A Chief Technology and Product Officer owns what gets built, how it gets built, and whether it solves the customer's problem. We run that combined role fractional across Austria, so early-stage teams get product and engineering judgement from one head instead of paying for two senior hires and refereeing the standoff between them. Need only the product side? See our Fractional CPO. Only engineering? See our Fractional CTO. Pre-PMF, or on a smaller budget, the same combined role runs through our Fractional Co-Founder (EUR 400 per week). Fixed prices on scoped work. Cancel any week on retainers. No hours tracked.
Kevin RiedlManaging Director, Operations and ProductChristof JoriManaging Director, Software
Kevin Riedl and Christof Jori. Together on every engagement.
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.
// 01
Who hires a fractional CTPO
Three buyer patterns we see most often. The common thread: one person needs to own both the product call and the build, because splitting them this early just adds a coordination tax and a weekly standoff.
Solo or non-technical founder, no senior counterpart
You are setting product direction and shipping code at the same time, and nobody owns the sequencing. We take both: product discovery and technical architecture in the same week, with no handoff and no translation layer between the roadmap and the build.
Founders splitting product and tech too early
You are about to hire a CTO and a CPO and you can afford neither, let alone the politics of the two disagreeing about priority every Tuesday. A combined CTPO collapses that loop into one head until the org is large enough to justify the split.
Pre-PMF team burning runway on the wrong build
The team keeps shipping whatever the loudest investor asked for, because whoever builds it also decides what it is. A CTPO owns the sequencing and the architecture together, which is the single biggest lever on wasted runway before product-market fit. If you are not ready to delegate that authority, keep it founder-led. We will say so.
// 02
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.
CTPO-on-Call
Async product and technical triage. Roadmap calls, architecture sanity-checks, prioritization on demand.
4 to 8 hours per month
FROM€2,500/ month
Slack-first response, video when needed.
Roadmap, prioritization, and architecture reviews in one head.
freier Dienstvertrag retainer, cancel any week, no notice.
Fixed-price engagements (Product + Tech Due Diligence, Discovery + Architecture Sprint) are signed SoW (Werkvertrag). Wavect is legally bound on scope and deliverables. Retainers (CTPO-on-Call, Embedded Fractional CTPO) run as a freier Dienstvertrag and cancel weekly with no notice.
// 03
How the network model works
Three things that make this different from hiring one consultant with one calendar and one specialism.
01
You hire two founders, not one consultant.
Kevin and Christof are on every engagement. One runs point on product and the customer, the other keeps the architecture honest against what is actually buildable. Because it is one combined role, there is no CTO-CPO handoff to manage and no Tuesday standoff over priority.
02
The bench scales when the work does.
15+ specialists we have shipped production work with. When a decision needs deep domain input (security, ML, mobile, IoT), they plug in under the Wavect SoW. One contract, one invoice. We stay accountable for the outcome.
03
You stay in control of the contract.
Werkvertrag for fixed-price work (signed scope, legally bound). freier Dienstvertrag retainer for ongoing CTPO leadership (cancel any week). No hour tracking. No scope-creep invoices. The price you sign is the price you pay.
// 04
How we cover the DACH ground zone (and everywhere else)
Remote-first everywhere. On-site days available only in our DACH ground zone (Austria, Munich, and Zurich) as a surchargeable add-on. Christof is based in Vienna; Kevin in Tirol/Innsbruck. Between the two of us, every Austrian city plus Munich and Zurich is reachable by train without a flight, which is why on-site is offered there and nowhere else. On-site is for product workshops, architecture sessions, and stakeholder interviews. Outside that zone we work fully remote, and that is how 17 countries of clients work with us today.
InnsbruckKevin's home · on-site add-on
TirolWavect HQ · on-site add-on
SalzburgTourism, fintech, SaaS · on-site add-on
LinzIndustrial, IoT · on-site add-on
ViennaChristof's home · on-site add-on
GrazStyrian SaaS · on-site add-on
Hybrid also available in
MunichHybrid · Train from Innsbruck
ZurichHybrid · Train from Innsbruck via Bregenz
Outside Austria, Munich, and Zurich
Remote only. We work with clients across 17 countries. All engagements there run fully remote. On-site is not offered outside the DACH ground zone above, even at surcharge, because the travel time would dwarf the benefit.
// 05
Who is in the room
Two managing directors. Both technical. Both on every engagement.
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!
Jörg MayrCEO, alpha strategies
Original
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.
Simon NoppB2B Product & Business Model Innovation
Original
Trustpilot
Excellent work. The collaboration was very pleasant and you always had the feeling of being in good and capable hands.
Eleven questions Austrian founders and boards ask before they sign. Front-loaded answers.
