FinTech Cryptocurrency Company

Company Background

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The client was a software research and venture development firm specializing in decentralized systems. With a patented technique for demand-driven deployment of location-neutral software, they were entering the fintech space and needed to bring their core platform to life. As an early-stage startup with no technical team, they sought a partner who could provide both strategic and hands-on support to build and launch a new product in an emerging blockchain-driven market.

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The Challenge

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The startup was preparing for an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) but lacked any in-house technical expertise. With only five non-technical employees, they had no engineering team, no tech stack, and no product direction. They needed to move fast to define, build, and launch a platform capable of supporting high-stakes fundraising—without sacrificing security, performance, or credibility.

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To succeed, they needed an Interim CTO to set the technical vision and an experienced team to execute quickly and collaboratively with stakeholders across the organization.

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The Solution

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Stride stepped in as Interim CTO and technology partner, leading the effort from strategy to execution:

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Discovery and Planning

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In just three days, Stride partnered with the executive team to define the product vision, map out key user flows, and prioritize development work. A detailed product backlog was built, estimated, and scheduled for iterative delivery.

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Consulting and Building

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By day four, Stride had established a full engineering stack. The team selected Java with Spring Boot and Spring Framework, leveraging AWS for infrastructure. Jenkins was implemented for continuous integration, later transitioning to a cloud-based CI for better maintainability.

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Stride built the company’s flagship compute platform, designed to harness edge compute resources for high-traffic environments like IoT. Alongside development, the Interim CTO partnered with the marketing team to produce technical whitepapers and sales materials, represented the company at industry conferences, and supported business development efforts through targeted networking.

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Transition and Training

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Once the platform was live, Stride worked closely with the COO to define an internal engineering role and launched the hiring process. After successfully sourcing and hiring a senior engineer, the Interim CTO onboarded and mentored the new hire—collaborating to evolve the technical architecture and ensure long-term sustainability.

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The Business Outcomes

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Stride helped transform a non-technical startup into a product-ready, investor-backed fintech company. Key outcomes included:

• Successful fundraising: The Investor Portal built by Stride supported a multi-million dollar raise in Bitcoin and Ethereum.
  
  
• Team enablement: The capital raise enabled the company to expand their technical team and invest further in platform development.
  
  
• Clear technical foundation: Stride selected the tech stack, defined the architecture, implemented DevOps, and aligned product and engineering around a shared vision.
  
  
• High-performing practices: Agile and Extreme Programming (XP) methodologies were embedded into the team from day one, creating strong delivery discipline.
  
  
• Executive alignment: Stride collaborated directly with the CEO, founder, COO, CMO, product manager, and designer to bring the product to market.
  
  

By combining technical leadership with execution, Stride accelerated the company’s path to product launch and long-term growth.

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