Fractional CTO · Marketplaces
Fractional CTO for marketplace startups
Solve the cold-start problem in the product, not just the pitch deck.
The case
Marketplaces engineering is not generic engineering.
Marketplaces are two products in one — supply side and demand side — and most founders underestimate how much engineering it takes to balance them. Search relevance, trust and safety, payments split and escrow, dispute resolution, and the dozen small mechanics that turn one-sided liquidity into a real network. We help marketplace founders design the systems that make repeat transactions inevitable instead of accidental.
Marketplace engineering rewards specialists. A fractional CTO who has shipped marketplace mechanics avoids the architectural mistakes that kill liquidity later — and gets out of your way once the patterns are established.
What we cover
Marketplaces-specific decisions we help you make
Tools we use in marketplaces
Book a call
Talk through your marketplaces problem.
Free 30-minute technical review. Tell us where you're stuck — we'll tell you what it takes.
FAQ
Marketplaces questions founders ask
Should we use Algolia or self-host Elasticsearch? +
Algolia, almost always, until you have a marketplace-specific ranking algorithm that needs custom signals. Operating search infrastructure is a full-time engineering job — buy your way out of it for as long as possible.
How do you handle escrow and refunds? +
Stripe Connect with delayed payouts. The platform holds funds until the marketplace-defined completion criteria are met, then releases. We build a state machine around the lifecycle (booked, started, completed, disputed, refunded) so every payment is auditable.
How do we prevent off-platform transactions? +
Make on-platform payment cheaper and lower-friction than off-platform — better matching, easier refunds, dispute protection. Surveillance is a losing game; product is the answer.