The Technical Co-Founder Gap

Most early-stage founders don't need a full exec team.

They don't need a CTO with 20 years at Google. They don't need a CPO who's "passionate about user journeys." They don't need a board of advisors with impressive titles and no time.

They need a team who can look at the idea and say what's buildable now. Who can design it so it makes sense to users. Who can build it so it actually works. Who can ship it before the runway disappears.

That's the gap.

Where Founders Get Stuck

I talk to founders every week who are in the same place. The idea is there. Sometimes they've got a prototype. Sometimes a Figma deck. Sometimes just an outline on paper or a voice note.

Then the fog rolls in.

What's the right tech approach? Do I need a co-founder? Should I raise first or build first? How do I move from this mess of ideas to something real?

That's the part I love most.

What We Actually Do

At strange.tech, we help founders go from sketch to strategy to product. We're not just writing code. We shape what gets built, why, and when.

I handle the product and founder conversations. Rishi leads design and UX. Dan and the dev team build the thing. We're small, but that's the point — you get senior people, not juniors learning on your runway.

Part CTO, part CPO, part co-pilot.

Some of these become equity partnerships. We become co-founders, skin in the game, same upside. Others are full-rate builds — we take you from zero to launch, you pay for the work, no equity changes hands. Depends on the fit.

But the approach is the same either way. We build with you, not for you.

What Founders Actually Need

Most early-stage founders don't need a team of ten. They need one partner who's done it before. Who's shipped, not just strategised. Who still remembers what zero feels like.

That's what we do.