Fractional CTO for Early Stage
& High Growth Startups
Think Build Learn (TBL) partners with founders to accelerate engineering, scale teams, and deliver product with confidence.
Services
Fractional CTO
TBL brings exec-level technical leadership to startups that need strategic guidance without the cost of a full-time leadership hire.
- Technical strategy & product validation
- Team design, recruiting & structure
- AI training & adoption
- IT, security, risk & compliance
Product Architecture
We help early stage teams make smart, durable architecture choices that set them up for speed today and scalability tomorrow.
- Tech stack
- Infrastructure & scalability
- 3rd party tools & integrations
- Measurement, analytics & data warehousing
Engineering Velocity
We help startups build engineering practices that match their stage—fast enough to iterate, structured enough to scale.
- Realistic process for team size & goals
- Actionable performance metrics
- Tooling for rapid prototyping (AI & A/B tests)
- Recruiting, interviewing, hiring
We Can Build It
From Idea to Launch
Concept to launch: validate, design, build, and refine. We can help you with all aspects of product development.
- Refine ideas & translate strategy into product
- High-fidelity designs for prototyping
- Build MVPs to validate your product
- Manage iterative development after launch
- Mobile & web application development
- Analytics instrumentation
- Experimentation & A/B testing
- Data ETL & warehousing
- DevOps and infrastructure
What We’ve Built
We have depth of expertise and a network of talented technical resources to augment your needs.
- High growth & large-scale fintech products
- Family banking & investing platforms (millions of users)
- Crowdfunding financial platform; processing $1B+
- Direct-to-consumer e-commerce systems
- High growth consumer rewards app with advertiser partners
- Distributed sales force management apps
- Optimized onboarding, KYC & funding flows
- Enterprise data pipelines & pricing analytics tools
- HR platforms for workplace data management
Tech Stack
Languages & Frameworks
Ruby 
Rails 
Python 
C++ 
TypeScript 
Node.js 
React Native Infrastructure, Cloud, & AI
AWS 
Google Cloud 
GitHub 
OpenAI 
Cursor 
Claude Databases & Storage
MySQL 
PostgreSQL 
Redis 
MongoDB 
BigQuery 
Redshift Work & References
“Balin advised me and my Head of Engineering at InstaSwitch, and he’s the best ‘technical therapist’ a startup could ask for. We wouldn’t be where we are today without his technical guidance, sharp product sense, and overall incredible attitude.”
“He supported us across multiple dimensions, from navigating early-stage technical gotchas and helping us move faster, to thinking through how to build with minimal resources, how to hire, and what to look for in engineers. He helped us define our hiring bar, improve our product-engineering collaboration, and build a stronger technical foundation.”
“Balin has been instrumental in shaping our engineering team and helping me, as a non-technical founder, understand and lead more confidently on the engineering side. Can’t recommend him enough.”
— Daniel West, CEO InstaSwitch
Copper
CTO for a VC-backed fintech startup ($40M+). Scaled engineering org from 4 → 15, launched new consumer fintech product to $10M ARR in 12 months, and led technical diligence for product acquisition.
Snap! Mobile
Founding engineer to senior director. Scaled product org from 4 → 30+, architected core financial infra, validated new revenue streams, and helped secure Series A ($260M valuation).
The Home Depot
Led data product team of 12, launching competitive intelligence tools that provided real-time pricing analytics and supported Fortune 50 exec decisions.
Connect on LinkedIn
See my full background, roles, and endorsements on LinkedIn.
Let’s talk
Quick intro, discuss a couple of goals, and we’ll see if there’s a fit.
Resources
Guides for founders on product, engineering, and scaling.