How Fractional CTOs Work with Startups
In a startup, the fractional CTO is responsible for successfully transforming a CEO’s idea into a product. They’re the ones who build, test, and launch your product into the market. A fractional CTO helps a startup in three different ways.
Use Case #1: Replacement For Technical Co-Founder
This use case suits pre-seed stage startups with significant funding.
There’s a chance these pre-seed stage startups don’t have a technical co-founder, but they’re about to try and build their software and need someone to build and lead the development team or manage an outside development firm.
Their CEO might be capable of doing so, but they are often focused on operations, growth, and partnerships.
So their very next instinct is to bring someone onboard to do the work for them. That’s where fractional CTOs come in handy.
A fractional CTO handles this situation in two ways:
- Hires freelancers or full-time developers and builds an in-house team
- Outsources all the development to a dev firm
In either case, you need a fractional CTO to keep control, track progress, and ensure that everything’s streamlined.
This means the fractional CTO a CEO hires will not be so much developing the product themselves but instead managing the team and the process.
It’s quite different when we look at it from a technical co-founder perspective because they will be the engineering lead and do most of the development of the product.
But if a company doesn’t have that technical co-founder, then hiring a fractional CTO is a solid alternative.
That’s because you get the opportunity to bring someone in who’s more experienced than many technical co-founders and have them bring in developers so that they can keep costs low at the early stages.
This route lets you delegate responsibility to a fractional CTO to oversee the dev team and ensure your product’s development is top-notch.
Use Case #2. Expanding and Building Tech
The other primary use case concerns mid-sized companies that aren’t technical but are looking to expand and build some tech products for the first time. Or, they might have a specific project in mind and don’t have a full-time CTO to take it on.
Instead of spending months hiring the right full-time CTO, or hiring an outside firm to take full responsibility for the project or department, it’s easier, more cost-effective, and more scalable to hire a CTO on a fractional basis.
You can get started immediately with a fractional CTO, and they can then hire developers under them that develop the technology.
Use Case #3. Help CEO Take Things to the Next Level
The last use case of how a fractional CTO can be beneficial to a CEO of a startup is by helping them take their product to market.
There are times when a CEO may have software development plans and design ready, but it needs focus and execution that the CEO may not be able to provide.
In this case, a CEO can hand off the plans and designs to the fractional CTO so that they take the initiative to build and launch the software.
