From CTO to Solo Consulting

What changes when you move from team leadership to independent execution.

6 min read

After years of leading teams inside agencies and startups, I moved into independent consulting in Feb 2026. I was not trying to do less. I wanted faster decisions, clearer ownership, and fewer layers between me and the founders I work with.

Context

From June 2018 to January 2020, I worked at GHaaS on projects like Daily Dot, Siemens, and LevaData. From January 2020 to July 2024, I worked at Brucira and shipped products for ruttl, BruTask, Dream11, Cashfree, Razorpay, and others. I then served as co-founder and CTO at BharatFD, followed by CTO at ZESTLY.

By early 2026, the pattern was obvious to me: founders wanted one accountable partner who could connect product strategy, design, engineering, and launch work. That is the model I run now.

Operating model

My operating model is simple:

  • Scope first: define the objective, constraints, and metrics before building.
  • Build in short cycles with weekly milestones.
  • Keep communication direct with async updates and live checkpoints when needed.
  • Design for handover so there are no dead-end code paths or undocumented systems.

This works especially well for early-stage SaaS teams that need momentum without giving up technical quality.

What broke

The first version of this model had gaps.

  • I underestimated intake rigor. Vague scopes create expensive drift.
  • I tried to keep too much context in my head instead of writing decision logs.
  • I pushed shipping speed too hard without always defining an adoption plan.

The fix was boring but necessary: better discovery, better documentation, and clearer success metrics at kickoff.

What scales

Three things have kept velocity up without burning quality:

  • Repeatable project templates for scope, architecture, and launch readiness.
  • A reliable network of engineering and design collaborators who can scale with demand.
  • Ruthless prioritization around user value and time to market.

The goal stays the same: help founders move from PRD to a working MVP in 2-4 weeks, then keep improving it from real user feedback.

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