Riccardo Pisano
I was the CEO and the engineer, from the first line of code to the exit.
now: I am your business, technical and GTMGo-To-Market.If that was new to you, that is one more reason to book a call. advisor, guiding you to become the founder your startup is missing.
About you
Which founder are you? Find yourself below.
Are you a technical founder trying to scale your idea, or looking for a business founder?
Stop. Sign up for the weekly sessions and let me help you become that business founder.
Start with one session →Are you a business founder looking for a technical founder?
Stop. Do this program. Now, with the right guidance and the right tools, any smart founder can ship products with AI. So let me help you become that technical founder.
Start with one session →Are you an early-stage founder looking for investment?
Stop. Let's talk first. Let's become the bootstrapped startup generating revenue and profit that all investors want to invest in, before wasting months trying to convince investors without having a real, sellable business.
Start with one session →Are you a founder feeling stuck in your business?
Let me help you get unstuck. We go over one single problem every week, and we make sure you are going in the right direction and not wasting time in the wrong place.
Start with one session →Are you a founder feeling behind on AI, or not using AI enough in your business?
Talk to me. We go through it together and I get you up to speed. This is not about paying to get things done. It is paying to get a better version of yourself, which will be valuable for you forever.
Start with one session →Are you a founder looking for an accelerator program?
You can wait and try to join a program with an application process, and eventually give out a percentage. Or you can have a weekly session with me, which works like the office hours of a mentor (by the way, I am a mentor at Alchemist), and get up to speed right away, today, without waiting for a specific program. I joined several accelerators myself, and I can get you up to speed quickly.
Start with one session →Has your business stopped growing?
Let me help you build the GTM machine that works through AI to get you in front of potential clients, with loops and retargeting that increase your conversion rates. Let's visualize together how your GTM should work. Do you need a GTM machine? The answer is yes, everybody will need it, as long as you have already proved that your business is worth spending time to sell.
Start with one session →I will teach you. I will not do the work for you.
I will teach you how to become that business founder if you are not one, and I will help you become the technical founder if you are not technical.
What a month looks like →Not a fit. Teams that want a developer to hand tasks to, and founders who want someone else to build the product for them. If that is you, I will say so on the intro call.
Where I come in
Three things I work on with founders each week. I've been the CTO, the growth lead, and the CEO, on my own companies, all the way to the exit.
Technical advisor
Architecture, hiring, AI, and the calls that decide whether your product scales or buckles under its own weight. You make them with someone who has built and shipped.
- System & infrastructure architecture
- Lean 0→1 builds and scaling
- Technical hiring and team structure
- AI and automation systems
- Technical debt and due diligence readiness
GTM advisor
Not a marketer who runs campaigns. An engineer who builds the machine. The same inbound-led outbound engine that took Growth-X from zero to acquired 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
Business advisor
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
What a month looks like
Riccardo is 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
Ways to start
I work one to one with a small number of founders, every week. Start with one session. It comes off your first month.
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, and the first session of the weekly plan if you continue.
- I review your materials before the call
- Written diagnosis & action plan in 48h
- A week of async follow-up
- The $295 comes off your first month
What comes after the first session. One to one, every week, on your product and your growth.
- A working session every week
- WhatsApp & email access between calls
- Cancel anytime
- What a month looks like
Fractional CTO and Head of GTM engagements are scoped to the work, not to a package. Start with an intro call.
About me
Growth-X
I coded one of the first LinkedIn automation cloud platforms myself and bootstrapped it from $0 to an acquisition, with no outside money and a team of 20. 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 500+ B2B clients 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.
What I actually believe
Questions founders ask
What do I actually get for $995 a month?
One working hour a week with me, on whatever is actually blocking you that week, plus WhatsApp and email access between calls so a question that would block you for a week gets answered when it comes up. You bring the problem and whatever you have so far, we open it together, and you leave with tasks for the week. Month to month, cancel any month, no contract. Deeper fractional CTO or Head of GTM work is scoped separately and billed at $249 an hour beyond the month.
What happens in a weekly session?
We work on one real thing for an hour. It might be an architecture decision, a hiring plan, the outbound system, or the product you are building. You bring the problem and whatever you have so far, and we open it together.
What happens between calls?
You have me on WhatsApp and email. A question that would block you for a week gets answered when it comes up.
Can I cancel?
Yes, any month. There is no contract.
Do I have to start with the $295 session?
No. Some founders start the month right after the intro call. The $295 strategy session is there if you want to work one problem with me first, and it credits toward your first month.
How is this different from a fractional CTO?
A fractional CTO holds the role inside your company for a few days a month. The weekly sessions are lighter. You stay in charge of the work, and I am the senior person you work through it with every week. Deeper fractional CTO or Head of GTM work is scoped separately and billed at $249 an hour beyond the month.
I am not technical. Is this for me?
Yes. You do not need to read code to start. I build with AI tools every day, and the sessions are hands on, so you learn by doing the work with me.
Who is it not for?
Teams that want a developer to hand tasks to, and founders who want someone else to build the product for them. If that is you, I will say so on the intro call.
Which languages do you work in?
English, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish.
Are you an early-stage founder looking for investment?
Stop. Let's talk first. Let's become the bootstrapped startup generating revenue and profit that all investors want to invest in, before wasting months trying to convince investors without having a real, sellable business.
Are you a founder feeling stuck in your business?
Let me help you get unstuck. We go over one single problem every week, and we make sure you are going in the right direction and not wasting time in the wrong place.
Are you a founder feeling behind on AI, or not using AI enough in your business?
Talk to me. We go through it together and I get you up to speed. This is not about paying to get things done. It is paying to get a better version of yourself, which will be valuable for you forever.
Are you a founder looking for an accelerator program?
You can wait and try to join a program with an application process, and eventually give out a percentage. Or you can have a weekly session with me, which works like the office hours of a mentor (by the way, I am a mentor at Alchemist), and get up to speed right away, today, without waiting for a specific program. I joined several accelerators myself, and I can get you up to speed quickly.
Has your business stopped growing?
Let me help you build the GTM machine that works through AI to get you in front of potential clients, with loops and retargeting that increase your conversion rates. Let's visualize together how your GTM should work. Do you need a GTM machine? The answer is yes, everybody will need it, as long as you have already proved that your business is worth spending time to sell.
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.