"I explain that they are fresh out of college and need to be trained before we can trust them to handle a project and deliver it successfully." This is a key s

"I explain that they are fresh out of college and need to be trained before we can trust them to handle a project and deliver it successfully." This is a key statement right here. If you can't trust them to deliver projects relatively quickly you shouldn't have hired them (and probably need to get rid of them). I'm not saying that you should treat them like seasoned pros. But fresh out of college or not, your devs are still adults and you should treat them as such. A startup simply isn't the place for a long, hand-holding training period. It may sound like I'm being harsh towards your devs, but I'm not. If I'm right (which I may not be), you're the one who's being harsh towards them albeit unintentionally. Most overworked CTOs I've seen are the result of simply not being able to just let go and trust others to make decisions. This is not only bad for you, but bad for the developers who work for you.