A technical co-founder, without giving up half your company.
A technical co-founder as a service gives non-technical founders CTO-level leadership and a senior team that builds the product, on a monthly retainer. You get architecture decisions, product strategy, and hands-on engineering without hiring a full-time CTO or handing over co-founder equity.
What is a technical co-founder as a service?
It is a way to get the technical half of a founding team without the cost, risk, and dilution of adding one. A traditional technical co-founder wants 20 to 50 percent of your company and may not be the right fit. A technical co-founder as a service does the same job, on a retainer you can scale up or down, and leaves cleanly when you outgrow it.
We do the work a CTO does, and we build. That distinction matters: most fractional CTO arrangements give you advice without execution. We give you both, from the first conversation through launch and beyond.
What you get
Architecture and technical decisions
The build-versus-buy calls, the stack, the data model, the security posture. Decisions a CTO makes, made with you and explained in plain language.
Product strategy
What to build first, what to cut, and how to sequence a roadmap so you reach investors and users with something real.
A senior team that builds
2 to 4 senior engineers shipping deployable software every two weeks. No juniors learning on your budget, no account managers in the way.
Team leadership
When you hire, we help interview. When a developer leaves, we keep things moving. We run the technical function so you can run the company.
How it compares to the alternatives
Four ways to get technical leadership. Here is the honest trade-off.
| Option | Cost | Equity | Actually builds? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full-time CTO | $150-300k/yr + equity | 0.5-2%+ | Sometimes |
| Equity co-founder | Deferred salary | 20-50% | Usually |
| Dev agency | Hourly / fixed bid | None | Builds, does not decide |
| Technical co-founder as a service | $5-30k/month | Optional, alongside fees | Yes, decides and builds |
More on the numbers: how much equity a technical co-founder should get and whether you really need one at all.
Simple, transparent, monthly.
A monthly retainer that scales with scope and team size. Most engagements land in the $10-20k range. No hourly billing, no fixed-bid corner-cutting, no surprise invoices. See the full model on how we work.
Proof, not promises
We have taken products from prototype to Series B, rescued four builds from failed agencies, and held partnerships for five years and counting.
Read the Case StudiesDon't take our word for it.
Partner at Passion Capital
Not every founder has a technical co-founder from the start, so some of the best ideas depend on a strong development partner. Vuk and Hurricane are much more than an outsourced dev resource. The team behaves like a company co-founder and brings the startup agility and pragmatism needed to develop a first prototype, MVP, or 1.0, at a level of quality that satisfies even the most discerning corporate clients and investors. I always recommend Hurricane to our founders.
Product Lead, Fertifa
Working with Hurricane Studio has given us the best of both worlds: flexibility to manage burn and make the most of our limited runway, but best-in-class dev resources so we don't have to compromise on the quality of our platform.
Technical co-founder as a service: FAQ
What is a technical co-founder as a service?
How much does a technical co-founder as a service cost?
Do you take equity?
How is this different from hiring a developer or an agency?
What happens when we want to hire our own team?
Need a technical co-founder who builds ?
No sales pitch. Just an honest conversation about what you're building and whether we're the right partner.