

What does a startup CTO actually do? - eries
http://startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com/2008/09/what-does-startup-cto-actually-do.html

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aneesh
"The CTO's primary job is to make sure the company's technology strategy
serves its business strategy"

Best description I've seen. Startups that follow the opposite scenario often
die because they're little more than academic labs, and no one will pay for
what they're doing.

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pxlpshr
If you're an early-stage startup, be careful with the CTO role. Make sure they
can add value THROUGHOUT your operations, as oppose to "evangelizing" about
your product. Too much time designing/feature-creep, and not enough time
polishing/productizing/documenting == death.

Make sure your product does a few things but does them better than anyone
else. Define your core competency and stick to it, establish a name for
yourself, then begin stacking on features to distance yourself while
competitors play catchup.

Any product with a feature list 10 feet wide but only a 1 foot deep, is still
a baby pool. So guess what happens when a potential customer dives in head
first during diligence? For some hackers, it may explain why they can't close
a deal.

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acgourley
Some enterprise companies do well with a baby pool approach.

You only have to be deeper than the other guy, and there may not be much
competition. On the other hand, every customer needs a new feature...

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jacobscott
I like the writeup, but I wonder what size your startup has to be before this
kicks in. Under N engineers, isn't the CTO just the founder with the most
technical experience?

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swombat
This kicks in right from the beginning.

The "five essential skills" are critical on day -1 of the start-up. If you
select the wrong platform, aren't aware of what it can do, can't come up with
many options to do each of the things that need to be done, don't find the
right 80/20 compromise, and can't recruit more technical talent, your
technology start-up is screwed from the get-go. It might burn on for a while,
but it'll all turn to ashes if you don't have a good start-up CTO.

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known
CTO = Produce Best Technologies for The Business

CIO = Consume Best Technologies for The Business

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swombat
Excellent article. Quite comforting to see how the role evolves past the "tiny
start-up" stage (which is where I'm at at the moment.

It's worth pointing out that many of these responsibilities don't just appear
out of nowhere. They're there from day one - from day -1, in fact. They might
become more formalised as the start-up grows, but I'd be seriously worried
about any start-up whose CTO (or technical cofounder) doesn't take up
responsibilities 1-4 at least right away.

