Share0
Tweet0
Share0
Share0
Tweet0
Share0

Business Founder Searching for a CTO….Should I just move forward?

I’m a founder in the energy industry struggling to figure out the best steps to take in building out my business idea.  Fundamentally, my business idea solves significant gaps for the electric utility industry.  In order to fill these gaps, I’m looking to leverage the mobile interface.

I feel very strong about my ability to procure and ensure customer development, however, I’m struggling to find a CTO (my preferred route is to find a co-founder who is as passionate as I am).  Should I just procure a mobile development shop in order to move forward and start prototyping?  My concern is the amount of time I’ll spend focusing on technology management challenges will take away from the customer development and procurement timeframe.

  • Create a mockup of what the mobile app in powerpoint, along with your business case. Use that to raise some angel investment. Once you’ve done that you’ve demonstrated to potential cofounder/CTO types that you can deliver on your end. Finding a CTO becomes a lot easier when you’ve got money and customers lined up.

    Reply

  • I feel very strong about my ability to procure and ensure customer development

    I have to doubt your procurement and customer finding skills if you cannot find an appropriate CTO/technician.

    It’s good that you ask here but I don’t get why you don’t do the obvious:

    Externalize mobile dev.

    If the mobile app is your core then u shouldn’t externalize it though and then u shouldn’t be CEO but only an advisor or COO.

    No one needs a CEO who just has ideas but a) has no skills in the core business and b) has no idea on how to externalize projects.

    If your only skill is sales, then you are a sales guy, but not CEO. Cold hard truth here I’m just the messenger

    Reply

    • Not sure OP said they were interested in being CEO. Good advice if not.

      Sounds like OP should create a mock up. Shop it to externals to start slow then see if they can gain steam with a MVP.

      May not be ideal to start but easier to shift from outside to inside dev than from no dev to perfect dev.

      Regarding “must know essential business”. Tend to disagree. So many companies ran by finance guys vs engineers. Tend to see forest through trees.

      Reply

  • Find a talented remote developer to help you with your start-up. I recommend what the guys are doing at CommonShare.com. They have been very quiet as they’ve been building an elite network of developers that are placed into companies for full-time roles. The interesting thing about their model is their developers receive equity in CommonShare for doing work in your company.

    I think you could use CommonShare (or maybe someone like them though I’ve never seen a model like this before) for 3-6 months and then with the MVP out hire a local CTO and scale either locally or through CommonShare/via your CTO’s connections.

    Reply

  • Sales is a very good skill for a CEO.

    Try to to a pre-sale of your product, if you can have few customers signed up and/or paying before the product even started to exist. It will show traction. Hence helping you either raise money or convince a CTO to join 50/50.

    Be careful about cheap external Devs, they can kill a project if you don’t have experience managing them. (Expensive ones need less management)

    Reply

    • A good alternative is to hire an expensive IT consultant two days a week to hire few inexpensive Devs. That’s a good cost / quality ratio.

      Reply

  • I’ve done the same thing… basically took me 6 monthly and probably 2K conversations to find my CTO. Here’s what I had

    I was an expert in the market, and this was publicly acknowledged
    I had a background in investment banking and knew people with $
    I had LOIs with prospective customers
    I am an engineer and naturally technical. I got a bootstrap template and customized it to show the CTO I could build enough product and user stories and was competent

    People are naturally risk averse. The less risk the CTO sees, the more interested they will be. Same with investors (who prefer zero risk, honestly)

    Reply

  • … [Trackback]

    […] Read More Information here on that Topic: startupsanonymous.com/story/business-founder-searching-cto-just-move-forward/ […]

    Reply
    • {"email":"Email address invalid","url":"Website address invalid","required":"Required field missing"}

    You may also like

    >