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Startup Advisory

Protecting founders from expensive technology mistakes.

Startups rarely fail because of bad coding; they fail because they build the wrong thing, burn through capital, or rely on vendor agencies without technical oversight. I act as your on-demand CTO and partner to protect your capital and secure your product launch.

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Core Frameworks

How I protect your product and runway

Idea & MVP Scoping Validation

We challenge your feature set to define a high-impact, lean Minimum Viable Product. Avoid over-engineering and prioritize features that prove value to customers fast.

Technology Stack Selection

Pick the correct, modern languages and services. Ensure your stack matches your developer talent pool, licensing budgets, and long-term scalability targets.

Vendor Vetting & Negotiations

I review proposals from external software agencies. I inspect their previous code repositories, verify their estimations, and audit their execution quality.

Budget & Runway Architecture

Establish cloud cost guardrails and developers headcount planning. Optimize server parameters to ensure your infrastructure budget is spent on validation, not waste.

Technical Risk Mitigation

Formulate database backups, security protocols, API access models, and IP repository ownership assignments to guarantee you legally and structurally own your software.

Launch & Scaling Roadmap

Plan your deployment pipelines, feature release phases, performance benchmarks, and transitions to an internal core development team post-launch.

The 10x ROI of Independent Vetting

Before you sign a contract with a development vendor, or wire thousands for cloud configurations, let's run an independent roadmap and architectural check. Identifying over-engineering or vendor lock-in before writing code is the single most effective way to protect your business timeline.

Vet Your Vendor Today

Frequently Asked Questions

What does a startup technology advisor actually do?

I act as an on-demand CTO and partner for founders: validating MVP scope, selecting the right tech stack, auditing vendor proposals and codebases, planning infrastructure budget and runway, and mitigating technical and IP risk before you sign a contract or wire a payment.

How is a startup advisor different from a Fractional CTO?

A Fractional CTO is an ongoing monthly retainer with dedicated weekly hours for continuous engineering governance. A startup advisor engagement is typically a one-off or short-term project — such as vetting a single vendor proposal or scoping an MVP — for founders who aren't ready for an ongoing retainer but still need senior technical judgment on a specific decision.

When should a founder bring in a technology advisor?

Before signing a vendor contract, before committing to a cloud infrastructure spend, or before finalizing an MVP feature set — these are the highest-leverage moments to get an independent architectural and roadmap check, since mistakes made here are the most expensive to reverse later.

What does vendor vetting involve?

I review proposals from external software agencies, inspect their previous code repositories, verify their time and cost estimations, and audit execution quality against the milestones and deliverables in the contract.

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Shariq Bashir

Independent Technology Executive, Fractional CTO, and Startup Technology Advisor. Helping CEOs, founders, and SMEs align modern software engineering with business growth.

Expertise

  • Fractional CTO Services
  • Startup Tech Advisory
  • Engineering Leadership
  • Consulting Services

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