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Here's a simple decision tree. 1) are you a tech startup? If yes, your founder (i.e. you) should be technical or you are the wrong person for the job. The defi

Here's a simple decision tree. 1) are you a tech startup? If yes, your founder (i.e. you) should be technical or you are the wrong person for the job. The definition of a tech startup is that the primary thing that company does is centered around some technical innovation. If you are not a tech startup, you shouldn't need a technical co-founder. 2) but you need a technical co-founder anyway, somehow. Is this person going to be creating patentable, novel stuff or do you just need a person to build a generic website/app? If you do need unique magic technology that you are not capable of inventing, see 1. If not, you don't need a technical co founder but a vp of engineering or a senior developer. Whatever you do, don't label this person as your CTO because they are not. Also don't give this person any controlling equity because they are not equal to you as the founder; they are merely executing your vision. Consider using agencies, contractors, etc. Whatever you can afford. Plan for replacing people in this role over time or adding more mature people at least. The people you can afford early on tend to not be management material. 3) If you are at this point still looking for a technical co-founder, good luck.

em-bee 3y ago
i have met people doing the second. they hired contractors to build their product. but eventually the product grew into a platform strong enough that they needed a CTO to manage it. unfortunately the contractor they hired was not interested in the role, and they had to find someone else. it looked like the changeover was going to be messy. i think they didn't expect that contractor to bail out. so it seems you are right. that initial hire was not management material. but looking at the platform they built, i am not sure anyone would be happy to just take over and work with what they already have. doesn't a CTO want more control over what is being built? so would they not have been better off looking for someone willing to grow into a CTO role from the start?
- jillesvangurp 3y ago
  Sometimes you get lucky. But good CTOs are hard to find and typically they will be a combination of busy, expensive, and highly selective. If you know a person that blindly trusts you to execute on your amazing vision that's also perfect for the job, that's great of course. It does happen. But I've seen plenty of examples of not especially great developers ending up way out of their depth because they got the CTO label stuck on them by some person that was just desperate to get any techie working with them. Often a big part of the problem is that not only are such founders incapable of doing the work themselves, they are also incapable of being a good judge of the type of people they would need to do that work. Classic A's hire A's and B's hire C's stuff. This stuff should be a giant red flag for both wannabe CTOs and investors. Experienced founders usually have access to a network and know how to avoid that pitfall. Sometimes raising funding requires you to have a big name CTO. I've seen companies that had CTOs that weren't actually doing much beyond carrying the title just to woo the investors. In an extreme case, I was actually doing the CTOs work (as a freelancer) without ever even meeting the person in question. Just a name on a website. Zero actual involvement. Never saw any evidence of any technical decision making by that CTO. I fired myself from this company later because of the whole scammy nature of that particular company. A common pattern of startups that survive with a less than ideal CTO is to appoint a VP of engineering and then sideline the founder CTO as soon as convenient. I once knew a guy whose unofficial job title was "minder of the CTO". His job was protecting the rest of the team from the random bullshit, brain farts, and whatnot from this CTO founder and making sure he did no damage. The actual company was being lead technically by a very competent vp of engineering at that point.
sebastiennight 3y ago
I've seen contractors work, but agencies? Can you quote a single successful (has PMF, fast growth, 8-figure plus revenue or exit) SaaS built by/with an agency?
exceptione 3y ago
I think most of the business problems are solved with a generic app/site. The problem is that the non-technical founder doesn't have the funds to hire senior developers so he needs to raise money without being able to present a team and alpha version. Also, if there is no buy-in from tech-people, how well are you going to do when that senior developer gets a better offer some months down the line from a different company? I dunno how well investors value that proposition?

em-bee 3y ago

i have met people doing the second. they hired contractors to build their product. but eventually the product grew into a platform strong enough that they needed a CTO to manage it. unfortunately the contractor they hired was not interested in the role, and they had to find someone else. it looked like the changeover was going to be messy. i think they didn't expect that contractor to bail out. so it seems you are right. that initial hire was not management material. but looking at the platform they built, i am not sure anyone would be happy to just take over and work with what they already have. doesn't a CTO want more control over what is being built? so would they not have been better off looking for someone willing to grow into a CTO role from the start?

jillesvangurp 3y ago
Sometimes you get lucky. But good CTOs are hard to find and typically they will be a combination of busy, expensive, and highly selective. If you know a person that blindly trusts you to execute on your amazing vision that's also perfect for the job, that's great of course. It does happen. But I've seen plenty of examples of not especially great developers ending up way out of their depth because they got the CTO label stuck on them by some person that was just desperate to get any techie working with them. Often a big part of the problem is that not only are such founders incapable of doing the work themselves, they are also incapable of being a good judge of the type of people they would need to do that work. Classic A's hire A's and B's hire C's stuff. This stuff should be a giant red flag for both wannabe CTOs and investors. Experienced founders usually have access to a network and know how to avoid that pitfall. Sometimes raising funding requires you to have a big name CTO. I've seen companies that had CTOs that weren't actually doing much beyond carrying the title just to woo the investors. In an extreme case, I was actually doing the CTOs work (as a freelancer) without ever even meeting the person in question. Just a name on a website. Zero actual involvement. Never saw any evidence of any technical decision making by that CTO. I fired myself from this company later because of the whole scammy nature of that particular company. A common pattern of startups that survive with a less than ideal CTO is to appoint a VP of engineering and then sideline the founder CTO as soon as convenient. I once knew a guy whose unofficial job title was "minder of the CTO". His job was protecting the rest of the team from the random bullshit, brain farts, and whatnot from this CTO founder and making sure he did no damage. The actual company was being lead technically by a very competent vp of engineering at that point.

sebastiennight 3y ago

I've seen contractors work, but agencies? Can you quote a single successful (has PMF, fast growth, 8-figure plus revenue or exit) SaaS built by/with an agency?

exceptione 3y ago

I think most of the business problems are solved with a generic app/site. The problem is that the non-technical founder doesn't have the funds to hire senior developers so he needs to raise money without being able to present a team and alpha version. Also, if there is no buy-in from tech-people, how well are you going to do when that senior developer gets a better offer some months down the line from a different company? I dunno how well investors value that proposition?