What makes a real startup CTO
Should a CTO be able to write code? Should my CTO know how to deploy our application?
Short answer: yes. Just as you’d expect a startup CEO to wear many hats and get their hands dirty in all areas, a proper CTO should be able to do the same on the technology side. You don’t want “just a developer” as a lot of startup CEO’s insultingly put it — you want a leader, a partner, and engineering that can help you get the job done.
Needs to code
Yes. Your CTO should be able to write code, otherwise you’re spending extra money on a tech manager you don’t need at your stage. Furthermore, if your CTO isn’t actually building part of your app/infrastructure/whatever, how is he/she supposed to be able to maintain it long-term, especially if you lose a developer (which is likely since they won’t be incentivized as much as the CTO early on).
Ability to manage teams
A business whose IP lays within the minds of just its founders is not scalable.
Although you don’t want your CTO to be purely a manager to start, he/she needs to have experience managing an engineering team. As your company grows and your tech demands increase, you’ll inevitably need to hire additional engineers. Your CTO should know how to find the right talent, organize them into a successful team, and offload as much knowledge as possible to this team.
A business whose IP lays within the minds of just its founders is not scalable. It’s a risk having a single point of failure such as this (another concept your CTO should understand). The ins and outs of your tech stack and any algorithms/processes the business uses should be shared amongst the entire engineering team. If anything were to happen to your CTO, the technology department itself should be able to live on.
Know how to learn
No leader in any startup will know absolutely everything, but just like a CEO is expected to adapt and learn, so should your CTO. If a new technology challenge shows itself, the CTO should be willing and able to learn whatever is necessary to surpass the obstacle.
I’ve talked to far too many “CTOs” who are stuck with a skill set they learned 5–10 years ago without the desire to expand it further. This leads to a lot of “we can’t do that” responses or suggestions to execute technology in an archaic, expensive, or non-scalable manner.
The ability and willingness to learn also includes the willingness to drop the ego and learn from others. Many technologists and engineers immediately take offense to an outside suggestion or criticism. Becoming defensive, endlessly arguing your decision, or dismissing a suggestion simply because one thinks he/she is smarter than the other person are all bad traits for a leader.
A CTO must be open-minded, work with others to build the best solution, and never stop learning.
Know how to build almost anything on any platform
Not well, necessarily, but enough to at least get it started. A good CTO is a technology generalist — they may not be the best iOS developer, infrastructure engineer, or website “coder”, but they should know enough about everything to be dangerous and get a project started.
Remember, long-term, it’s not the CTO’s job to write all the code and maintain all the systems, so he/she doesn’t have to be proficient at everything. At a certain point in your startup’s life, specialists will be hired to take these things over, under the management of the CTO and the tech leads.
Understand strategy
Being able to come up with strategy is good, too, but the CTO must at least be able to understand business strategy so that they can develop processes and technology that will scale with what the business in the future.
A CTO should be an excellent translator between business and tech, with the ability to describe a business problem to engineers in order to build the best solution and should be able to communicate technology to business folks in a way they can understand and from which they can make decisions.
Entrepreneurial Mindset
As a CEO, you must value your CTO.
This is my last point, but one that results in the greatest churn for CTOs in startups, from my experience. Too many CEOs that need a product built are just looking for a “coder”. They want someone to build their app for them in order to have a prototype, service a new customer base, etc.
Your CTO must be bought into the startup’s vision and understand the value of equity and other long-term incentives. Here are some red flags to look out for:
- What’s your budget?
- Someone that only seems to care about their salary and accepts almost any equity number you throw at them, regardless of the number.
- Someone that doesn’t ask about long-term vision or their role in the startup as it grows.
- Someone too cozy in their current “safe” job with no intensions of focusing full-time on your startup in the future.
If you don’t get a partner, you’re instead getting a contract engineer, increasing your chances of losing them in the future and being back to square one. If you want just a coder, then you’re going to get just a coder — an engineer that doesn’t care about the startup’s vision or the product’s ability to scale and evolve; a person that doesn’t value long-term incentives, posses the ability to lead a team, or put others above his/herself.
As a CEO, you must value your CTO. They will be your long-term partner, offering unique perspectives, introducing new business opportunities, and allowing your startup to achieve what you envisioned for it. Treat your CTO as such, being generous with equity and allowing them to contribute to the business as a true partner. Allow them to take ownership of the vision and you will achieve it together.
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TLDR; being a really great coder, knowing how to manage a team, being able to build a great app, website, etc, (but not be able to deploy it on infrastructure) — each of these alone do not make a CTO. A good CTO must be a chameleon who can do all that is necessary for the startup the same way a CEO is expected to know/do sales, marketing, HR, fundraising, product, etc.
