Senior technical leadership — without the $400K hire.
You need someone who can own the architecture, kill the wrong bets
before they cost you, and actually ship. You don't need to spend a
year recruiting a full-time CTO, hand over equity, and hope they work
out.
Truvisory® gives you a battle-tested technology executive embedded
in your business — setting strategy, leading the build, and getting AI into production in 90 days, not 18 months.
Founder-led by a U.S. Army combat veteran and 25-year operating
executive. SDVOSB-certified. ★★★★★ 5.0 across 47 verified reviews.
§ 01 / Do you need this?
If any of these sound familiar, you have a technical leadership gap.
You don't have a problem with effort. You have a problem with no one
senior enough owning the technical call. That gap is expensive — and it
usually shows up at one of these moments.
You're raising
Investors are going to put your codebase, architecture, and security posture under a microscope. Right now, no one on your team can tell that story — or knows what they'll find.
50 users → 50,000
What worked at 50 users is breaking at 50,000. The system got you here. It won't get you there, and your team is shipping features on top of a foundation that's starting to crack.
Your CTO just left
A quality full-time replacement is a four-to-six-month search. You can't let the roadmap stall for half a year.
You suspect you're overpaying agencies and over-provisioned in the
cloud, but you don't have a technical leader to right-size it.
If you're nodding, the question isn't whether you need senior technical leadership. It's whether you need it
full-time — or fractional.
§ 02 / What a fractional CTO actually does
Full executive scope. None of the full-time overhead.
A fractional CTO isn't a consultant who writes a report and disappears.
We embed, take ownership, and stay accountable for outcomes.
01
Technology strategy & roadmap
Business goals → a technical plan with priorities, sequencing, and a budget your team and board can both read.
02
Architecture & build oversight
Make the high-stakes architecture calls, set engineering standards, and run delivery. We lead the build, not just advise it.
03
AI strategy & governance
Build vs. buy, models in production on infra you control, and guardrails around cost, evaluation, and risk.
// home turf
04
Engineering team & hiring
Org design, technical interviews, and mentoring — so you make the right hires instead of paying for the wrong ones.
05
Cloud & vendor cost control
Right-size infrastructure and audit vendor relationships. Most engagements find real money here.
06
Security, compliance & risk
Establish the security baseline and compliance footing customers and regulators expect — before it blocks a deal.
07
Fundraising & diligence support
Audit the codebase, document the architecture, build the technical narrative before investors do their diligence.
08
Board & investor narrative
Translate engineering reality into the language your board, investors, and buyers actually decide in.
§ 03 / The Truvisory® difference
Most fractional CTOs hand you a strategy. We hand you working software.
Plenty of people will sell you advice by the hour. The gap between a
slide deck and a system in production is where most initiatives die.
We're different on three counts.
01
We ship.
Behind the strategy is a Cloudflare-native delivery capability — Workers, D1, R2, Vectorize, Durable Objects, AI Gateway. When the plan calls for a build, we build it. Target: production in 90 days.
02
AI-native, not AI-curious.
Applied AI is the core of the practice, not a service line we bolted on last year. If your edge depends on getting AI into production — and controlling what it costs — that’s exactly what we do.
03
Operators first.
Led by a 25-year operating executive who has carried a P&L, doubled revenue, and built teams — not a career consultant. You get advice from someone who has lived with the consequences of technical decisions.
§ 04 / Engagement models & pricing
Transparent tiers. Pick the altitude you need.
Most firms make you book a call just to learn what they charge. Here's
the honest range up front. Every engagement starts with a fixed-fee
Technical Assessment, then moves into one of three models.
Tier 01
Advisory
From
$6K – $8K / mo
~5–8 hrs / week
Best for: founders who need a technical brain on call.
▸
Strategy & architecture review
▸
Hiring input
▸
On-call senior guidance
Most chosen
Tier 02
Fractional
From
$12K – $16K / mo
~10–20 hrs / week
Best for: companies that need an owner of technology.
▸
Everything in Advisory
▸
Embedded leadership & roadmap ownership
▸
Team management
▸
Board & investor support
Tier 03
Embedded + Build
From
$20K – $25K+ / mo
20+ hrs / week + build team
Best for: teams that need leadership and delivery.
▸
Everything in Fractional
▸
A Cloudflare-native build team
▸
Shipping production software
// Month-to-month after an initial 3-month term. No equity required. No
recruiting fees. No benefits load.
§ 05 / vs. full-time
A full-time CTO is a half-million-dollar commitment. Fractional isn't.
The full-time number is bigger than most founders budget for — and
that's before equity dilution.
Annual cost of a full-time CTO versus a Truvisory® fractional
engagement, line item by line item.
Line item
Full-time CTO
Truvisory® Fractional
Base salary
$309,539 avg (Salary.com, 2026)
—
Total comp
$310K–$450K+ mid-market; $600K–$2M+ funded
—
Equity dilution
Typically 0.5%–4%
None
Benefits & payroll
+25%–35% of salary
None
Recruiting / search
4–6 months + agency fees
Operational in days
Annual cost
$400,000+ all-in
$72K – $192K
Risk if wrong fit
~40% of senior hires fail in 18 mo; replacement up to 213% of
salary
You capture most of the strategic value of a full-time executive at 40–70% lower cost — and if the fit isn't right, you're not unwinding an equity grant and
a severance package.
§ 06 / The fractional Chief AI Officer angle
Need an AI strategy that survives contact with production?
5%
of integrated enterprise AI pilots are extracting real value —
against an estimated $30–40B in GenAI spend.
