A research-led product has first customers but no repeatable roadmap
The technology is strong and every pilot asks for something different. We separate product signal from one-off delivery and define the next repeatable bet.
FRACTIONAL CPO · Graz
Fractional CPO Graz
Remote-first · on-site as surchargeable add-on
Remote-first product leadership for Graz and Styria. Add paid on-site discovery, pilot reviews, and roadmap sessions when research, hardware, industry partners, and customer evidence need one decision.
Reply within 4 working hours. Usually within 1.
AwardedTop 100 Young Companies in Austria. #36 in 2024, #58 in 2023 (GEWINN magazine).
Shipped75+ products, 5+ years, across 17 countries.
LanguagesDeutsch, English.
ReviewsGoogle 4.7 stars. Trustpilot 4.5 stars.
Working with Wavect in Graz
The Styrian Business Development Agency describes Styria as Austria’s second-strongest startup region, with a strong deep-tech and academic spin-off profile across software, industrial technology, hardware, energy, mobility, and life sciences.
Those products often begin with technical differentiation. Product leadership becomes necessary when pilot feedback, partner requests, research priorities, and a repeatable market proposition start pulling in different directions.
A fractional CPO does not decide whether the technology works. We decide which customer problem to prove, what not to build, and how a successful pilot becomes product evidence rather than permanent custom work.
Two Graz situations where a fractional CPO fits
The product must already have market evidence. The role is not a substitute for founder discovery.
Industrial partners are turning the backlog into custom development
Important customers keep winning priority by size. We create explicit product criteria, discovery, and a sequence that protects the platform.
The first 30 days with a Graz product team
We separate technical evidence, customer evidence, and commercial pressure.
- Read pilots and customer behaviourReview interviews, usage, pilot outcomes, partner requests, sales objections, and where custom work entered the roadmap.
- Define the repeatable product claimChoose the customer problem, segment, and outcome the next quarter must prove.
- Create a pilot-to-product cadenceSet discovery, prioritization, pilot acceptance, roadmap review, and rules for when custom work earns platform investment.
Graz deep tech: CPO, CTO, or CTPO?
The Fractional CPO
owns market evidence and prioritization. The Fractional CTO Graz
owns technical evidence and production. The Fractional CTPO
owns the boundary when a product decision cannot be separated from feasibility.
// SOURCESWhat we use for Graz product context
We use these sources for local context. They do not imply a partnership, endorsement, office, or client relationship.
- SFG StartupmarkOfficial Styrian ecosystem overview covering deep-tech, spin-offs, software, industrial technology, hardware, energy, mobility, and life sciences.
Engagement tiers and transparent pricing
Four ways to start. Each one has a clear scope and a clear cancellation policy. No hours tracked, no surprise invoices.
CPO-on-Call
Async roadmap triage, prioritization calls, discovery sanity-checks on demand.
4 to 8 hours per month
FROM
€2,500/ month
Start here →Embedded Fractional CPO
Own the roadmap and the discovery cadence. Prioritization framework, stakeholder alignment, sequenced backlog.
1 to 2 days per week
FROM
€12,000/ month
Start here →Product Due Diligence
Fixed-price product, roadmap, and market-fit assessment for fundraising or M&A. Investor-ready report.
1 to 3 weeks, fixed
FROM
€8,000fixed
Start here →Discovery + Roadmap
Two to three week deep-dive into the product. Prioritization framework and a sequenced roadmap.
2 to 3 weeks, fixed
FROM
€3,500fixed
Start here →Fixed-price engagements (Product Due Diligence, Discovery + Roadmap) are signed SoW (Werkvertrag). Wavect is legally bound on scope and deliverables. Retainers (CPO-on-Call, Embedded Fractional CPO) run as a freier Dienstvertrag and cancel weekly with no notice.
// 03How the network model works
Three things that make this different from hiring one product consultant with one calendar.
You hire two founders, not one consultant.
Kevin and Christof are on every engagement. One is your product and CPO interface, the other keeps the roadmap honest against what is actually buildable. No account-manager handoff, no junior on the call after week three.
The bench scales when the work does.
15+ specialists we have shipped production work with. When product decisions need deep domain input (security, ML, mobile, IoT), they plug in under the Wavect SoW. One contract, one invoice. We stay accountable for the outcome.
You stay in control of the contract.
Werkvertrag for fixed-price work (signed scope, legally bound). freier Dienstvertrag retainer for ongoing product leadership (cancel any week). No hour tracking. No scope-creep invoices. The price you sign is the price you pay.
Who is in the room
Two managing directors. Both technical. Both on every engagement.
Kevin Riedl
Managing Director, Operations and Product
- Engineer since 13: TypeScript, C#, Rust, still in the pull requests.
- Founder-led podcast, 96 episodes with 9-figure founders.
- 75+ products shipped across 17 countries.
Christof Jori
Managing Director, Software
- Enterprise architecture, AI, and system reliability.
- Test-driven development, QA as a business enabler.
- 10 years cross-domain engineering.
Looking for a different city?
Fractional CPO Innsbruck →Fractional CPO Tirol →Fractional CPO Vienna →Fractional CPO Linz →Fractional CPO Salzburg →Fractional CPO Munich →Fractional CPO Zurich →
Back to Austria →
// proof
Proof, not promises
4 years
Inside the City-Scale Build
Smart City IoT for Innsbruck: hardened LoRaWAN infrastructure, evaluated and integrated multi-vendor devices, wrote the per-device …
Kubernetes
LoRaWAN
Docker
2 months
0 to Enterprise
Institutional bond analytics platform, zero to enterprise-ready in 2 months; raised multiple rounds.
NestJS
React
Typescript
7 services
Unified Testing
1.5 years owning QA across seven services and multiple vendors. Quality stayed shippable through every refactor.
React
Java/Kotlin
Go
These are selected projects, not our full portfolio. We have shipped 75+ products since 2018.
What clients say
LinkedIn
If you're thinking about digitization of your company, tokenization, coding... you name it, I'd strongly recommend to get in touch with Kevin. His knowledge in the field is unparalleled and working with him a sheer pleasure as he is a super nice guy, strategic thinker and proactively hard worker. Thanks for your brilliant work Kev!
LinkedIn
I got to know Kevin around 1 year ago and have been working together with him since then. His vast knowledge in tech and programming combined with his business acumen makes him the go-to person for me in regards to any tech-related topics. Regardless if it is a project in the field of blockchain, IoT, or any other software development domain, I can recommend reaching out to Kevin to benefit from his tech know-how and a business relationship based on trust and customer centricity.
Trustpilot
Excellent work. The collaboration was very pleasant and you always had the feeling of being in good and capable hands.
Independently rated 5.0/5 on Clutch Read the reviews
Fractional CPO Graz: local questions
Turning technical differentiation into product decisions.
Two founders. One number. Reply in four hours.
Reply within 4 working hours. Usually within 1.