What is CTO support?
CTO (Chief Technology Officer) support involves providing you with strategic technical expertise to guide the technological decisions of your company or project. Whether you're a startup without an in-house CTO, an SME looking to structure its tech strategy, or a company that needs an external perspective on its technical choices, we're here to support you.
The role of a CTO goes beyond pure technology. It also encompasses team management, technical recruitment, product roadmap definition, software architecture, technology selection, and implementing development best practices.
Our support adapts to your needs: we can intervene on a one-off basis for a technical audit or a specific issue, or on a recurring basis as CTO as a Service to structure and evolve your technical strategy over the long term.
With our experience in web development , mobile development , and UX design , we have a complete vision of the digital product lifecycle and can advise you holistically.
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Tailored CTO support
Whether you need a technical audit, to define your application architecture, to structure your development teams, or to be supported in your strategic decisions, we put our 15+ years of expertise in digital product development at your disposal.
We address a wide range of challenges: technical overhaul, performance optimization, process implementation (CI/CD, testing, code review), technical debt management, technology stack selection, recruitment and team upskilling.
Our approach is pragmatic and results-oriented. We don't settle for theoretical recommendations: we support you in the concrete implementation of identified solutions, drawing on our hands-on development experience.
Technical audit
In-depth analysis of your code, your architecture, your processes, and your technology stack. We identify areas for improvement and propose a prioritized action plan to optimize your system.
Technical strategy
Definition of your technical roadmap, selection of technologies suited to your challenges, trade-offs between time-to-market and quality, aligning technology with your business objectives.
Team management
Structuring and leading your development teams, implementing agile rituals, supporting recruitment, developer upskilling, and building a healthy engineering culture.
Our CTO support experts
Our approach to CTO support
At BearStudio, we're not just consultants: we're practitioners. Our CTOs have their hands in the code every day on our projects, which allows us to bring you concrete, realistic advice grounded in modern development practice.
We believe in a pragmatic and iterative approach. Rather than large theoretical transformations, we prefer progressive and measurable improvements that quickly deliver value. Our goal is to make you autonomous on your technical topics, not to create dependency.
Our expertise covers the entire modern JavaScript/TypeScript ecosystem (React, React Native, Node.js, TanStack, etc.) as well as best practices in DevOps, software architecture, and product management.
Frequently asked questions about CTO support
Find answers to the most common questions about CTO support, our services, and our methodology.
When should you seek CTO support?
Several situations may warrant external CTO support:
- You're an early-stage startup and don't yet have an in-house CTO
- Your current CTO is overloaded and needs support on certain topics
- You want an external perspective on your technical choices or architecture
- You need to make important strategic decisions (overhaul, stack change, scaling)
- You're facing performance issues, code quality problems, or technical debt
- You need support with recruitment or structuring your tech team
What is the difference between a CTO and a Lead Developer?
A Lead Developer (or Tech Lead) is first and foremost a senior developer who guides the team on day-to-day technical matters. They are deeply involved in the code and make technical architecture decisions on the product.
A CTO has a more strategic and cross-functional vision. They define the company's technical direction, bridge the gap between tech and business, manage budgets, lead recruitment, and structure processes. They may code, but it's not their primary activity.
In smaller organizations, these roles often overlap. CTO support can actually help you clarify these roles and structure your tech organization.
How does a technical audit work?
A technical audit begins with a discovery phase where we exchange with your teams to understand your context, challenges, and objectives. We then analyze your code, architecture, processes, and tools.
We produce a detailed audit report that identifies strengths, areas for improvement, and technical risks. Each point comes with a concrete action plan with effort estimates and prioritization.
The audit concludes with an interactive presentation where we discuss recommendations and adjust priorities based on your constraints. We can then support you in implementing the identified improvements.
What is the typical duration of CTO support?
The duration depends on your needs and context. A one-off technical audit can be done in a few days to two weeks. Support for a specific issue (overhaul, recruitment, etc.) can last from a few weeks to a few months.
For CTO as a Service, we generally recommend a commitment of at least 3 to 6 months to truly impact your organization. The engagement can be part-time (1 to 2 days per week) or more intensive depending on needs.
We favor flexible commitments that can adapt to your evolving needs rather than rigid long-term contracts.
How do you handle confidentiality and security?
Confidentiality is at the core of our approach. We systematically sign non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) before any engagement and never share client information without their explicit consent.
Regarding security, we follow industry best practices: secure system access (MFA, VPN if needed), strict access and credential management, GDPR compliance for personal data.
If your context requires specific security measures, we adapt to your requirements and can work within highly secured environments.
Why choose BearStudio for your CTO support?
At BearStudio, we're not just consultants: we're builders. We develop our own products, we maintain open source projects, we're in daily contact with code and concrete development challenges.
This hands-on experience allows us to bring you pragmatic, tested, and proven advice, rather than theoretical recommendations disconnected from the reality of development.
We have supported early-stage startups as well as scaleups and large enterprises, on a wide variety of challenges. This diversity of experience allows us to quickly adapt to your context and bring you relevant solutions.
Our approach is collaborative and transparent. We work with your teams, not in their place. Our goal is to transfer our knowledge and make you autonomous on your technical challenges.
Finally, our expertise covers the full spectrum of modern web and mobile development. Whether you work with React, React Native, Node.js, or other technologies, we have the expertise to guide you effectively.
Do you offer support for specific technologies?
Our core expertise focuses on the JavaScript/TypeScript ecosystem: React, React Native, Node.js, Next.js, TanStack Start, Astro, and all associated technologies (TailwindCSS, Prisma, tRPC, etc.).
We also master modern DevOps practices: CI/CD, containerization (Docker), cloud deployment (Vercel, AWS, etc.), monitoring, and performance.
If your tech stack falls outside our primary area of expertise, we'll be transparent with you and can point you to the right partners. We prefer to acknowledge our limits rather than support you on topics we don't master perfectly.