./i-need-a-partner
You don't need a contractor. You need a counterpart.
Some products aren't a project with an end date. They're a thing you're going to build for years, and what you're missing isn't a pair of hands for eight weeks — it's someone who holds the technical side of the business with you.
That's a different relationship. A contractor executes decisions. A partner argues with you before the decision gets made.
This is you if
- You're non-technical and every technical decision currently rests on hope
- You have developers, but nobody who decides what they should build
- You're raising and need someone who can answer technical due diligence
- You want someone who says "that's a bad idea" before you spend three months on it
- Your product is live and the roadmap decisions are getting expensive
What this looks like
Ongoing engagement, typically a set number of days per month. Within that:
Architecture and decisions. Stack, data model, build-versus-buy, what to fix now and what to leave. Documented, so you're never dependent on remembering a conversation.
Hands-on building. I'm not a strategist who stopped writing code. The features I specify, I can build.
Managing developers. Reviewing work, setting standards, doing the technical part of hiring. If you have or want a team, I'm the person they can be honest with.
Business thinking. Pricing, retention, what the numbers mean, which feature actually moves revenue. This is the part most technical people leave out, and it's why the positioning on this site is "I build businesses, not just software."
Investor conversations. Technical diligence, architecture questions, why the stack is what it is.
What I bring that a hired CTO doesn't
I've shipped my own products end to end — App Store, Google Play, paying users, the whole unglamorous middle. I know what breaks after launch because it broke on mine. And I've done it four times over, which means I've made the expensive mistakes on my own money rather than yours.
What I need from you
Real decision-making access, honest numbers, and a willingness to be told no. This arrangement only works if I can disagree with you.
FAQ
- What's the difference between this and hiring a freelancer?
- A freelancer takes your decisions and executes them. A partner is accountable for whether the decisions were right. Different work, different relationship, different price.
- Are you available full-time or exclusive?
- No. I run my own products, and that's precisely what makes this useful — you get someone who's currently shipping, not someone who did once. I take a small number of partnerships at a time.
- Can this convert into a co-founder arrangement?
- It's happened. It's not the default and I won't discuss equity in a first conversation — it should follow from working together, not precede it.
- Can I start smaller?
- Yes. Most partnerships start as a blueprint or a single build. That's the sensible way to find out whether we work well together.