Not an agency. Not a contractor. The technical co-founder you've been looking for.

You need someone technical who's also thinking about the business. Someone who'll tell you when you're about to build the wrong thing, and ship fast when you're building the right one. I own the technical side so you can focus on customers and capital.

Let's figure out your scope See the work
Joey Drury — TwentyFiftySix

Who I Work With

Two situations where I do my best work.

Founders

You have the idea and the capital. You need the product.

You just raised pre-seed — or you're close. You have a clear vision, maybe a deck, but no technical co-founder and no time to find one. Every agency quote you've gotten has been painful. Hiring a full-time CTO isn't an option yet.

I come in as your technical co-founder for the build phase. I scope the product with you, challenge the parts that will slow you down, build the MVP, wire in your analytics, and hand you something real — in weeks. The kind of thing you can put in front of users and raise a Series A with.

Business Owners

Your business is working. Your systems aren't keeping up.

You're running bookings, intake, scheduling, or client management through a mess of spreadsheets, phone calls, and tools that almost work. Things fall through the cracks. You've priced agencies. You've tried off-the-shelf software. Neither fits.

I build exactly what your operation needs — a booking system, client portal, internal dashboard, or workflow automation — scoped precisely to how you work, delivered in weeks. You stop losing time and start scaling without actually hiring.

Why Not Just Hire an Agency?

You've already considered it. Here's the honest comparison.

Senior-Level Work, Start to Finish

You work directly with a former Fortune 500 analytics director, not a junior dev, not an offshore team. The same person who scopes your project builds it and delivers it. No handoffs, ever.

Fixed Price. Delivered on Time.

You know the cost before the first line of code is written. Fixed scope, no surprise invoices, no hourly billing that spirals. You get a delivery date and I hit it. Weekly updates on a live staging environment so you're never in the dark.

4 Weeks, Not 4 Months

The tools available to one good builder have changed dramatically. What used to need a full team and six months now needs one focused person and a fraction of the time. That's the honest reason this is possible at this price.

How I Work

Three steps. No surprises between them.

1

30-Minute Scoping Call

You walk me through what you need. I ask the hard questions — what's the real problem, what does success look like, what's the fastest path there. No pitch. You leave with clarity regardless of whether we work together.

2

Fixed Proposal in 48 Hours

I send you an exact scope: what I'll build, what I won't, the delivery date, and the total cost. No hourly estimates. No "it depends." You say yes, we adjust it, or we walk away. Nothing starts until you're certain.

3

Build, Ship, and Hand Off

Weekly updates on a live staging environment. I build it, test it, deploy it, and hand you full ownership — source code, documentation, and a clear path for what comes next.

Book the scoping call

What I Build

No offshore developers, no account managers taking their cut, no junior devs learning on your dime. One senior builder using modern tooling to move faster than any agency, and I pass that directly to you in lower prices and shorter timelines.

For Startups & Early-Stage Companies

You have an idea and you need it built. I've shipped production apps that other agencies quoted $80K and six months for. Measurement is baked in from day one so you know what's working from your first user.

MVP Development & Prototyping

Full-stack apps, AI integration, and everything you need to get in front of real users fast, whether you're validating an idea or preparing for a raise.

Technical Strategy & Consulting

Think of it as having a technical co-founder on call. I help you figure out what to build first, what to avoid, and how to make the decisions that'll matter six months from now, whether you're raising, hiring, or just trying to ship.

Product Marketing & Growth

Not general marketing. Product-led growth. I build the measurement layer that tells you which channels are working, what's converting, and what to cut. A/B testing you can run yourself, attribution you can trust.

For Existing Small-to-Medium Businesses

Your business is growing and your systems aren't keeping up. I build the portals, booking systems, dashboards, and automations that help you handle more customers without hiring more staff. And I do it without the six-figure price tag your last agency quote came with.

Technical Strategy & Consulting

I dig into how your business actually runs and figure out where the tech is slowing you down. Then I fix it, whether that's a bad workflow, a missing system, or a tool that was built for someone else's problem.

Operational Intelligence & AI Automation

I build AI systems that plug into how your business actually runs, not generic chatbots. If your data can't leave Canada, I run private AI in Toronto. You own it, it runs locally, and there's no per-query bill showing up every month.

Growth & Marketing Systems

I help you figure out what's actually driving customers to your business, build the tracking to prove it, and run experiments to do more of it.

What It Costs

The single biggest question before a call. Here's the answer, upfront.

Proof of Concept
Starting at $3,000
2 weeks

Test your idea before committing to a full build. A working prototype with core functionality, technical documentation, and a clear roadmap forward.

MVP Build · Most Popular
Starting at $8,000
4–6 weeks

A production-ready application with authentication, core features, admin tools, and deployment. Everything you need to launch and start acquiring users.

Launch Accelerator
Starting at $20,000
6–8 weeks

Full build plus analytics infrastructure, measurement setup, and post-launch optimization. For founders who need the technical and data layer locked in from day one.

