

Ask HN: Investors asking us for another technical co-founder - man_bear_pig

So my situation is pretty unique.<p>I have a pretty competent team building out the product for our local social commerce concept and we&#x27;re on our way to raising angel funding (we&#x27;ve already had a seed round), but my CTO is overseas.  He&#x27;s a family friend with 6 years of RoR experience and he has been awesome to us, but right now we&#x27;re running into some visa issues...<p>He may not PHYSICALLY be with us for a bit but can continue to work.<p>During the initial meetings, a lot of investors asked if we can try to hire someone from the U.S. as another technical co-founder or to maybe even replace the CTO. No one is worried about the business side because we&#x27;re pretty stacked on that end.<p>Any thoughts on best way to go about this?
What are the best sources to recruit a potential replacement CTO &#x2F; another technical co-founder with potential to become the CTO?<p>Anyone interested? (haha. figured it wouldn&#x27;t hurt to ask). Any help or advice from the hacker news community would be very much appreciated!
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plinkplonk
It certainly _sounds_ like you already decided to sell your present CTO down
the river, and (at least) downgrade his title/responsibility on the advice of
investors. All good. Just capitalism at work, and engineers have a history of
being shafted by the MBA types after doing a lot of work getting something to
an investable-in stage. (but why would yet another capable engineer (the type
you want as a CTO) want to work with you if you have a history of treating
your cofounder like this?)

Missing in all this - What does your present CTO think? (what does _he_
think/say , (not what you think he would or should say,what does he actually
think/say is a good solution?)

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man_bear_pig
1) it is my CTO who has asked me to reach out because the whole idea was for
him to come here when we raise new funding. if he can't, he does not want to
be in the way of progression and would need to think about what is the best
possible solution for the startup (99% equity of 0 is still 0).

2) it's not as simple math as you make it out to be. i'm raising money based
on my credentials and years of connections in the industry and consequently,
it'll be my head on the line if the business doesn't succeed. the cto can
always say, well vision from ceo didn't make sense. the ceo has no excuse.
now, how idiotic will i look if i took their money, didn't take their advice
and then the startup fails bc of development issues i.e "i told you so"
scenario. my cto doesn't have to worry about that now does he? he can just
join another startup or go work for another firm. for me, how am i going to
raise subsequent funding? for me, i can't go back to the industry i left that
paid multiple times more than most engineers in the valley. that is the risk i
took to start this business. so don't tell me about who's getting shafted and
who's not.

no one is selling anyone down the river. in fact, you being from bangalore
should be the first to know how difficult the situation must be to get visas
in a hurry and to work on multiple platforms concurrently. and you definitely
know communication/cultural dialogue is spotty to say the least.

3) also have you considered other employees besides just taking sides from the
engineers' perspective? CTO/engineers are one component of my business to keep
happy. If the sales/marketing guys can't get my full attention and get pissed
off because i'm busy communicating overseas with a CTO all the time and they
say "hey didn't investors and bunch of our advisors tell you not to do EXACTLY
this b/c it's going to be a huge headache?" then i have another problem on my
hands now don't i that you didn't think about- attrition of the supply side of
my business as well as critical employees leaving because i'm not making them
happy.

it's not just what does my cto think... it's what is best for the business and
for every team member of this business so that we all succeed or we all fail.
it's about the team. not about the cto. not about me. it's the entire unit as
a whole and navigating the waters before it actually becomes a problem.

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SHOwnsYou
Does he have a history of bad results? I'd have a pretty strong reaction to
potential investors suggesting I replace a capable employee, but it sounds
like you're ready to ditch him at a moment's notice.

If he has a history of inconsistency, you don't need potential investors to
tell you that. If he has proven capable, I'd be concerned about your concept
of loyalty.

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man_bear_pig
Thanks for your response.

It's not that he's proven capable in the past or not. It's the future (with a
new set of investors and new set of obstacles).

Everyone wants to win at whatever cost. If I knew that I was not the best CEO
for this job and someone else could do it better, I would step down.

What we're dealing with is that the inefficiencies that we faced in the past
were overcome with harder work but everyone is working hard (and i'm not the
one to complain about hard work - i can confidently say that i've worked
ridiculous hours in investment banking and private equity and never complained
once).

what i don't want is a scenario where he and someone else can do it better
together or worst case scenario he knows that someone else can do it better
here if he was to play a supporting role; it's not at all about the concept of
loyalty, but rather the concept of putting the team in the best possible
position to succeed. (i'd be willing to give up my equity share to make that
happen - wouldn't dilute him at all). that's how much i work for the team
because at the end of the day, i have no startup if i don't have my team with
me even though my background alone could probably raise the money.

he's been proven capable on a limited basis thus far. website for my business
is one thing. complex mobile and managing both parts is something we have to
go through together because we've never done it together before. one thing i
know is that just because people are very skilled at what they do doesn't mean
that they are skilled at managing multiple projects, people, expectations at
the same time.

do I want to run a startup from 9am - midnight and then from midnight get on a
skype chat with him for 3 hours a night 7 days a week for the next 2 years
when i know that if i had another tech cofounder or a cto here next to me that
would not be the case? what is the reduction in probability of the team's
success due to my lack of sleep, my stress, leading to my inability to
properly navigate all facets of the business? this isn't a one feature SaaS
business. this is a complex platform from a business/concept level.

he knows that it's less efficient and less than ideal scenario to be overseas.
that's why he wants to come here in the first place.

investors are also not telling me to replace a critical member who 100% knows
the codebase and how to scale this thing. they're simply saying is he in the
best position to lead or at the minimum, asking me, do i think he needs
someone else to fortify the tech development team so that development is not
the bottle neck when marketing is the name of this game.

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reechaurd
can you provide a link to the site so I can see where you guys are at?

what problem are you trying to solve or if not a distinct problem what are you
trying to improve?

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staunch
Kayak's co-founders never worked in the same place. One was CEO in Connecticut
and the other CTO in Boston. An example of it working on a pretty big scale.

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man_bear_pig
thanks. that's pretty interesting to note. but i'm pretty sure they also had a
stacked team with 8m bucks under their belt with former orbitz top guys on the
business end, bunch of vc's to support and help recruit. kayak story is more
like justfab.com when cmo of gilt leaves to do something than a true startup.

but interesting note nevertheless. thanks.

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jt2190
Perhaps you can clarify: Why are investors so concerned with the current CTO
that they're asking for him to be replaced? (I would expect that if things are
going well that most investors wouldn't want to change things unnecessarily.
It _seems_ like you agree with your investors... Do you?)

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man_bear_pig
awesome question. pretty spot on.

to be completely honest with you, i am worried about leakage. from my
experience, there are definitely some inefficiencies with working in a
completely different time zones and having to skype all the time. also for a
consumer facing / lifstyle type site, iterations have to be fast and constant.
they are worried that even though he may be good enough from skill set
standpoint on the backend, managing the product on a day to day basis,
cultural differences, and being with the team as we gear up for mobile
development would be crucial to have someone in the states, preferably working
together, instead of overseas.

i think my current cto and i would both agree with them on that. i do wonder
how much faster development would be if he was here.

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jacquesct
Is the CTO the only developer which you have on board?

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sharemywin
Please post an email address or your website. I would be interested in talking
with you about the position.

