Kristian Tanninen

Kristian Tanninen

Product CTO

Kristian Tanninen

Kristian Tanninen

Fractional CTO, product lead and AI architect · Vienna

Anything can go from idea to production in weeks with AI agents. The speed is there for everyone. What sets yours apart is two calls made early: whether it is the right thing to build, and whether it is built right.

I make those calls with you, as your fractional CTO, product lead and AI architect. I work on SaaS and AI products, and on enterprise solutions. I set the product strategy, the AI strategy and the architecture. We decide together what is worth building. Then I lead the developers, partners and AI agents who build it. When agents work inside your business, I decide what they may do and prove with evals that they do it right. Every decision gets an owner.

Where you take it next is your call. Getting it there is mine. You get thirty years of product judgement on every decision, from a career that started when building a website still meant building the server under it. Ten of those years were as fractional CTO and product lead for companies across the US, UK and EU. I founded an enterprise SaaS company, and today I run Growhold, where founders validate product-market fit before they build.

Bring what you are building to a call. We go through where it stands and what to decide first. Based in Vienna, working with founders and product teams in Europe and North America.

Riding the waves

For almost thirty years I have built and led software through every major change, from the dot-com web to AI agents. Each one taught me what lasts and what fades, and that perspective is how I read where AI is going today, and where it might be five years from now.

  1. Every business goes online1998 – 2004

    Every company had to get online. Websites were hand-built, down to the server under them.

    As a developer, I built the websites and the servers they ran on.

  2. The internet in every pocket2004 – 2010

    Facebook, YouTube and the iPhone put the internet in everyone's pocket. Software became something people lived in.

    I moved from code to architecture, then to product, deciding what people would actually use.

  3. Software becomes a subscription2010 – 2015

    Software moved to the cloud and became a subscription. Releases went from yearly to daily.

    I founded an enterprise SaaS company and built it from the first line of code to enterprise customers such as Royal DSM and British American Tobacco.

  4. Platforms own the customer2015 – 2022

    A few platforms became the market. App stores, marketplaces and ecosystems decided who reached customers.

    As fractional CTO and product lead, I led products and the systems around them for companies across Europe and North America.

  5. Building gets fast and cheap2022 – 2026

    Language models arrived, and coding assistants grew into coding agents. Building got faster and cheaper, and every product added AI.

    I led teams into building with agents: agents carry the delivery process, and people keep the decisions that shape the product.

  6. Agents act on our behalf2026 –Where it is heading

    Agents search, screen and negotiate for people, inside every enterprise and across the internet. Work once sold by the hour is bought by the result. When two agents strike a decision or a deal, someone still has to answer for it.

    I lead your AI and the people working on it. I bring the experience to be accountable for every decision, whether a person or an agent makes it.

Founded

  • Growhold

    A platform where founders validate product-market fit before they build. Live market intelligence from real buyer demand, turned into product briefs, specifications and builds.

  • Ownercast

    An AI-guided interview that becomes a short, share-ready video. Your own face and your own voice, with no avatars.

  • Keenslot

    An AI agent that turns ad spend into booked discovery calls. It runs the keywords, the ads and the landing pages, and is measured on cost per booked call.

  • Scopedom

    A shared workspace where a contractor and a client see what the invoice will contain before it is sent. The AI drafts the invoice from the work record.

  • Antwort

    A German course you take as a conversation.

Services

Consulting

Industries

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