What does an independent technology advisor do?

Judges a specific technology decision for a business owner (a proposal, a build, an AI initiative, a vendor, a late project) and recommends what to do, without earning anything from the outcome.

How is an independent technology advisor different from a fractional CTO?

A fractional CTO is paid for ongoing time running the technology function. An independent advisor is paid for judgment on a decision, and does not run the team or implement the recommendation.

Do you take commissions or referral fees?

No. Giacomo Balli is paid only by the client: no software sales, implementation contracts, commissions or referral fees from anyone he recommends.

Independent technology advisor for business owners

What an independent technology advisor does, how to check that one has no vendor ties, and how it differs from a fractional CTO, an MSP or a consultancy. Giacomo Balli, San Francisco.

An independent technology advisor is someone you pay to judge a technology decision who earns nothing from what you decide. No software to resell, no build to win, no referral fee from the vendor you pick.

Most owners never have one. The people who advise them on technology are the vendor quoting the work, the agency that will build it, the MSP that will run it, and sometimes a nephew. Each of them may be right. Each is also paid if you say yes.

How to check that an advisor is independent

"Independent" is printed on plenty of websites that resell software. Five questions sort it out in one call:

Do you take referral fees, reseller margin or partner incentives from any vendor? The only acceptable answer is no, for every vendor, in writing.
Do you implement what you recommend? An advisor who builds or configures the thing has a stake in recommending it. Advice and implementation can both be good. They should not come from the same invoice.
Who else pays you? Ask about vendor-sponsored events, "certified partner" status and marketplace listings that pay per lead.
Will the recommendation be in writing, with the evidence? A verdict you can hand to any engineer and have checked line by line protects you from the advisor too.
When did you last tell a client to do nothing? Someone with no stake in the answer gives that answer often. Ask for an example.

Advisor, fractional CTO, MSP, consultancy

The labels overlap, so look at what each one is paid for.

A fractional CTO is paid for time running your technology function, usually a set number of days a month. A managed service provider is paid to keep your systems running, and often resells the hardware and licenses it recommends. A consultancy is paid for projects, so a large recommendation is also a large invoice. An independent advisor is paid for judgment on a specific decision, and the fee is the same whichever way you go.

If you need someone to manage your developers every week, hire the fractional CTO. If you need someone to tell you whether the $180,000 proposal on your desk is the right one, that is the advisor's job.

When one is worth paying for

Size it by what being wrong would cost. If being wrong would cost you a year or force you to rewrite the plan, an outside read is cheap insurance. For most owners I work with that starts around $50,000 of spend, though plenty of smaller questions come up once someone is on call.

One example of what independence looks like in practice. In 2020 an online coffee retailer I worked with wanted to replace its privacy policy with a large competitor's, to comply with California's new privacy law. Before anyone paid for a rewrite I checked the law's thresholds: $25 million in revenue, data on 50,000 consumers, or half of revenue from selling data. The business was well under all three. The recommendation was a short review by their lawyer, and nothing else.

How I work

I have built and shipped software since 2010, more than 100 apps of my own, and I have sat on every side of a technology proposal: the developer quoting it, the vendor's engineer, and the buyer. I sell no software and no development, take no commission or referral fee from anyone I recommend, and do not manage the build.

Most work is one engagement around one decision, with direct access to me for about three months while it plays out (how it works). For a single decision on the table there is The Second Opinion. If you want to start smaller, the Working Session is 90 minutes of open questions for $750, and you can always email one question and get a one-page written answer at no charge.

Tell me what you are deciding, and who recommended it. I reply within a day.

Tell me what you are deciding

Frequently asked questions

What does an independent technology advisor do?: Judges a specific technology decision for a business owner (a proposal, a build, an AI initiative, a vendor, a late project) and recommends what to do, without earning anything from the outcome.
How is an independent technology advisor different from a fractional CTO?: A fractional CTO is paid for ongoing time running the technology function. An independent advisor is paid for judgment on a decision, and does not run the team or implement the recommendation.
Do you take commissions or referral fees?: No. Giacomo Balli is paid only by the client: no software sales, implementation contracts, commissions or referral fees from anyone he recommends.
Where are you based?: San Francisco.