Noted on 27 Aug 2026

In 2011 I was founding CTO of WhipCar, the UK's first peer-to-peer car-sharing marketplace. Strangers renting each other's cars by the hour.

The idea was genuinely good. But… smartphones weren't universal yet, the insurance products weren't fit for purpose, and the behaviour change we needed was nearly a decade away. It didn't work out.

Five years later I was founding CTO of Hiyacar, doing substantially the same thing. That time reaching over 250,000 members.

Same market, same technology, different timing. Being early is indistinguishable from being wrong, right up until it isn't. When a founder makes that argument to me, I recognise the shape of it, because I've made it myself.

I've been advising startups and investors in various capacities for several years, and now I’m formalising that work. I’ve started Marcitect Solutions: technical due diligence for investors, fractional CTO work for funded companies. Two days a week, two engagements at a time.

If you're a partner with a deal in the data room, or a founder whose board has started asking technical questions nobody in the room can answer, my inbox is open.