Monthly Retainer
$1,500 – $2,500/mo
Ongoing

I keep it running and keep building. New features, hosting, support, and iteration on a predictable monthly cost.

All prices in CAD. Projects scoped before any commitment. You'll know the exact cost before work begins.

View All Services & Capabilities →

Built for the Moment

The funding environment has changed. Products that launch without validation don't get second chances. Market windows close fast, and building the wrong thing is expensive. Every week you spend waiting on an agency or a hiring process is a week your competitors are shipping.

The tooling has changed too. A platform that used to cost $80K and six months now costs $12K and a fraction of the time. That's not a discount. It's a genuine shift in what's possible.

Let's scope your project

The Work

Real projects. Real problems. All of them shipped.

Client Projects

EdTech Platform + AI Integration

PhonoLogic

Challenge: EdTech startup needed technical co-founder to build speech analysis platform for education market.

Solution: Full platform architecture and development. AI integration for speech analysis and therapeutic workflows. Analytics infrastructure and operational systems to support fundraising.

Outcome: Full platform built and deployed. Speech pathology professionals using it today. Team fundraising with a working product in hand, not a deck.

phonologic.ca | phonologic.cloud
Healthcare SaaS Platform + Growth Strategy

Helen Han Therapy Group

Challenge: Independent therapist launching a group practice needed a full custom platform, not an off-the-shelf tool, and a marketing setup that could grow with the business.

Solution: Built a custom multi-tenant practice management platform: booking engine, video consultation, clinical documentation, and patient portal all integrated. Implemented a growth strategy with SEO, Google Ads, and a 5-year financial model.

Outcome: Platform live and operating. Booking, video, and patient records unified in one system. Architecture designed to add clinicians without rebuilding. Solo practice to group practice on the same codebase.

Visit Site →

Products I've Built

AI Platform + Executive Operating System

Kwaney

Challenge: Running a business solo means managing tasks, calendar, health data, finances, email, time tracking, and strategy across 8+ disconnected tools. Every context switch has a cost.

Solution: Built a unified AI-powered operating system from scratch. One dashboard, one conversational AI with real-time read/write access to every data source. 47 custom AI tools across 10 domains — calendar, email, finances, health (Whoop), tasks, journal, time tracking, vision board, and persistent memory — all accessible through natural language.

Outcome: Fully operational and used daily as a working replacement for a human executive assistant. Zero context-switching. The AI remembers every conversation, anticipates what's needed next, and can take action — not just answer questions.

kwaney.com
AgTech Platform + Satellite Data Pipeline

FieldPulse

Challenge: Ontario cash-crop farmers needed real-time crop health insights from satellite imagery, but no affordable tool existed that could turn raw satellite data into actionable field intelligence.

Solution: Built a full-stack agricultural monitoring platform. Next.js + MapLibre GL frontend for interactive field visualization, a Python satellite processing pipeline pulling Sentinel-2 data via STAC API, and an auto-scaling Google Cloud Run worker that processes raster imagery and serves map tiles on demand. BigQuery handles field geometry and analytics at scale.

Outcome: Live platform processing real satellite imagery for Ontario fields. Compute scales to zero when idle — no wasted infrastructure cost. Architecture designed to handle thousands of fields with no rebuild.

The Experience Behind the Work

Before TwentyFiftySix, I built data systems and product platforms for enterprise clients across automotive, banking, entertainment, pharma, and e-commerce at a Fortune 500 consulting firm.

Architecture choices, data model tradeoffs, integration patterns: I’ve already made these decisions at scale, in environments where getting them wrong was expensive. You get that judgment from the first conversation.

Fortune 500 Automotive
Big 5 Canadian Bank
Global Music Label
Major E-Commerce Brand
Luxury Fashion House
Multi-National Wine Group
National Retail Chain
Regional Telecom Provider
Online Auto Marketplace
Global Pharmaceutical
Automotive Marketplace
Real Estate Tech Platform
Direct-to-Consumer Beauty

What Clients Say

From the people who've worked with me.

"Working with Joey transformed how we think about our digital infrastructure. He didn't just build what we asked for — he helped us understand what we actually needed to scale our practice."

H

Helen Han

Founder, Helen Han Therapy Group

"The combination of technical expertise and strategic thinking is rare. Joey delivered a functional MVP in weeks, not months, and the experimentation framework he built has become central to how we make decisions."

S

Stephen Robins

Co-Founder, PhonoLogic

"He took the time to understand not just my business needs, but the unique demands of running a competitive equestrian operation. The website and booking system he built have streamlined everything."

L

Lindsay Beer

Professional Equestrian, Lindsay Beer Eventing

Not ready to book yet?

Get the founder checklist before you build.

10 questions every pre-seed founder should answer before writing a line of code. I'll send it straight to your inbox.

Tell Me What You’re Building. I’ll Take It From There.

Book a 30-minute call. No pitch. No pressure. You walk away with a clear plan and a real scope, or I'll tell you honestly if I'm not the right fit.