Does your company need a CTO?

So you have a great tech idea and are ready to build a new startup, but you’re unsure what the best steps are to fill a technical void. Learn to code, contract an agency, apply for an accelerator or hire a CTO (or a combination of these)? Choices, choices!

Have faith — this is actually a more common question than you might think.

What is a CTO?

When we think of a CTO or “Chief Technical Officer,” we often picture an introvert in a dark room staring at a grouping of numbers and figures on a black screen. In reality, a CTO is a dynamic leader who defines and manages the vision and scope of the technology for the business.

What do they actually do?

A CTO is a high-level executive with big responsibilities and decision-making power. They interact with many areas of the company beyond the development teams. The exact role of a CTO can vary from company to company, but in general they oversee:

• The big technology picture and how the company is innovating to meet their customer’s needs
• The company’s technology strategy and communicating it to partners, managers, employees and investors
• Research and development to ensure they are always providing state-of-the-art solutions and future planning
• Platform selection and technical design for customer-facing and internal products and systems
• Technology standards and compliance ensuring the company is up-to-date both technically and legally

Why are they important to a tech startup?

Tech, or software-based, startups are centered around technology, innovation and ease-of-use. While the founder, or co-founders, may have the business and industry acumen, they often lack the technical experience necessary to build and maintain the actual products, platform and systems the company will require.

This is where the CTO roles comes in. CTOs are key in planning, building, maintaining and ensuring the success of all the systems and customer-facing software products the company will need or create.

Do I need to hire a CTO day one?

If you are a solo founder, or neither you or your co-founder have technical expertise, it is likely you will need to fill the CTO role. This, however, is not something we at Coplex recommend for early-stage startups. There is plenty to do prior to hiring and filling official roles that will have a lasting impact on your company. Before you consider hiring or partnering with anyone, there are several key steps you should take first.

1. Validate your startup idea — Get data from your target audience (surveys, landing pages, sign ups, etc.) that proves there is a need and want for your idea/product.
2. Gain inside industry knowledge — If you are building a travel-based tech startup (and have never run a travel business), be sure you learn how the travel industry works first. Speak with as many entities as you can and avoid common mistakes.
3. Start networking and building your ecosystem — Go to startup events, meet other founders, programmers, investors, etc. and get a feel for what they are doing and how they are doing it.
4. Start building strategic partnerships — Reach out to other players in your target industry and begin to create relationships you can learn from, build on and leverage in the future.
5. Test your methodology — Use existing technology to create “test runs” of your future product in a manual environment. E.g. if you are creating a coaching platform, use Zoom or Webex to test run some initial sessions and gather feedback.
6. In other words, do everything you can to validate your startup and gain feedback before committing capital or equity to roles like CTO. Many founders are such staunch believers in their ideas that they fail to take these steps.

What are some alternatives to hiring a CTO?

If hiring a CTO doesn’t make sense for your company at the moment, there are several options for filling in the gaps:

• Utilizing the Lean Startup method to gain the data, feedback and knowledge you need to properly plan and make smart choices early on in their startup — this method can buy you time and prevent you from prematurely hiring.
• Hiring fractional CTOs, freelancers and online services.
• Making use of resources provided by startup accelerators and studios like Coplex.

What is most important is that you validate your idea, test your methodology and have, or gain, expertise in your target market. This will greatly lower your risk of failure and give your new company a leg up from the get go.

Taking this approach will not only help you avoid mistakes but also conserve company resources early on. Moreover, you will gain invaluable knowledge and the confidence you are moving in the direction. This will, in-turn, allow you to plan with greater accuracy which direction is best for your startup — most importantly, when to engage the right resources like a CTO, at the right time.