High-stakes code
Fractional CTO for Web3 and Crypto Startups
Web3 is the one market where a single line of code can lose every dollar in the contract, permanently, in public. I came to it from cybersecurity research, which is the right direction to come from.
Most of the failures I have seen were not exotic cryptography problems. They were ordinary engineering problems (an unaudited upgrade, a key on a laptop, an admin function with no timelock) in an environment that does not forgive them.
What I'm hired to own
The decisions that are cheap now and expensive later
Audits treated as a certificate rather than a process
One audit before launch, then six months of unaudited changes. I set up the security process (internal review, invariant testing, fuzzing, staged audits on anything touching value) so security is continuous rather than a PDF you can point at.
Key management is usually the actual attack surface
Deployer keys, admin keys, treasury access. Multisig thresholds, hardware custody, and a documented recovery path are boring and they are what actually stops the catastrophic loss.
Upgradeability decisions that cannot be revisited
Proxy pattern, admin powers, timelocks, governance. These define both your security posture and your credibility with users. I make the call explicitly and document the reasoning, rather than inheriting whatever the template did.
Everything hard is off-chain
Indexing, reorg handling, transaction retries, chain state that disagrees with your database. This is where most Web3 product bugs actually live, and it is ordinary distributed systems work that on-chain specialists often skip.
Wallet UX quietly caps your growth
Signing flows, gas abstraction, failed-transaction states. If your product is only usable by people who already understand wallets, your market is smaller than your model assumes.
How an engagement runs
Week one, month one, month three
Week 1
I find out what is actually true
Architecture review, codebase read, and honest conversations with every engineer you have. You get a written assessment at the end of it: what is solid, what is risky, what is going to break, and what it costs to fix each one. No slide deck, just a document you can act on.
Month 1
The bleeding stops and the roadmap becomes real
I fix or contain the things from week one that were actually urgent, and rebuild the technical roadmap so it has dates you can believe. If you are hiring, the role is written and the interview loop exists. If you are pre-launch, scope gets cut, usually by a lot.
Month 3
It runs without me in the room
Ship cadence is predictable, the team knows the standard, security and infrastructure are at the level your customers expect, and the decisions are documented. If the engagement is a bridge to a full-time CTO, this is where I start hiring my replacement.
Why me, for this specifically
Experience, not a capabilities deck
Plenty of people can advise on web3. Fewer have shipped in it, been wrong in it, and had to fix it with their own name on the commit. Here's what I'm bringing.
- Web3 venture experience across multiple products
- M.Tech in Cybersecurity with published research; smart contract risk is adjacent to my field
- Full-stack: I build the off-chain systems as well as review the contracts
- Honest about scope: I will tell you when you need a specialist audit firm instead of me
Pricing
Priced at $100 an hour. Not counted at it.
I value my time at $100 an hour and the retainers are sized from that, but the hours are a floor I commit to rather than a cap I bill against. If a week needs more, it gets more. A full-time CTO in the US runs about $260,000 a year before equity; I'll do that job for $60,000 at 150% commitment. Three-month minimum, then month to month.
It does not all have to be cash. The split is negotiable, from a small equity component up to roughly half and half, depending on your stage and how long we expect to work together.
Technical Advisor
$1,500
per month
Minimum 15+ hours a month
A senior technical brain on call. For founders who mostly need the big decisions checked rather than someone in the codebase.
Fractional CTO
$5,000
per month
Minimum 50+ hours a month
Around 50 hours a month as your acting CTO, usually two days a week. I own technical direction, and the roadmap ships because someone senior is accountable for it.
Embedded CTO
$8,000
per month
Minimum 80+ hours a month
Around 80 hours a month, usually three days a week, hands on the keyboard. Everything above, plus I build the hard parts myself instead of delegating them.
Questions
Web3, specifically
Do you audit smart contracts?
I review them and set up the security process, but for a formal pre-launch audit of a contract holding meaningful value you should engage a dedicated audit firm. I help you choose one and make sure their findings actually get fixed.
Do you take equity or token compensation?
Equity yes, in the right technical co-founder situation. Tokens I evaluate case by case and generally prefer a cash retainer, because it keeps my advice honest.
Is Web3 still worth building in?
In specific places, yes. I will give you a straight answer on whether your particular idea needs a chain at all. Sometimes the honest answer is that it does not, and that is a useful thing to hear before you spend a year on it.
More general questions about cost, commitment, and how this compares to a full-time CTO are answered on the main fractional CTO page.
Earned, Not Claimed
What the founders and teams I build with say
I had the pleasure of working with Kunal while building out my MVP and I have to say that it was pleasure to both interact and work with him and his team. As a first time founder, I had a lot of self doubt and internal ruptures, however Kunal's calm, never-say-die and never-panic attitude often helped bring me back to center. I can't vouch for him enough.
Anand Tahiliani
Founder, Debaser Technologies
I had the pleasure of working closely with Kunal during my time as a Product Manager at DhunGuru. As our CTO, Kunal and his team at Panicle Tech worked closely with me across the entire product journey, from building and launching our mobile apps to developing and maintaining our web platforms. His technical expertise, ownership, and willingness to collaborate made a real difference, and I genuinely enjoyed working with him throughout the journey.
Anirudh Joshi
Product Manager, DhunGuru
Kunal helped us architect Mosler's core platform, connecting smart lock hardware, our cloud dashboard, and PMS integrations into one reliable system. The foundation he helped design in those early days still scales with us today.
Pranav Kapoor
Co-Founder, Mosler
Building in web3? Let's talk.
Thirty minutes. Tell me what you're building and where it's stuck, and I'll give you a straight answer on whether I can help.
Book a 30-min callSend me a message