🤓 Who you are

You’ve just shipped a product and found your audience… now you have to transform from a “Just ****ing ship it!” start-up to a sustainable software enterprise.

Or, you haven’t quite shipped yet, but want to set yourself up for success. Make the right technology decisions now so you can grow smoothly.

🛠 The non-tech founder who’s doing everything “by hand”

You might not be a tech expert, but you rely on technology to run your operations.

Maybe you’re already automating things with Zapier, Dropbox, Google Sheets. Maybe “automating things” sounds like some unachievable dream.

You know applying modern tools to your existing processes — or the ones you haven’t even written down yet — would streamline everything.

But what’s the right SaaS for your business? Or what the heck is a “SaaS”?

You need to work with someone who can get your business running on autopilot.

💻 The founder who’s built a tech business but needs to stabilize

You have a team of top coders, and they’ve been cranking for months.

You did it: 1.0 is out the door, and your customers love it!

Now what? 🤔

I don’t mean, “What feature do we ship next?”

I don’t mean, “How do we get 10x as many customers?”

I mean how do you maintain that codebase for the next five years?

What happens when your dev team triples in size?

You’re going to need a few things:

  • A process that keeps code quality high, through reviews and refactoring
  • People dedicated to maintenance and support, not just shipping the next feature
  • A system for passing knowledge from senior team members to junior
  • A streamlined highway for turning your customers’ support requests into excellent code

And you need to put those things in place in a way that suits your team’s culture.

🤩 I can help.

🦄 Who I am:

Dan Jacobson's smiling face

I understand how to run a small business, and I understand how to run big technology projects at established companies.

I’ve learned about the constraints of running a small business by helping run a start-up in the middle of the pandemic.

I’ve learned about the constraints of running big technology projects at established companies by shipping enterprise software for over a decade.

I help founders who want to grow their business make smart decisions about technology.

What tools to use.

How to use tech to put their business on autopilot.

Whether to buy a tool, or build it.

Who to hire to build what you need.

🚀 I understand what you need to know (and to grow your business):

  • The cultural and project management challenges that go with growing from a small company (1-10 people) to a medium-sized company (50-500) people
    • How technical requirements evolve as you go
    • The challenges of working with non-technical stakeholders (i.e. your customers!)
    • The need to build a translation layer between tech teams and business teams
  • How tech teams need DevOps (Developer Operations) to support their work
  • The software development lifecycle, especially as you’re sustaining (maintaining, fixing, continuing to develop) an existing product
  • How to define your essential processes… so you can automate the heck out of them
    • What to do “in-house” and what to outsource (“When to build and when to buy”)
    • How to evaluate the universe of SaaS (Software as a Service) and other tools, and pick the right ones for your business

💙 The projects I’m looking for:

Whatever industry you’re in, I can grok it — In my career I’ve worked with companies developing point of sale for cell phone retailers, with investment firms, with a start-up doing video production, and even with the Canadian Wheat Board.

But my ideal projects focus on one or more of the following:

  • I am a creator, and I like helping other creatives (authors, podcasters, makers, etc.) succeed. Do you help creatives do their best work and build the businesses of their dreams?
  • I want to lift up the less privileged. Does your work amplify the voices and enrich the lives of queer, BIPOC, and other marginalized people?
  • I am sex-positive and believe sex work is work. Do you help the people in this essential but demonized sector of the economy thrive?
  • I care about the free and open internet. Do you build systems that preserve free speech and keep our collective memory online?

❤️ The people I work with:

I work best with people who share my values, who understand business, and who either understand technology… or are hiring me because I do!

The most important values to me are:

  • The drive to be creative — it’s better to produce than to consume
  • Support personal freedom while living in harmony with others
  • A focus on wellbeing (your own, your team’s, your customers’)
  • Wealth can be created — and to the benefit of others, not at their expense
  • Prefer making physical reality better to abandoning it for virtual reality

⌚️ My availability:

As your Fractional CTO, I’m available up to 4 hours per day, 5 days per week, between 12–5 PM Pacific Time. I don’t work on-call or after hours, though I’d love to help you set up the support systems that make on-call and after-hours work unnecessary for you!

🫱🏼‍🫲🏾 Your investment:

I’m available on a fractional basis. If I were doing full-time work, the base compensation I look for is $250,000/year. Depending on the scope of our engagement (contract, ongoing, etc.) and fractional commitment, we can decide on the payment schedule that works best for both of us.

💌 Get in touch:

If you’re keen to get started, drop me a line (please include “Fractional CTO” in the subject line): dan@danj.ca