What you always wanted to know about becoming a CTO at a Builders venture
As you might know, at Builders, we partner with seasoned tech and business leaders to build new companies from the first spark to the real champagne moment.
When talking to potential tech founders (aka CTO’s), we often answer the same type of questions. We decided to list some of the most talked-about subjects, so hopefully, when you are reading this, we can go right into the more inspiring and ambitious parts of our partnership when we talk to each other.
What is a startup studio anyway?
Of course the most obvious question, but still one that needs to be addressed, to begin with. There are many shapes and forms to being a studio as if with everything. In the core, a startup studio is a company that creates and launches new companies. We’re an independent studio which means that we generate idea’s internally and build these out with co-founders until the companies spin-out of our studio as self-supporting companies. The independent part comes from the fact that we’re self-funded to build these companies, we don’t offer our services to anybody other than companies in our portfolio.
Who is on the founding team?
Our companies are always built with two co-founders, mostly a technical and a business founder. This allows you to focus on the technical aspects of building up the business while your co-founder brings his/her business expertise to the table. We’re always looking for a co-founder who is hands-on and has the right domain expertise or experience. The studio acts like a third co-founder and early investor to support the business with all the support needed until the new company can operate on its own. Next to the co-founders, the first hires will be the ones crucial to the success of the business, and these will most likely have employee shares as well.
What kind of ventures are you building?
Builders is a startup studio based in Rotterdam, The Netherlands (Europe). Our team consists of seasoned operators and builders. We focus on building software for the workplace of the future. All of our ventures are B2B SaaS companies selling to the European market. By building companies for such a unique marketplace full of different cultures and languages, we gathered extensive and diverse insights into a venture playbook that significantly speeds up the development curve of all the companies spun-out of Builders.
Am I developing the product myself?
Absolutely! At Builders, we are huge believers that, at first, hands-on involvement is necessary to build a great product. This doesn’t mean you should know how to develop each part of a product yourself. But it does mean that we expect you to have prior experience with building products from (nearly) nothing to a production version. Of course, our goal is to build independent companies and for that reason, our CTOs hire engineers as soon as the first version of the product takes shape.
I’ve not been coding myself for a while, is this the right opportunity for me?
This depends. If you can bring a (small) team of engineers together from the beginning who can build the product, we might be a fantastic fit. Other than that, we’re pretty precise on spending our budget. As a co-founder, you would want most of the budget to go to creating an amazing experience with top-notch product design from day one and less to tech recruitment.
Do I get to hire my tech team?
Yes certainly. The team you hire, with help from the studio, should help achieve the ambitious goals of the new venture and studio. But not to worry, you are not alone in this: we’ll bring a network of engineers to the table, and you should be able to do the same to get the company up and running. I want to stress that in the beginning, our focus is on validating and creating the best possible product out there, and you should be able to deliver on that early in the process.
What kind of tech stack do you use?
We have experience with most tech stacks and prefer a React-based frontend for our products. Other than that we’re open to working with the tech that makes us move forward without sacrificing on architecture, quality and security. So do you speak any or more of these languages fluently: React, Postgres, MySQL, Redis, PHP, Node, and you know how to ship a lot, holla at me.
Who will I be joining?
Throughout each year, we incorporate two companies on average. If you’re familiar with the studio process, you might know that most of our founders start with a residency in the studio as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence. During these few months, you’ll work side by side with a business co-founder and the studio team to validate one of the sparks we’ve been working on. So it’s hard to say what opportunities are on the horizon when you read this article, but we’d like to tell you all about it!
How do you source and match co-founders?
You are reading this, aren’t you? Just kidding. Most of our tech founders are directed to us by people in our network. As a studio, we are also very active in the local and global ecosystem to share our knowledge. We like to be a north star for anybody with questions regarding venture building and the studio model. If you’d like to run into one of us at an event, please check our contact page for events we’re attending. Lastly, suppose we approach tech founders directly. In that case, they are most likely the lead engineers or CTOs in their current capacity, and we think they could be an excellent match for our current Entrepreneur-in-Residence.
How will you match me with a business partner?
Throughout the years, we’ve created a model on which we score each co-founder for compatibility with our studio and a co-founder. If we already know you through our network, this makes the process a lot easier. This makes sure that all founders are complementary to each other so that we can complete the journey together. Before we get to matching co-founders, we have a straightforward process of interviews and a small presentation to get to know each other a bit better.
Why would I join a studio, instead of founding a company of my own?
This might be the number one question you should ask yourselves. Our studio, any studio, should accelerate your career by years. All of our co-founders can build new companies by themselves, and if they can’t, we are probably not right for each other. By partnering with us, they get a real edge compared to going at it alone by leveraging all the resources, knowledge and playbooks which we’ve put already in place.
Can I come in with a business owner as a team?
Sure, if they are a perfect match for one of our spark at hand, and also if you two are a great match between each other. Be prepared to both go through a process of matchmaking as any other founder would. The outcome of our founder vetting process could be that you as a duo don’t go well together with our studio. When that is the outcome, would you proceed on your own? If so, don’t hesitate to reach out.
I have an idea of my own, are you going to build a company with me?
Most likely, no. By definition, an independent startup studio does internal ideation for a reason. As you can imagine, your idea would also have to go to all internal processes and hoops. In the end, none of your original ideas is left, and most people are just not looking for such a thing to happen. Next to that, we firmly believe that execution is king and ideas are plentiful.
I’m sold, can you tell me about some studio success stories?
Studios have been around for more than 25 years, and there’s approximately five hundred of them out there. Even though you might not have heard of many studios, there are lots of companies out there which have studio DNA. Examples include Twilio (2B valuation), Dollar Shave Club (1B exit), Giphy (400M exit), Front (800M valuation), to name a few high-value examples. More importantly, a studio, our studio, should accelerate your entrepreneurial career and make the journey to success a team effort and high growth experience.
Does this excite you?
We are spinning out new ideas regularly and love to connect with inspiring founders. By applying to our Future Founder process, we’ll meet-up early to assess if we could be a match. If you have what it takes to become one of our future founders, let’s talk! Sign up here.
About Builders
Builders is a Rotterdam-based startup studio designed to build and grow technology companies from scratch, by bringing together bold ideas, exceptional co-founders, operational support, and investment capital. Learn more about us at builders.studio.
