Riccardo Pisano
I build companies from the first line of code to the exit.
now: helping founders build companies worth buying, as fractional CTO, Head of GTMGo-To-Market.If that was new to you, that is one more reason to book a call. & founder advisor · Miami + remote
What I actually believe
Where founders get stuck
Where I come in
Three hats, one hire. I've been the CTO, the growth lead, and the CEO, on my own companies, all the way to the exit. Most startups pay three people for that. You pay for a few days of one.
Fractional CTO
You need a CTO's brain. You don't need a CTO's salary. Architecture, hiring, AI, and the calls that decide whether your product scales or buckles under its own weight.
- System & infrastructure architecture
- Lean 0→1 builds and scaling
- Technical hiring and team structure
- AI and automation systems
- Technical debt and due diligence readiness
Fractional Head of GTM
Not a marketer who runs campaigns. An engineer who builds the machine. The same inbound-led outbound engine that took Growth-X from $0 to $1.5M ARR with almost no ad budget: find the high-intent visitors, automate the outreach, turn traffic into pipeline.
- GTM systems & automation
- Inbound-led outbound engine
- Website-visitor to pipeline
- Lead gen on a near-zero budget
Founder Advisor & Fractional CEO
The hard calls: strategy, operations, when to hire, when to raise, when to walk. From the CEO who took a bootstrapped company all the way to an exit.
- Strategy & operating rhythm
- Bootstrapping vs raising
- Hard founder decisions
- Exit & due-diligence readiness
From first line of code to an exit
Growth-X
I coded one of the first LinkedIn automation cloud platforms myself and bootstrapped it from $0 to roughly $1.5M ARR, with no outside money, a team of 20, and eventually an acquisition. Built on an inbound-led outbound model: instead of cold spam, it found high-intent leads (your website visitors, a competitor's customers) and turned them into genuine LinkedIn connections that converted.
This is the experience I now bring to founders: not theory, but the full path from first product decisions to revenue, team, operations, and acquisition.
Now operates as CueGrowth ↗.
The exit, on the record
The founder of Acquire.com interviewed me about the Growth-X exit. The full story, on the record.
How I think about growth
The exit is the outcome. This is the machine behind it. A walkthrough of the GTM stack I designed and built at Growth-X, the demand engine behind $1.5M ARR with almost no marketing budget, and the kind of system I help founders implement today.
From the people who were there
I built companies with Riccardo for 12 years, including Growth-X and PROsimity. He's the rarest kind of founder: the CEO who also wrote the platform's first lines of code, and kept shipping while running revenue, hiring, and eventually the acquisition. Any founder who gets his judgment on tap is getting an unfair advantage.
Roy MorCo-founder, Growth-X & PROsimity
I worked with Riccardo at Growth-X through the acquisition and I'm still with the company today. What he built was strong enough to carry through the transition, the product, the processes and the team. Founders working with him now get the person who actually made that happen.
Lusine KhachatryanHead of Customer Success at Growth-X, now with the acquirer
Over six years at Growth-X, I watched Riccardo scale our engineering team from two developers to eight while keeping the technical vision sharp and the pace high. He brings a rare mix of strategic leadership and hands-on engineering that pushes everyone around him to level up. I'd join his team again without hesitation.
Dmytro YehorovTech Lead, led engineering at Growth-X
I worked with Riccardo in the early years of Growth-X, when everything was still being figured out. He was building the product, talking to clients and leading the team all at once, and he made it work. Watching the company he started back then grow to an acquisition surprised nobody who was there at the beginning.
Ayelet Bar-GranitEarly Customer Success Lead, Growth-X
Before Growth-X
Three of the four didn't make it, which is where most of my actual education came from.
PROsimity
2014-2015Proximity & event networking across iOS, Android, and web, with a swipe-to-connect flow used at IBM, KPMG, and Sheppard Mullin events. Ranked Eventbrite's #2 networking tool.
