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weirdfruit

half-formed ideas welcome

Fractional CTO, technical co-founder and consultant for start-ups and scale-ups

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What is weirdfruit?

A partner for the early, messy bit of a new idea.

Bring us the hunch, the scribble, the “what if…?” that isn’t ready for a slide yet. We won’t take it away and come back with an answer. We’ll dig into it with you, cross-pollinate it with things that have no business being in the same room, and grow it until it has roots, a shape and a strategy you can act on.

01

Bring the scribble

A voice note, a nagging feeling, a diagram on the back of a receipt. It doesn’t need to make sense yet. Too early is exactly right.

02

Grow it together

We work on it with you, not for you. Code, strategy, leadership and a stubborn amount of curiosity, cross-pollinated until the idea starts to stand up on its own.

03

Leave with a plan

What to build first, who it’s for, what to test and what to ignore. Not a mood board. Something you can plant.

a hunchbecomesa plan

a scribblebecomesa strategy

“what if…?”becomes“here’s how”

The messy bit is our favourite bit.

Three ways to work together

Same person, same forty years, three different amounts of commitment. Pick the one that fits where your idea or business is today.

Fractional CTO

Tend it with you

A day or two a week on your tech, team and roadmap.

Who it’s for

Start-ups and scale-ups that need senior technical leadership but not a full-time CTO yet, or are between one CTO and the next. Often a founder who isn’t technical and wants someone they can trust to make the calls.

What you leave with

A roadmap the board understands, a team that knows what good looks like, and architecture and AI decisions made on purpose rather than by accident. When you’re ready to hire full-time, a clear brief for who you need.

Technical co-founder

Plant it with you

For the right idea, I’m in from the start.

Who it’s for

Founders with an idea worth building and nobody technical beside them. Usually early: before there’s a product, a team or much money, and while the idea can still change shape.

What you leave with

A product in customers’ hands rather than a prototype handed over, a technical partner with skin in the game, and foundations a team can grow on.

Consultancy

A walk round the orchard

A fixed-scope review of your tech, AI plans or innovation process.

Who it’s for

Leadership teams who want an honest outside view before a big decision: a funding round, an AI programme, a rebuild, or a suspicion that the innovation process is more theatre than growth.

What you leave with

A written review with a short, prioritised list of what to keep, what to fix and what to stop, and a sense of the effort each one takes. Fixed price, no retainer.

Not sure which one fits? That’s usually where the conversation starts.

We believe:

01

Innovation isn’t a department — it’s a human instinct.

Everyone has the capacity to rethink, reshape, and reimagine. weirdfruit nurtures bold ideas, cross-pollination between fields, and fearless experimentation.

It’s not about being right — it’s about being brave enough to try.

Test your organisationThe Innovation Theatre Detector
02

Inclusion is the soil where innovation thrives.

True creativity blooms in diverse environments — of thought, experience, background, neurotype, gender, race, class, and more.

We make room at the table, and then we build more tables.

See it at the tableSame problem, different fruit
03

Disruption is necessary.

Not for the sake of chaos, but to break free from systems that no longer serve us. We dismantle outdated models of leadership, work, education, and success — because better is always possible.

The future doesn’t arrive passively; it’s built by those willing to break things.

Pick up the hammerThe Museum of How It’s Always Been Done

Portfolio

Where the ideas on this page have been tested, mostly in real life

Desk2Educate

Case study · CTO - platform, apps & AI

Desk2Educate

The problem

Business education is built for one kind of learner. NEET and SEND young adults and neurodiverse learners are the people the standard route leaves out, and the existing tools assume they’ll fit in or drop out.

What I built

I joined in 2024 and became CTO. I built the platform and apps and worked across software, AI and data, designing the product around the learner rather than the institution.

What changed

Learners the system had written off now have a route into business education that works the way they do, and Desk2Educate has its own technology to grow on instead of bending someone else’s.

desk2educate.com
The Before Times

Engineer to General Manager

The Before Times

Forty years in software and tech, most of them in noise and vibration analysis. I started as a junior software engineer in 1984 and worked through team lead, product manager and Technical Director to General Manager. Along the way I did an MBA, owned £3M+ turnover and steered a business through a pandemic.

VellumHold

Founder - design, build & launch

VellumHold

VellumHold is an app I’m building to record the stories behind old family photos before they’re lost. A son, daughter or grandchild runs the app and the elder just talks, with nothing for them to learn. Families can export everything at any time. It’s heading for launch.

vellumhold.com
The Workshop

Maker - drones, 3D, cars & AI

The Workshop

The Workshop is where my curiosity goes when nobody’s paying for it. I fly drones, sculpt practical and impractical ideas on a 3D printer, automate the house and tinker with my cheap ,er, modern classic Porsches. Then there are the long AI deep dives. Most of what I know about new tech started here, not on a course.

Charity Advisor

Trustee - AI & IT adviser

Charity Trustee

Since 2025 I’ve been a trustee of a local charity responsible for risk & compliance and advised on AI and IT. It’s voluntary, and the reason is simple: good causes deserve good governance and good technology, and small organisations rarely have someone who can help with both.

Millie

Walking partner - fox red Labrador

Millie

Most of the ideas on this page were worked out on a walk with Millie, our fox red Labrador. She sets the pace, chooses the route and has no interest at all in my business plans. That’s exactly why the walks work. There are no screens and no meetings, just room to think.

Something here sound like your problem? Let’s talk about it.

The weirdfruit manifesto

weirdfruit is not a brand. It’s not a project. It’s not a phase.

weirdfruit is a stance. A frequency. A sod it, do it anyway.

weirdfruit rebels — not for noise, but for meaning. It’s punk in spirit, but mindful in soul. It rips up convention and composts it into something better. Kinder. Stranger. Truer.

It isn’t waiting for approval. It doesn’t wear a name badge. It might be in a boardroom today and barefoot in the woods tomorrow.

weirdfruit shows up. weirdfruit cares. It cries in public, speaks when silenced, and laughs at Power because it knows what matters can’t be owned.

It is the outsider, the oddball, the one with calloused hands and a spark in their eyes. It’s the misfit who builds what they can’t find. It’s the quiet that follows the storm, and sometimes, the storm itself.

weirdfruit is about now. About not waiting to be told you’re enough. About doing the thing, even when your voice shakes. Especially when your voice shakes.

It is curiosity weaponised with love. Anarchy wrapped in empathy. A manifesto written in motion.

If you’re tired of fake-perfect, tired of safe, tired of waiting — bite the fruit.

And don’t wipe your mouth.

We are weirdfruit.

For the ones who feel the rules don’t quite fit.

Who build businesses that are also communities.

Who care more about trust than titles.

Who solve problems the world hasn’t recognised yet.

We think differently, create generously and move forward together.

Got a half-formed idea, or a business that needs a CTO?