For founders leading B2B software businesses
Understand the risks, weigh your options and give your team a clear way forward.
Work directly with James Sperring, a CTO, adviser and founder. Start with an independent review and a practical 90-day plan.
Tech Value & Risk Scan · 10 working days · An agreed scope and fee
CTO, adviser and founder.
One adviser throughout the review.
Agreed scope, fee and outputs.
Where to start
Tell me about your business and the decision you’re working through. We’ll discuss where help would be useful and whether one of the engagements below is the right next step. Each review gives your team a practical plan to take forward; ongoing advice is optional.
01 / Standalone review
An independent CTO review over 10 working days
A review of decisions spanning product, engineering, platform and leadership. Leave with clear options, prioritised risks and a practical 90-day plan.
Clear findings and a practical 90-day plan
10 working days · Scope and fees on the service page02 / Standalone review
A focused review of software delivery
A narrower review for slow releases, slipping roadmaps and unclear ownership. Understand the constraints and give your team a practical plan to improve flow.
Clear findings and a practical 90-day plan
2–3 weeks · Scope and fees on the service page03 / Optional follow-on advice
90 days of follow-on technology advice
Optional advice after a review: challenge platform, hiring and vendor choices, assess progress and keep risks visible while your team carries out the work.
Advice as your team puts the plan into practice
3-month minimum · Scope and fees on the service pageSee what the review produces
See how James helped completed work move through a stalled release process during a modernisation programme. An anonymised engagement, presented through five reconstructed review outputs.
Read the example reviewRecommendation
Build confidence in automated and remote verification, then move to smaller, more frequent releases.
From roughly quarterly to weekly releases. Read the reported outcomes and the reasoning behind the reconstructed review.
Open the five sample outputsSelected work
Weekly releases
From roughly quarterly to weekly, sometimes more often
Getting completed work into use.
Stronger ownership
Platform modernisation and team capability
A stronger platform. A more self-sufficient team.
Examples from James’s hands-on technology leadership and advisory work. These reflect shared team contributions and are separate from the current fixed-scope review engagements.
Experience, with a human perspective
Technology decisions are business decisions. They shape how your people work, what your customers experience and where your business can go.
I’ve worked as a CTO, adviser and founder, helping teams improve delivery, modernise platforms and turn commercial opportunities into working software. I bring that experience to your business with curiosity, candour and a practical approach.
I listen to the people closest to the work, explain the trade-offs in plain language and help your team carry the decision forward.
Experience and independent adviceWorking together
You work directly with me throughout. We agree what matters, look at the evidence together and focus on useful next steps.
Tell me what’s happening in your business and the decision you need to make. We’ll establish whether I can help.
I work with your leadership and team to understand the context, examine the evidence and identify what matters.
You leave with clear recommendations, agreed priorities and a practical plan. Ongoing support is available where it helps.
Primarily for founder-led B2B software businesses, typically with 8–40 engineers or established technical partners. The decision and your ability to act on the findings matter more than an exact team size.
The Tech Value & Risk Scan is the usual starting point for decisions spanning product, engineering, platform and leadership. The Delivery Constraint Audit is a narrower option for delivery-specific concerns. We’ll agree the right scope on an introductory call.
Tech Value & Risk Scan: From £9,500 + VAT. Delivery Constraint Audit: From £7,500 + VAT. Each review is a standalone engagement with a practical plan for your team. The final fee follows the agreed question, breadth of scope and evidence to examine, and is confirmed before work begins. Optional CTO Decision Support is £7,500–£8,500 / month + VAT, with a 3-month minimum.
Yes. Their knowledge is essential. I work with your leadership, engineers and partners to understand what is happening, test assumptions and build a plan that your team can carry forward.
Your team can take the review’s recommendations forward independently. If continued advice would help, we can agree a separate CTO Decision Support engagement. Over 90 days, we use fortnightly leadership calls, monthly decision memos and a technology scorecard to work through priorities and track progress.
UK-based and remote-first. I work with clients where we can agree practical time-zone overlap, including previous engagements with US teams.
Let’s build what’s next
Tell me about your business, what’s on your mind and where you’d like to get to.
Book an introductory call