GeoWinks
2013-2014Location-based "missed connections" app: find and "wink" at people nearby, across native mobile and web, with user-acquisition systems built in.
Okidoqui
2010-201450+ projects with a small team: the U. Miami LIFE Project ("Google for medical data"), Yap-at, MEIKitchens, Sherloo, plus growth & e-commerce systems at scale.
Still building
I didn't retire after the exit. I still ship, most days.
What's in the toolbox
// leadership
// engineering
// growth
// ai & automation
How I build
I've been building companies since I was a teenager: four startups, one exit, and three that didn't make it, where most of my actual education came from. I was usually the CEO and the person writing the code. In between, I spent time as a Technical Leader at Cisco, on the team from Embrane, a software-defined networking startup Cisco had acquired. Enough of a look inside a hundred-thousand-person company to know how engineering runs at enterprise scale, not just startup scale.
My bias is bootstrapping: no outside money until the product is something people already pay for. It forces you to build what customers actually want, not what a pitch deck says they want, and to earn growth on a near-zero budget instead of buying it.
These days I bring that to founders as a fractional CTO and advisor, with a bad habit of finding simpler ways to do complicated things. Mostly I want to spend my time on ideas that actually help people who need it, not just ones that make money.
If you're building something ambitious and need senior technical judgment without hiring a full-time CTO yet, let's talk.
Ways to start
I work with a small number of founders at a time. Start small. Each step credits toward the next.
We meet, you tell me what you're building, I tell you honestly whether I can help, and which of these makes sense, if any.
- 30 focused minutes
- Honest fit assessment
- No pitch, no obligation
One focused hour on your hardest problem: a technical decision, AI roadmap, hiring, growth, or getting sellable.
- I review your materials before the call
- Written diagnosis & action plan in 48h
- A week of async follow-up
- Credits toward your first Advisory Month
For problems bigger than one decision: a raise, a rebuild, a hiring push, getting ready to sell.
- A strategy session every week (4 / month)
- WhatsApp & email access between calls
- $250 per session vs $300 one-off
- Cancel anytime
Fractional CTO engagements are scoped individually. Start with an intro call.
Questions founders ask
What does a fractional CTO do?
Senior technical leadership without the full-time hire: architecture and product decisions, technical hiring, AI and automation direction, technical debt, and due diligence readiness. You get CTO-level judgment for a fraction of an executive salary.
When does a startup need a fractional CTO instead of a full-time one?
When technical decisions have outgrown the founding team but there isn't enough work, or budget, for a full-time executive. Typical signs: you have revenue and a small dev team or agency, but no senior technical person in the room when big decisions get made.
How does pricing work?
The intro call is free. A one-off Strategy Session is $300: one focused hour plus a written diagnosis and action plan. An Advisory Month is $1,000/month for a weekly session plus WhatsApp and email access between calls, cancel anytime. Fractional CTO engagements are scoped individually. See ways to start.
Do you work with Miami startups in person?
Yes. I'm based in Miami and happy to meet founders across South Florida in person. Everyone else: remote, worldwide. I work in English, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish, useful if your team is in Latin America. More on this: fractional CTO in Miami.
Do you only work with B2B SaaS companies?
Mostly early-stage B2B SaaS, AI, automation, and growth companies, especially bootstrapped or lean teams, because that's the path I took myself.
Can you help us get ready to sell the company?
Yes. I sold my own bootstrapped SaaS in 2025, so I know what buyers look at. I help founders reduce founder-dependency, clean up the technical story, and avoid due diligence surprises.
Why won't I find you on LinkedIn?
They banned me. Building one of the first LinkedIn automation platforms made me too dangerous, apparently. I wear it as a badge of honor. The full story is in the exit interview.
Let's build something.
Fractional CTO, founder advisory, technical strategy, or a one-off review. Tell me what you're building, what's stuck, and what decision you need help making. Based in Miami, working with founders worldwide.
No LinkedIn. They banned me for building Growth-X. Badge of honor.