Founder CTO — Zero to One

The solo founder problem

You’ve got the domain expertise, the customer insight, and the conviction to build something. What’s harder to find is someone who can sit alongside you and answer the questions that come up every day:

Should this be one product or two? Is this the right database for what I’m describing? If I build it this way now, will I regret it at 10,000 users? Should I be building this at all, or does a tool already exist?

These aren’t questions a hired developer can answer — they’re too early-stage, too entangled with the business. And they’re not worth burning founder time trying to research from scratch.

That’s the gap this engagement fills.

What’s changed in the agentic era

Two years ago, a non-technical founder’s path to a working product ran through hiring developers, finding a technical co-founder, or learning to code. All of those are slow, expensive, or both.

That’s genuinely different now.

With the right AI tooling — Cursor, Claude Code, well-structured prompts, and a codebase set up to be agent-legible — a solo founder can build production-quality software much faster than was previously possible. The constraint has shifted from writing code to knowing what to build and how to structure it.

That’s exactly where I can help.

What this looks like in practice

Getting the architecture right early — The decisions you make in week one are the ones you’ll carry for two years. Monolith or modular? Which database? How do you handle auth? I help you make these calls based on where your product is actually going, not just what’s easiest to start.

Building alongside you — I don’t hand off specifications. I work in your codebase, set up the agent-legible scaffolding (AGENTS.md, structured docs, CI feedback loops), and build with you using AI-first development workflows. You ship faster and you understand what you’re shipping.

Technology roadmap — A clear view of what to build in what order, which decisions are reversible and which aren’t, and where to invest versus where to stay scrappy. Written down, not kept in someone’s head.

On-call judgment — When you hit a decision point, you need an answer in hours, not a two-week consulting engagement. I’m reachable. You ask, I give you a clear view.

Knowing when to stop building and start selling — This is the one founders most often get wrong. I’ll tell you when the product is good enough to put in front of customers, even when it doesn’t feel ready.

Who this is for

Solo founders or very early teams (1–2 people) who:

• Have a real problem to solve and some domain expertise, but aren’t primarily technical
• Want to move fast and ship something real — not spend six months in planning
• Are open to AI-first development as the primary way the product gets built
• Are at the idea-to-MVP stage, or have an MVP that needs to be rearchitected before it can grow

This is not the right fit if you already have a technical co-founder, if you’re post-Series A, or if you need someone to manage a team rather than build with you.

Engagement structure

This is intentionally flexible because early-stage founders need different things at different moments.

Sprint model — A focused 2–4 week block with a specific outcome: working MVP, architecture decision, or product foundation set up for AI development. Good for founders who want to move fast on a specific milestone.

Monthly advisory — A retainer for ongoing judgment: weekly check-in, on-call for decisions, architecture review as things evolve. Good for founders who want a consistent technical voice throughout the zero-to-one journey.

Both options are priced to be accessible at the pre-revenue stage.

If you’re a founder trying to figure out whether what you’re building is technically feasible, or just trying to get something real in front of customers — let’s talk. Bring the messy version of the idea.