catalog on services.

Role boundaries

What we will and won't do

A fractional CTO is a defined role, not 'whatever you need.' Read both sides.

Included in the engagement

▹Technology strategy and roadmap, in writing, with quarterly review.
▹Architecture and code review for material decisions and changes; documented decision records for each.
▹Vendor and build-vs-buy judgment on stack changes proposed during the term.
▹Hiring assistance for technical roles: job specs, interview design, final-round technical interviews.
▹Team and process alignment: cadence, escalation paths, on-call expectations, engineering standards.
▹Security and operational hygiene at a senior-judgment level.
▹Hands-on shipping of agreed slices when shipping is the highest-leverage use of bandwidth that month.
▹Two named workstreams in flight at any time, agreed monthly in writing.

Out of scope

×Full-time CTO duties (continuous on-call, daily presence in every standup, signing offers, fiduciary duties of an officer).
×Officer or director appointment, unless separately negotiated with consideration of D&O insurance and fiduciary scope.
×Spend authority — none unless explicitly granted in writing per transaction or threshold.
×Implementation work for your customers under our name without a separate engagement.
×Persistent overage — if work consistently exceeds the bandwidth target by more than a defined threshold for two consecutive months, we move to a higher tier or revise the SOW. We won't silently absorb it.
×Work outside our competence — we will say so directly and recommend a partner.
×Penetration testing, red-teaming, or specialized compliance certifications — those need specialist firms.

Who it's for

Teams that need senior judgment, not another seat

Pre-CTO founders

Non-technical or solo-technical founders who need a senior counterpart on architecture, hiring, and vendor decisions before committing to a full-time CTO.

Teams between CTOs

Continuity for product and platform decisions while you run a thoughtful search — without freezing the roadmap. We're explicit that we're not the long-term answer.

Scale-ups adding leverage

Augment existing leadership with senior hands for AI initiatives, marketing engineering, or focused builds that don't justify a new hire yet.

PE / portfolio operators

Drop-in technical leadership for portfolio companies — diligence support, post-close 100-day plans, and ongoing advisory across multiple companies under the same governance.

vs. alternatives

Full-time CTO · [01]/cto · Resident partnership

The honest comparison. Which one fits depends on your stage, your cash, and what you actually need.

Dimension	Full-time CTO	[01]/cto	Resident partnership
Time to onboard	3–9 months search + onboarding	Within 2 weeks of signed SOW	Within 1 week of signed SOW
Annual cash cost (typical)	$280k–$500k+ comp + benefits + equity	$240k–$480k retainer (often + equity)	$300k retainer, no equity
Equity	Standard 1.0%–2.0%, full vest, employee posture	Optional 0.5%–2.0%, vesting per grant, advisor posture	None
Bandwidth	Full-time (~40 hrs/wk) + on-call	16–24 hrs/wk, business hours	24 hrs/wk, business hours
Officer / fiduciary duties	Yes (officer of the company)	No, unless separately negotiated	No
Term flexibility	At-will (US), but real cost to terminate	6–12 month initial, 60-day notice after	6 months minimum, 30-day notice after
Right call when	Stable platform need, can support comp, ready to integrate fully	Pre-CTO, between CTOs, regulated AI build, PE 100-day plans	High bandwidth need, no equity conversation, time-bounded build

Numbers are typical ranges, not quotes — your specifics determine the actual fee, term, and equity (if any). See the retainer comparison for Resident against the smaller packages.

AI agent compliance

Regulated-industry deployments, done properly

Healthcare, fintech, and other regulated verticals need more than a working agent — they need a defensible audit trail. We use PTOI (Periodic Table of Information), our open-source compound-catalog spec, to bring structure to AI agent data flows from day one.

PHI/PCI boundary mapping

We map every surface where sensitive data enters, rests, or transits in your AI agent system — field by field, with explicit PHI/PCI classifications and least-privilege access rules.

Compound catalog architecture

Structure your agent's data vocabulary using the PTOI compound-catalog spec: reactions, field types, masking rules, and audit events — version-controlled and BAA-audit-ready.

HIPAA-eligible AWS design

Architecture that uses only HIPAA-eligible AWS services in PHI paths — private subnets, encrypted storage, CloudTrail, short-lived credentials. No PHI on the public internet.

Governance that survives the next dev

AI compliance decisions are only as good as the artifacts that document them. We ship decision records, runbooks, and audit-log schemas your next engineer can pick up on day one.

PTOI is maintained separately from 01team.dev. Every [01]/cto engagement in a regulated vertical uses it — the IP stays with us; you get the compliance posture. Specifics in the MSA's PTOI carveout.

Equity

Plain English (not legal advice)

Equity is optional. When it's the right answer, here's how we think about it. The actual grant is executed under your equity plan, reviewed by counsel on both sides.

When equity makes sense: Early-stage company where cash is constrained and the engagement is meaningfully shaping the technical foundation. Typical range: 0.5%–2.0% fully diluted. We'll always discuss whether cash-only would be cleaner first.
When it doesn't: Established companies where cash is available, PE-backed portfolio companies, or short engagements where the equity overhead exceeds the value. We'll say so directly.
Vesting: Typically 4-year monthly with a 1-year cliff, mirroring early-employee terms. Acceleration (single- or double-trigger on change of control) negotiated case-by-case.
Form: Stock options (NSO), RSUs, restricted stock, or profits interests (LLC) — depending on your entity, your equity plan, and your counsel's recommendation. We require a 409A on file for options.
Termination effect: For-cause termination forfeits unvested equity. Convenience termination after the initial term stops vesting on the effective date. Termination for breach by you negotiates partial acceleration of the next 6 months in good faith.
Required reviews: Your counsel reviews against your equity plan. Our counsel and tax advisor review on our side. The grant document (executed under your equity plan) controls over the SOW for grant mechanics. We won't rush this.

We are not your tax advisor or your securities lawyer. The above is how we structure engagements; the actual paperwork follows your equity plan and your counsel's guidance.

Term and wind-down

How engagements start, continue, and end

No auto-renew traps. No 'we'll get to the transition doc someday.' Both are written into the SOW.

Initial term: Typically 6–12 months. Termination for convenience inside the initial term is not available except for cause under the MSA (15-day cure for material breach).
After the initial term: Month-to-month with 60-day written notice from either side. The longer notice (vs. retainer's 30-day) reflects how much organizational continuity is on the engagement.
Wind-down package: Within 30 days of termination, we deliver: roadmap status, in-flight workstreams, decisions taken, vendor and access registers, hiring pipeline status, and a recommended next-steps brief for the incoming permanent CTO or interim leader.
What you keep: All client-specific code, docs, and decision records. The PTOI carveout means anonymized structural patterns flow back to the open-source spec; your specific configurations don't.

Conflicts and other engagements

What we commit to

A fractional engagement only works if the relationship is honest about competing interests. These are the rules we hold ourselves to.

▹Disclose any other engagement that creates a real or perceived conflict with your interests.
▹Decline to advise you on matters where we have an undisclosed economic interest in a recommended vendor or solution.
▹Limit concurrent CTO engagements to a number compatible with the bandwidth committed to you. We will not take a new CTO-level engagement that would jeopardize your bandwidth without telling you first.
▹Recommend the right answer for you, even when it's 'hire someone full-time and end this engagement.'

FAQ

Common questions

Next step

Talk through your roadmap

Quick call to see if a [01]/cto retainer fits — what you'd scope first, what good looks like in 90 days.

Start onboarding →Book a call See work Compare to Resident partnership →