Sergio Pereira

200 people work in this office: - 8am: They commute for 1 hour to the office, carrying their laptop. - 9am-6pm: They sit & use their laptop with music on their headset. - 6pm: They pack their laptop and commute for 1 hour back home. Non sense! Remote work is much better!

The features are delivered. The tickets are closed. But no one on the dev team seems to care if the product actually works. You’re the only one asking: - “Are users getting stuck?” - “Why are conversions dropping?” - “Should we improve this flow?” This is the hidden cost of…

You got what you asked for, but not what your clients needed. This is a common mismatch in early-stage startups: - Founders expect help shaping a product. - Developers deliver on a specification. They’re not doing anything wrong. In fact, most software developers and agencies…

The agency showed LinkedIn profiles of senior engineers, talked about best practices, and name-dropped impressive client achievements. But a few weeks in, things feel off. - Bugs keep popping up. - Progress is slow. - You’re getting late-night messages from developers you’ve…

Hiring fewer engineers isn’t about cost-cutting. It’s about leverage. Early-stage startups used to over-hire. For most of the last decade, team size was a growth metric. So startups were encouraged to hire aggressively, and VCs would fund those cost structures. That equation…

"I'm pitching myself to move from Senior Engineer to Startup CTO. What skills should I learn?" - Several Engineers asked me These were my tips: 1. Understand what's in scope for the Startup CTO role Usually it spreads into 3 different directions: - Technology - People -…

This is what your “cheap freelancer” is doing. You hired the Freelancer with the lowest hourly rate you could find. Maybe straight out of a coding bootcamp. He's probably using an AI tool like Cursor to build your MVP fast. And that's great! However, in many such cases there's…

“We launched our product, but no one used it.” This one hurts. - You built the app. - Launched it. - Posted about it. - Maybe even ran some ads. But nobody signed up. Or worse, people signed up, but didn’t come back. You go to the software agency you hired and ask them: - “Can…

You don’t have a hiring problem. You have a geography problem. Many Startup Founders say: - “We can’t afford good engineers.” - “We’re burning too fast.” - “We need to raise more.” Here’s a thought: maybe you don’t need more capital. Maybe you just need a better hiring…

You want to move fast, learn from users, and get to product-market fit. But the dev agency seems more interested in adding features to the scope. At first, it’s subtle: - A suggestion to “build it right from the start”. - A few “nice to haves” slipped into the roadmap. - A…

Weeks go by. You’ve paid invoices. You’ve joined the standups. But you still haven’t seen the product in action. You keep asking: - “Can I try a demo?” - “Is there a staging link?” - “Can I see what’s done so far?” This is one of the most frustrating experiences for…

Why your product fails before it even launches. You had a great idea. You hired a dev agency to build it. But six months later: - Still no launch - Budget is gone - And you’re not sure what went wrong Here’s what really happened is either of: 1. Communication gaps. You speak…

You launched. But two days later, your first clients report bugs, and your dev team is nowhere to be found. Welcome to the “now what?” phase. Most non-technical founders are laser-focused on getting to launch. But what they don’t realize is that launch is just the beginning.…

“They built it with tech we don’t understand (or need)” "We told them we wanted a simple MVP. They came back with: - Kubernetes - 8 microservices - A $900/month AWS bill - But we're still pre-revenue." Sound familiar? Here’s the truth: The best tech choice for an MVP is often…

Your MVP works? Great! But here’s what it could be hiding under the hood. I get it, you launched fast. You hired a freelancer or and agency to move quickly. The app loads. The signup works. It looks clean. But under the surface, here’s what I often find: - Anyone can hit your…

Writing about my work as a Fractional CTO has made a big difference in my work. Not only more clients are finding me. But also, the intro calls are very different from what they used to be. Clients already know how I work, and mostly ask specific questions:

Software Developer salaries have huge variations around the world. A common take is that US companies should simply outsource all work to Pakistan. It's not that simple, though. As a Fractional CTO I've seen US Founders go wrong with outsourcing in so many ways:

You were told it would take 8 weeks. But it’s been 5 months and you still don’t have a product you can launch. This isn’t just about missed timelines. It’s about lost momentum. Every week that slips: - Investor confidence drops - Your sales plans stall - You lose time to test,…

Your MVP is done. You’re ready to scale. But suddenly, hiring your own tech team feels impossible. You don’t have: - Access to the GitHub repo - Any documentation - Credentials to cloud accounts - A clear path to transition the codebase This is what vendor lock-in looks like.…

You wanted an MVP. But you got Kubernetes, microservices, serverless functions, and a costly AWS bill. It’s easy to assume that “modern” or “scalable” tech is a sign of quality. But for early-stage startups, that complexity often hurts more than it helps. Here’s what really…

If your Startup's product is working, that doesn’t mean it’s ready for clients. I’ve worked with many first-time founders over the years. It's thrilling to ideate the product and to find someone who can build it fast. However, in many cases, they hired a junior dev, who's…