Shekhar & the CITSPL Story
When I founded Catalyst IT Solutions in Bhubaneswar, I set out to build great software for clients who needed it. And for years, that's what we did — web applications, SaaS products, enterprise platforms, custom systems for businesses across India.
But the most interesting conversations I kept having weren't with large companies. They were with founders. Smart, driven, ambitious people who had identified a real problem in the market — but were stuck at the same wall: they didn't know how to build their technology, who to trust, or how to avoid wasting money on the wrong things.
I understood that wall personally. Because I've been on both sides of it. I've built products from scratch — including AlumNetworks, a multi-portal SaaS ecosystem that I'm actively developing today, as a founder and sole builder. I know what it feels like to make every technology decision yourself, to navigate the tradeoffs between speed and quality, to build with limited resources and unlimited ambition.
I also know something that most founders don't realise until they've already made the expensive mistake: the reason most startup tech fails isn't bad developers. It's the absence of senior technology leadership. Someone who can translate business goals into a technical direction, make the architecture decisions that protect you six months from now, and hold a development team accountable to real outcomes.
That role — the CTO role — is what every startup needs from day one. But a full-time CTO demands a salary that would consume most of an early-stage founder's entire runway. And a technical co-founder demands equity that's hard to give back if the relationship doesn't work.
The Fractional CTO model is the answer to that gap. And it's what CITSPL now does, exclusively. We bring the experience of having built real products, led real teams, and navigated the real challenges of startup technology — and we make it available to founders at every stage, at a price that makes sense.
"Every founder deserves the technology leadership that large companies take for granted. Our job is to make that accessible — without asking for equity, without demanding a six-figure salary, and without the three-month hiring process."