Everything from the customer problem to the shipped code. A CTPO carries the remit of a CTO and a CPO in one head: what gets built, in what order, how it is architected, and whether it can ship this sprint. The whole point is that there is no handoff and no translation layer between the roadmap and the build. If you need only the product side, hire the Fractional CPO. Only engineering, hire the Fractional CTO.
Early. Pre-product-market-fit, a startup usually cannot afford two senior hires and cannot afford the politics of a CTO and CPO disagreeing about priority every Tuesday. One person who decides both what matters and how it is built collapses that loop and saves runway. The role should split once engineering management becomes a full-time job (usually 8-plus engineers) and product cannot wait for a weekly batch. Before that, splitting just creates a coordination tax. We help you hire both when the time comes.
Same combined role, different stage and framing. Our Fractional Co-Founder is the pre-PMF entry point at EUR 400 per week: a CTPO who sits beside the founder while the product is still being figured out. The CTPO retainers here are for teams past that point that want the combined product-and-engineering remit on a defined day-per-week scope. If you are pre-PMF or on a tight budget, start with the co-founder model. It is the same head, the honest fit for that stage.
Real. A fractional CTPO works 1 to 3 days a week against a defined scope, attends the same board meetings as a full-time one, and is bound by the same SoW. The only thing fractional about them is the calendar. The combined remit is not a stretch for us: it is how Wavect normally works, product and engineering from one head, which is why the fractional CPO and fractional CTO are described on this site as the product-only and engineering-only slices of it.
freier Dienstvertrag for the retainer tiers (CTPO-on-Call, Embedded Fractional CTPO), because the deliverable is ongoing product and technical judgement rather than a fixed work product. Werkvertrag for the fixed-scope tiers (Product + Tech Due Diligence, Discovery + Architecture Sprint), where we are legally bound on the scope and the deliverables. Both are issued by Wavect GmbH (FN 575337i, Ampass, Tirol). We can sign under your standard MSA or use ours. Austrian-law jurisdiction is the default.
Two cases. First, when the engineering org is already too big for one person to manage and prioritise at the same time. Past roughly 8 engineers, the role should split into a real CTO and a real CPO, and keeping a single CTPO past that point becomes a bottleneck. Second, when the founder is not ready to delegate both the product call and the technical direction. A combined role concentrates a lot of authority in one outside head; if you are not ready for that, keep it founder-led or take a narrower CPO or CTO engagement instead.
It should worry everyone, and it is the honest trade-off of the combined role. The mitigation is a CTPO who knows when to stop being one. We plan the split from day one: we document architecture and product decisions as we go, and when engineering management becomes a full-time job we help you recruit the permanent CTO and CPO who replace us. Anyone unwilling to fire themselves is the wrong CTPO. Because you hire two founders, not one freelancer, there is also no single calendar that can take the engagement down.
Yes, in those cities plus the rest of Austria and Munich and Zurich. Christof is based in Vienna; Kevin in Tirol/Innsbruck. Between the two of us, every Austrian city plus Munich and Zurich is reachable by train without a flight, which is why on-site is only offered inside that DACH ground zone. On-site is always a surchargeable add-on (travel time, train, hotel, on-site hours), not bundled into the retainer or fixed price. Use on-site for product workshops, architecture sessions, and stakeholder interviews. Day-to-day work runs remote.
Remote only. The DACH ground zone above is where we offer on-site as a surchargeable add-on, because Christof and Kevin can reach those cities by train. Anywhere else (rest of Europe, the UK, the US, Singapore, Australia, the UAE, the rest of the world) runs fully remote: same SoW, same pricing, same two founders on every call. We do not fly for on-site work, even paid, because the travel time would dwarf the benefit and product and architecture work run well from a screen.
No. We charge cash, and that is the deal. Trading consulting hours for equity creates a misaligned incentive, an awkward cap-table line, and a difficult conversation when the engagement ends. If you want a combined product-and-tech leader with skin in the game, hire a full-time CTPO or co-founder. If you want a fractional operator who is unambiguously on your side because you pay the invoice, hire us. Cash, monthly, cancel any week on retainer.
Our CTPO-on-Call tier starts at EUR 2,500 per month, the Embedded tier at EUR 12,000 per month for 1 to 2 days a week. A full-time senior CTPO is rare and expensive, because you are hiring one person senior enough to own both product and engineering, and the few who can usually want a co-founder package. Fractional is the right shape when you need that combined authority but not the full-time presence, and when decisions can batch weekly. A full-timer wins on context once the org is large enough to justify the cost and the role is about to split anyway. See CTPO for the role definition.
Two founders. One number. Reply in four hours.
Tell us what you are building and where product and engineering have no shared owner. The first call is 30 minutes. We will tell you whether a combined CTPO is the right shape for your stage, and if you would be better served by a narrower CTO or CPO engagement, we will say so.
