FRACTIONAL CTO · MOUNT MINDFORCE · SYDNEY
Fractional CTO
Most businesses reach a point where the technology decisions start carrying real risk, and the cost of getting one wrong runs well beyond the cost of the software itself. The wrong architecture, the wrong vendor, the wrong hire, the wrong call on building versus buying: any of these can set a business back a year. And the company still is not large enough to justify a full-time CTO.
That is the gap Mount Mindforce fills.
A fractional CTO gives you the technology judgment of a senior executive without the full-time seat. In practice it means sitting beside the founder and working through the decisions that are hard to reverse. What do we build on? Do we buy off the shelf or build our own? Is this vendor telling us the truth? Is our data safe? Are these the right engineers? Is this AI proposal real, or a demo that will never survive contact with production?
I bring an operator’s answer to those questions, not a theorist’s. I was CTO of LoanOptions.ai, Australia’s first AI-powered loan comparison and broking platform, where I built the architecture, the AI matching and decisioning layer, and the security and compliance posture behind sensitive financial data. The judgment I bring to your business is the same judgment that kept that one running.
WHO THIS IS FOR
Founders, not technology companies
I work with a small number of founders and CEOs at a time, mostly in finance, lending, insolvency, and professional services. The common thread is that technology has become central to the business, but the business is not itself a technology company. The principles travel, so I take on work outside those areas when the problem is real.
A CTO who can build it
Plenty of fractional CTOs haven’t built anything in years. I’ve designed and built serverless AWS platforms with CDK myself and run the DevOps behind them. On client work my team does the building. When I review a vendor’s proposal or your engineers’ work, I’m doing it as someone who could build it.
Running the teams and vendors
Most businesses I work with already have people writing code, whether that’s an offshore team, a couple of contractors or a small in-house team. What they usually don’t have is someone who can direct that work and tell good output from bad before it gets expensive. A founder who isn’t technical ends up relaying requirements through a project manager and finding out months later what was actually built.
Vendors have the same gap. A typical business has an MSP, a security provider, a website agency and several software vendors, and each one looks after its own piece. When something breaks between them, nobody owns the outcome, so the founder ends up chasing it.
I take on both. I run my own offshore engineering team of 10 to 15 people, including its own CTO, and I direct the existing developers and technology vendors of the businesses I work with. I set the priorities, review the work, hold vendors to what they promised and stay accountable for how the technology fits together.
IN PRACTICE
What this looks like in practice
01
A national insolvency practice, where we built a public platform that changed how directors and accountants judge which practitioners are actually competent
02
An AI lending and ecosystem platform, where I hold the architecture, security posture, and engineering quality on an ongoing basis
03
A high-volume mortgage brokerage, where the real constraint turned out to be hiring rather than software, and the right call was to stop a custom build before it solved the wrong problem
04
A vehicle sourcing brokerage, where an AI-generated proposal for a full custom system was the wrong answer, and a simple off-the-shelf tool did the job instead
Some of this work leads to a significant build. Some of it leads to the advice to build nothing. Both are the job.
HOW ENGAGEMENTS WORK
Diagnose before prescribing
I diagnose before I prescribe. Most engagements begin with a paid diagnostic: a focused piece of work that maps where you actually are, names the real constraint, and gives you a clear recommendation you can act on with or without me. From there, ongoing work is a fixed monthly engagement, priced against the value of the outcome rather than hours on a clock. You will always know the investment before anything begins. I do not bill by the hour.
HOW TO START
Book a short call
No pitch. I will ask about your business, your technology, and what is not working, and if there is a fit we will talk about scope. If there is not, I will say so.
Further reading: How to choose a fractional CTO