MIT Project NANDA · 2025
Most companies don't have an AI problem. They have an AI leadership problem — lots of pilots, no one accountable for getting one into
production and proving it pays.
The single biggest predictor of which side of that line you land on
isn't the model — it's whether someone senior owns the strategy, the
architecture, and the guardrails.
Truvisory®'s fractional CTO engagement doubles as a fractional Chief AI Officer: a single accountable leader who decides what to build versus buy,
ships it on infrastructure you control, and governs cost and risk
from day one.
§ 07 / How engagements start
Three steps. No mystery.
1
Fixed fee · ~2 weeks
Technical Assessment
We audit your architecture, team, roadmap, and the real risks — then hand you a written assessment with prioritized recommendations. Valuable on its own, whether or not we work together after.
2
Clear & scoped
Scoped proposal
A clear engagement plan: model, scope, deliverables, and price. No open-ended retainers, no surprises.
3
Accountable
Embedded engagement
We get to work — owning the technical call, leading the build, and reporting against outcomes you can see.
§ 08 / Proof
Operators trust us with the decisions that matter.
5.0 ★
rating across 47 verified reviews.
90 d
target to first AI system in production, not 18 months.
10×
organic traffic growth from re-platformed, performance-first web architecture.
3×
operator output unlocked by putting AI & automation into daily workflows.
We'd rather lose the engagement than sell you the wrong one. A fractional
CTO is the wrong call if:
✕
Your technology is the product
In a deep-tech or hard-R&D company, that core IP usually needs a full-time owner.
✕
You need 40+ hours a week
Managing a large team day-to-day and hands-on in the code every day.
✕
You're at IPO stage
You need a named, full-time CTO for governance and disclosure reasons.
✕
Your team is junior
And needs daily, line-by-line management more than senior strategic leadership.
If that's you, we'll say so on the first call — and point you in the
right direction.
§ 10 / About the founder
Led by an operator who has had to live with the decisions.
// Tony Adams · FounderSGT (E-5) · Infantry · Afghanistan
Truvisory® is founded and led by Tony Adams — a U.S. Army combat veteran, technology executive, and 25-year
operating leader. He has served as President and CTO of a
private-equity-backed multi-unit operator, as a nonprofit COO, and in
leadership across franchising and technology organizations.
He holds an Executive MBA (4.0 GPA) and formal software engineering
training, and his work in AI and automation has earned industry
recognition — including a Zapier Award for Automation.
Truvisory® LLC is an SBA-certified Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business
(SDVOSB) based in Littleton, Colorado, serving clients nationwide.
"A fractional CTO should own the technical call, not just weigh in
on it. I make the architecture decisions, lead the build, and ship
the system — for the slice of time your stage actually needs."
A senior technology executive who leads your technology function part-time, on a retainer, instead of as a full-time hire. You get executive-level strategy, architecture, and team leadership for the slice of time your stage actually requires — typically 10–20 hours a week — without the salary, equity, and benefits load of a full-time CTO.
How much does a fractional CTO cost?
Truvisory®'s engagements run $6,000–$25,000+ per month depending on the model — roughly $72,000–$192,000 a year. Compare that to a full-time CTO: Salary.com puts the average base at $309,539, and total comp commonly reaches $400,000+ once you add benefits and equity. A fractional engagement captures most of the strategic value at 40–70% lower cost.
How do I decide between fractional and full-time?
Go fractional when you need senior technical judgment, architecture ownership, and direction — but not 40 hours a week of it. Go full-time when your technology is the core product, you need daily hands-on team management, or you're at a stage (like IPO) that requires a named full-time executive. We'll give you an honest read on your first call.
How many hours a week do you actually work?
Roughly 5–8 hours for Advisory, 10–20 for Fractional, and 20+ for Embedded engagements that include a build team. What matters more than the hours is that a senior person owns the outcomes — not that a seat is filled 40 hours a week.
How fast can you start?
Days, not months. A full-time executive search takes four to six months before onboarding even begins. We typically open with a two-week Technical Assessment and move into the engagement immediately after.
Fractional CTO vs. interim CTO?
An interim CTO is a temporary full-time placeholder, usually bridging a gap until you hire permanently. A fractional CTO is an ongoing, part-time arrangement — the right long-term answer for many companies that genuinely don't need (or can't justify) a full-time technology executive.
Do you just advise, or do you actually build?
Both — and the build is what sets us apart. Behind the strategy is a Cloudflare-native delivery capability, so when the plan calls for software, we ship it, with a target of production in 90 days. Most fractional CTOs stop at advice.
What's a fractional Chief AI Officer — do I need one instead?
It's the same embedded-leadership model focused specifically on getting AI into production and proving ROI. Given that MIT found 95% of enterprise GenAI pilots deliver no measurable return, many companies need exactly this: one accountable leader owning AI strategy, architecture, and governance. Our fractional CTO engagements include this by default.
When is a fractional CTO not the right choice?
When your technology is your core product (deep-tech / hard R&D), when you need someone 40+ hours a week in the code, when you're at IPO stage and need a named full-time CTO, or when your team needs daily hands-on management more than strategic leadership. If that's you, we'll tell you.
What industries and stages do you work with?
Funded startups, mid-market companies, PE-backed operators, and federal/SDVOSB-eligible organizations across the U.S. The common thread is a company that needs senior technical leadership — and often applied AI in production — faster and leaner than a full-time hire allows.
§ Field notes
Fractional CTO field notes
The operator's read on hiring and owning senior technical leadership — when fractional beats full-time, what an embedded CTO actually owns versus a consultant who advises and leaves, and how to tell the difference before you sign.
