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My suggestion would be no one should be CTO at the beginning. Limit titles at the start since it gives you flexibility. Lee Holloway wasn't "CTO" or "VP of Engi

My suggestion would be no one should be CTO at the beginning. Limit titles at the start since it gives you flexibility. Lee Holloway wasn't "CTO" or "VP of Engineering" when Cloudflare started; I was "Programmer".

jeiting 6y ago
Same could be said for CEO, you aren't really acting in the capacity as would be described by a guidance counselor. However, it is a nice signifier as to who "the boss" is. Same for CTO, it tells people, "this person owns the technical stuff", which at a software company is super important IMO.
badconvincer 6y ago
Well a big reason I took the CTO promotion at my company was because I wanted to get out of programming and overhaul our stack and overly expensive implementation (which we were hugely successful at, dropping costs by more than 60%). Is a CTO required to code?
- icedchai 6y ago
  It depends... How big is the company?
  - badconvincer 6y ago
    ~60 people overall. Around $15 million in annual net revenue. 12 people in the technology department.
    - icedchai 6y ago
      Yeah, for a company that size I'd say there are more strategic things you could be working on, rather than coding.
elwatto 6y ago
Agreed on having the flexibility. I think that's the key, the self awareness and ability to adapt. I don't think having CEO/CTO/CMO for founders is a bad idea though. Even at Cloudflare, CEO and COO were co-founders. I am more curious about what it takes to grow from a founder CTO to a public company CTO, same way than other founder roles can. Or maybe it's just too hard. Anyway, I am flexible John! Totally onboard to give up my title if you are interested to come over and help us RevenueCat go public ;)
- jgrahamc 6y ago
  Even at Cloudflare, CEO and COO were co-founders Except that wasn't true... Matthew had the title CEO (because someone needed to be CEO) but Michelle's title was "Head of User Experience".
beagle3 6y ago
In my first startup (circa 2000 or so), no one had a title except the CEO (because ... someone needed to be a CEO, as you mention in another reply). However, when I was on a roadshow through Silicon Valley, almost everyone I met (a few tens of people over a month) kept asking "so, what's your title" and writing it on the title-free business card I just gave them. One of the conclusions of that roadshow was that business cards HAD to have a title; I added "CTO", one of my co-founders had 2 stacks ("VP Product" and "VP R&D") which he used depending on who they were meeting. We both did the same kind of work. My conclusion would be "don't have titles internally - but have some consistent externally visible titles for those people you meet who need them". I haven't needed to do a roadshow since then, I don't know if that's still common in the valley - but that ritual of asking for my title and writing it on the just-received title-free business card was so prevalent, that I assume some people would still look for that.

jeiting 6y ago

Same could be said for CEO, you aren't really acting in the capacity as would be described by a guidance counselor. However, it is a nice signifier as to who "the boss" is. Same for CTO, it tells people, "this person owns the technical stuff", which at a software company is super important IMO.

badconvincer 6y ago

Well a big reason I took the CTO promotion at my company was because I wanted to get out of programming and overhaul our stack and overly expensive implementation (which we were hugely successful at, dropping costs by more than 60%). Is a CTO required to code?

icedchai 6y ago
It depends... How big is the company?
- badconvincer 6y ago
  ~60 people overall. Around $15 million in annual net revenue. 12 people in the technology department.
  - icedchai 6y ago
    Yeah, for a company that size I'd say there are more strategic things you could be working on, rather than coding.

elwatto 6y ago

Agreed on having the flexibility. I think that's the key, the self awareness and ability to adapt. I don't think having CEO/CTO/CMO for founders is a bad idea though. Even at Cloudflare, CEO and COO were co-founders. I am more curious about what it takes to grow from a founder CTO to a public company CTO, same way than other founder roles can. Or maybe it's just too hard. Anyway, I am flexible John! Totally onboard to give up my title if you are interested to come over and help us RevenueCat go public ;)

jgrahamc 6y ago
Even at Cloudflare, CEO and COO were co-founders Except that wasn't true... Matthew had the title CEO (because someone needed to be CEO) but Michelle's title was "Head of User Experience".

beagle3 6y ago

In my first startup (circa 2000 or so), no one had a title except the CEO (because ... someone needed to be a CEO, as you mention in another reply). However, when I was on a roadshow through Silicon Valley, almost everyone I met (a few tens of people over a month) kept asking "so, what's your title" and writing it on the title-free business card I just gave them. One of the conclusions of that roadshow was that business cards HAD to have a title; I added "CTO", one of my co-founders had 2 stacks ("VP Product" and "VP R&D") which he used depending on who they were meeting. We both did the same kind of work. My conclusion would be "don't have titles internally - but have some consistent externally visible titles for those people you meet who need them". I haven't needed to do a roadshow since then, I don't know if that's still common in the valley - but that ritual of asking for my title and writing it on the just-received title-free business card was so prevalent, that I assume some people would still look for that.