Hello, I’m the new CTO of sunday
Embracing Opportunity: The Thoughtful Path to the CTO Role at Sunday
Early in 2021, the founders of Sunday (Christine, Victor, & Tigrane) are searching for someone to guide them for the right strategy to develop sunday’s technology. At that time, sunday (then known as 30sec) was an incredibly successful experiment in Big Mamma restaurants, which had validated market interest and secured funding of 24 million. However, this experiment now needed to be transformed into a product distributable to restaurants not only in France but also in the United Kingdom, Spain, Germany, Italy, and the United States.
In this context, Christine de Wendel approached me after receiving my contact through a mutual acquaintance, Pierre, a former colleague at Mano Mano. Pierre suggested she contact me, given my experience in launching several projects. By then, I had already co-founded my third startup. I also spent several years in a “Software Workshop” (Arpinum), which operated as a startup studio, launching about ten products for various startups.
I knew how to launch a product from scratch, how to structure a team, and what pitfalls to avoid in a startup environment. It’s essential to understand that a startup context is a complex mix of challenges: starting from scratch, managing software architecture, dealing with economic uncertainty, unfamiliarity with the product’s industry-specific issues, creating a team with its own culture, and handling onboarding. Tackling any of these challenges is tough, but combining them creates a daunting cocktail of complexity that few have the chance to experience (and, in some ways, thankfully so, as it’s incredibly challenging).
I, therefore, proposed to assist Sunday as an external consultant, helping them get off to a good start. At that time, the tech team at sunday consisted of only three people (the CTO of Big Mamma and two freelancers), with an application developed specifically for a single POS. It managed only one payment provider for a single geographical area (France) and was already showing limitations with about twenty restaurants.
Six weeks later, the strategy was defined, development had begun, we had figured out our recruitment approach, and we had decided on the technologies and architecture to be implemented. Then, I received a call from Victor, asking me to join the tech team full-time on sunday to lead it.
Let me take a moment to explain why I said yes. Having witnessed many startup projects, I’ve seen numerous ventures fail to take off. It’s crucial to remember that the startup world is predominantly a graveyard of projects that never soared. The challenge lies in knowing how not to waste time in this environment. I’ve developed a personal checklist for evaluating startups:
- Complementary and slightly eccentric founders are essential because the level of personal investment and energy required for a startup to succeed is immense. Too many projects falter because the founders lacked the necessary intensity.
- Funding and a CEO who knows how to secure it. In my view, the primary job of a CEO is to secure the funds needed for the startup’s success. Startups burn through cash, and without adequate funding, a startup venture can quickly devolve into a group of individuals on minimal income, surviving on instant noodles and only able to hire interns (no offense to interns, of course).
- An interesting product with a market. I’m not necessarily looking for groundbreaking innovation. However, I seek a product that resonates with people. If possible, something I can explain to my parents (which is still too rare) that genuinely interests people.
At sunday, I found these three elements quite obviously. Besides, I had been working for several years on financial products with a shift towards the crypto world, which had exhausted my curiosity. I felt like I was doing crypto for the sake of crypto (Although I am not a critic of cryptocurrencies, I believe that there are genuinely innovative and intelligent applications for them). So, I decided to join the adventure.
Very soon, the question of becoming CTO came up. I explained to the co-founders that while I could take on the technical leadership, I lacked experience with large teams (60+ people). Given the rapid pace they desired and the eventual team size, I preferred to avoid making mistakes that could be detrimental to the company. I didn’t have the luxury of learning on the job, having seen too many startups falter due to inexperienced leadership. Without proper experience, rapid growth is the fastest way to hit a severe, potentially fatal wall for a company. I told them they had time to find the right person as I could manage the technical team in the interim and that we would have time to see how things developed before the team grew to 60–80 people.
That was the beginning of one of the most intense years of my life. I had to manage recruitment, onboard up to 100 people in the technical and product teams, build teams in France, the UK, the US, and Spain, completely redevelop the solution from scratch, internationalize the product, and adapt it to various geographies in terms of regulations, taxes, etc., integrate about thirty POS systems in a few months (with up to seven integrations in parallel), and more… all at the same time. Each of these tasks was a challenge, let alone all at once. I’m still amazed we didn’t crash at that point (even though not everything was perfect, I must admit).
This is how, at the beginning of 2022, a CTO, Sebastien Chauffray, joined us. We immediately got along well (it’s pretty cool to be able to choose your future boss). I often say that I don’t work for a company or a boss but with people. With Seb, I felt we could work well together, and his experience with larger teams was crucial to avoid making avoidable mistakes. This allowed me to return to a more operational role where I oversaw technical aspects (architecture, standards, team structure) as Vice President.
Thus, Seb and I led the team through the next 18 intense months, with its highs and lows. During this time, we navigated through one of the worst crises the tech (particularly fintech) industry had seen in recent years, but that’s another story.
After 18 months, Seb announced he had the opportunity to work with someone he had long wanted to collaborate with and was facing a once-in-a-lifetime chance, so he would leave us (to become CTO of PayFit, for those following along).
Victor then asked me what I wanted to do. By then, I knew I was ready. I had gained substantial experience, had a crash course in the challenges one might face, and had the opportunity to observe and learn from Sebastien. The team was more stable with a better pace. So, I told him that I would take over from Sebastien. There was no need to go through the hassle of finding a new CTO when I was there. And that’s how, for the past six months, I’ve been the CTO of sunday (and that’s a story for another time).
The End
