Builders’ empowers entrepreneurs to build stellar companies. Doing so we’ve inevitably built an extensive community of co-founders, CTOs and leaders to deliver on this mission. To empower the community, we connect them to our universe of co-founders, startups, scaleups and innovators. Tech leaders from our Collective are entrepreneurial, purpose-driven builders with expertise in web, data, and AI, committed to leveraging technology for societal progress and economic growth
CTO NETWORK
Choose the best fit tailored for you
At Builders we work with technical talent at co-founder, fractional, or first-hire level. What fits you better?
Fractional CTO
You’ll empower companies as a tech leader in a fractional engagement while potentially finding your perfect co-founder match. Amend their engineering team and CTO support/readiness, navigate funding events, evolve infrastructure, prototypes, build-out product, in-house tech team, etc.
Technical co-founder CTO
Become a CTO and bring an company to the next level. You’ll become a tech leader from our community full of entrepreneurial, purpose-driven builders with expertise in web, data, and AI, committed to leveraging technology for societal progress and economic growth.
Founding engineer
Business founders start our ventures. You make them real. As Founding Engineer (in some cases a CTO), you partner with the founder during validation, build the first product from zero, and own the technical core while the company is still being defined. The kind of ownership and access you only get this early.
CTOs from our Collective are building amazing products
Fractional or in our studio, our CTOs are building products for new ventures or estabishled scale ups.
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FAQ
What is a difference between a CTO, Founding Engineer or a Fractional CTO?
Three ways to lead the tech, depending on where the company is and how all-in you want to be.
A Founding Engineer joins a venture early as the first builder. You ship the first product, take founder-level ownership from day one, and grow into the CTO role by actually operating at that level (no CTO in name only).
A CTO is the technical co-founder. You partner with a business founder from validation, own the technical vision and architecture, lead the engineering team, and carry the tech story to investors. Full co-founder, full stake.
A Fractional CTO works part-time with companies in our wider network, outside our own ventures, that need senior tech leadership for a specific stretch: a funding round, an MVP to evolve, a team to build out. A real partnership, just time-boxed.
Are there CEOs, and how do CTOs & teams match with them?
We'll have 4 CEOs in the next 4 months, of which we believe 2 will become companies. Matching is based on the product, personality, and mission. Think psychometric tests and such, but first and foremost, we're in the same place working on it, so some of the magic happens on site.
How long does it usually take for a Founder/CTO to match with a project and start a venture?
There's not enough data for an accurate estimate, but it should not take longer than 6 months. Personally, I believe it should only happen if the match is strong, so it could take longer if the collaboration is enjoyable.
Could you elaborate a bit more on the process of becoming a co-founder?
As a CTO you’ll join Builders as a CTO-in-Residence working alongside other CTOs on internal projects and projects/proof of concepts with the entrepreneurs (CEOs) in residence. The ultimate outcome would be to co-found a company with one of the founders. To further support your journey, we offer fractional positions within our network, extending your personal runway and opening doors to potential external co-founder roles. Should these opportunities lead to permanent positions or co-founder engagements, know that Builders is fully committed to supporting and facilitating such a transition. Except when engaged in a fractional role there's no compensation for time spent in residency at Builders. Instead, the primary form of remuneration shall be the opportunity to engage with Builders and Entrepreneurs in Residence for the purpose of validating business cases. This engagement provides the opportunity to potentially assume a co-founder role in the ventures that are being developed within the studio. When engaged in a fractional role during the residency, the compensation varies between €4.000-6.000 per month on a contractor basis.
How does collaboration with the studio change at different stages for the startups? How does the studio assist the startups post-founding?
Validation phase: Business lead provides day-to-day support and strategy with partners. Shape phase: The whole core team gets involved, and proof of concepts are built. Create phase : The core team becomes the founding team, partners join the board, and the business lead remains involved. Grow phase: A dedicated team is hired, the partner remains on the board, and is actively involved in funding.
Do people mostly work offline?
If you mean working from home, then no, most work is done at the office, 4 days a week.
Are CTO's initially employed by the studio? What type of contract do you use?
CTOs are contractors at the studio, when needed work for studio friends will also include a compensation. We’ll share the templates after our call.
Is there a team of engineers in the studio?
Every venture has their own, either a CTO or a Founding Engineer. Inside the studio's core team we have a small dev team that builds internal tech to support our venture building efforts.
