Riccardo Pisano
I build companies from the first line of code to the exit.
now: fractional CTO for founders in AI, automation & growth
Ways to work together
Four startups, one exit, and a decade as both the CEO and the person writing the code. I bring that to a small number of founders at a time — hands-on, not slideware.
Fractional CTO
Architecture, scaling, and technical direction for founders who need a senior engineer in the room — without a full-time hire.
- System & infra architecture
- 0→1 builds and scaling
- Technical hiring & team
- AI & automation systems
Advisor & Fractional CEO
Strategy, operations, growth, and the hard founder decisions — from someone who's run companies through the messy middle and out the other side.
- Strategy & operations
- Growth & go-to-market
- Bootstrapping to revenue
- Board / advisory roles
Consultation & Lessons
1:1 sessions for founders and builders who want to move faster. I have a bad habit of finding simpler ways to do complicated things.
- AI agents
- Growth & automation funnels
- Building lean, shipping fast
- Code & architecture reviews
The one that worked out
Growth-X
I coded one of the first LinkedIn automation cloud platforms myself and bootstrapped it from $0 to roughly $1.5M ARR — no outside money, a team of 20+, and eventually an acquisition. Scalable outreach, lead generation, analytics, and automation infrastructure, built to grow products the way we once grew one from 0 to 100M users in five years.
Now operates as CueGrowth ↗.
Four startups, one studio, a lot of education
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 — 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.
In their words
What's in the toolbox
// leadership
// engineering
// growth
// ai & automation
A bit longer
I've been an entrepreneur since I was a teenager selling shoes and building my first ecommerce store. Four startups later, Growth-X is the one that worked out — I coded the original platform myself and bootstrapped it from $0 to ~$1.5M ARR with no outside money, a team of 20+, and eventually an acquisition. The other three, including PROsimity, didn't make it, which is where most of my actual education came from.
In most of these I was the CEO, not just the technical person. I was also a Technical Leader at Cisco, building large-scale infrastructure built to last.
These days I'm a fractional CTO and systems architect for founders in AI, automation, and growth, 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 that makes a real difference — let's talk.
Let's build something.
Fractional CTO, advisory, or a one-off consultation — tell me what you're building and where you're stuck.