In a world of CEOs, CTOs hardly get the reputation they deserve. While a chief executive officer (CEO) may make the high-stakes decisions that have to be made for a company, in a tech-oriented industry chief technology officers (CTOs) largely inform these decisions.
Startup CTOs carry the same role, but due to the bootstrap nature of small businesses, a company may emphasize and reposition a CTO’s role. In other words, small businesses often rely on CTOs as bonafide leaders who can offer strategic guidance for the organization at hand.
To learn more about what a CTO can offer a startup, keep reading! You’ll learn the roles, responsibilities, and challenges of a startup CTO here.
What Does a CTO Do?
A CTO leads the technology or engineering department in a company and is responsible for developing technological processes. They use technology to build better products.
Hiring a CTO at the right stage in your startup growth plan can benefit your business tremendously. A CTO will set the technical direction for your product development; create and execute a strategic plan; identify the exact resources necessary to put the plan into action; and oversee the entire process from start to finish.
The reality of growing and leading a startup is brutal. Nine out of ten startups fail. There is a small margin for error, meaning you need to rely on strategic planning for growth and development. This is why a great CTO is essential.
6 Responsibilities of a Startup CTO
The role of a startup CTO is not the same as a CTO at a big, well-established company. Of course, the main scope of responsibilities stays the same – both are in charge of the technological development of the company. Still, the role of a startup CTO is more associated with rapid growth rather than long-term planning.
Larger companies have the resources to take more time to make decisions. Startups demand a different approach, where the survival of the company rests on their ability to adapt and roll out new ideas quickly.
A good CTO has both project management and technical skills. Even though they often take a backseat in terms of writing code, a CTO should have a thorough understanding of the development process to lead a software development team.
CTO’s responsibilities can be quite diverse. But let’s focus on the six principal responsibilities of a CTO.
1. Manage the Team
It’s hard to imagine a startup CTO that doesn’t work well with people. CTOs are responsible for hiring and managing teams of developers and helping them complete projects effectively.
The foundation of a successful startup is the quality of the people on a team, which means that it’s essential for a CTO to be involved in the hiring process. They should understand what particular skills and capabilities the development team needs and how to identify these in potential hires.
With the right talent in place, a startup can build a great MVP, attract investors, and create a product that delights end-users.
2. Define the Technology Stack
A CTO provides their team with the technology stack they need to build their product and guide the overall technical vision. Understanding the technical requirements of a project is what’s important here.
CTOs also oversee the company’s hardware and server infrastructure and manage which internal technologies are adopted and implemented.
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3. Manage Operations
A startup operating effectively should compare to a well oiled-machine. A CTO shapes how the technical sides of a project are managed, striving for a well-defined process that brings results.
Whether it’s Scrum, Agile, or Lean, how a product is developed ultimately determines the overall development process overall. A CTO with a firm grasp on operations is required to ensure the business runs smoothly.
4. Track Performance
A CTO needs to constantly track performance in order to maintain the productivity of their team. In a startup environment, the CTO should work closely with developers, understanding where they are finding success, and where they need work.
It’s also important for a technical leader to improve the product by listening to ideas from the developers they oversee, advocating for innovative ideas, and finding paths to their implementation.
Rewarding their team for exceptional performance and contributing to the development of products is a large part of a CTO’s job. CTOs should go out of their way to make sure good work gets recognized.
5. Have a Technical Vision
Though the product’s overarching vision should be a culmination of the entire founding team, the CTO needs to develop a technical strategy for a startup that will make that vision a reality.
The strategy should include clear goals, obstacles, as well as risk analysis. This technical strategy needs to align with the startup’s overall business objectives.
In order to craft a strong vision, a CTO needs to have profound technical skills and a thorough understanding of business. CTOs need to have the proper tools to create and channel this vision into something real.
6. Represent the Company
A CTO provides a face and personality to represent the technical endeavors of a company. In a tech startup that is promoting new and innovative ideas, it’s pretty much mandatory to have a qualified CTO to inspire trust in the product that they are building.
Funding opportunities often come from individuals and organizations like angel investors, venture capital firms, or accelerators. It comes as no surprise that these sources of capital scrutinize the leadership of a company, especially the CTO and their technical vision.
Representing the startup extends to engaging in speaking opportunities, conferences, and even appearing in written publications to showcase the company and its work.
Properly representing a startup as a CTO is a well-rounded process. It demands a fairly active involvement across the public spaces where the company has relevance.
What Skills Should Startup CTOs Have?
So how can a CTO make sure their skills are used properly for the startup environment? As mentioned before, the role can be dramatically different in a startup due to the lack of resources. With this in mind, let’s go over a few things to look for in a startup CTO.
A Customer-Centric Mindset
When developing a product or service, it’s vital to have a solid understanding of who the final user is. A lot of startup co-founders end up building something for themselves and lack a key understanding of who the end-user is going to be.
A CTO at a tech startup must have the ability to identify clearly who they are building for and plan the project around these specifications. The faster a CTO at a startup can understand exactly what problem they are trying to solve, and who they are trying to solve it for, the faster they can craft a customer-centric product or experience.
Team Management Skills
A startup can be described as an intimate experience for those involved. In the early days, teams are small and often confined to working physically close with one another. CTOs must be able to work closely with small teams and oversee their work.
Having a CTO with the ability to manage people effectively while teams scale-up is very beneficial for a tech startup. This extends to hiring, setting goals, and in some cases, firing staff.
Managing a team requires a leader who can connect with their team, identify their strengths and weaknesses, and apply them to the overarching vision of the company to make it a reality.
A company is nothing without the people behind it. A startup CTO should recognize this and allow the team’s culture to guide how they communicate and collaborate with their staff.
Prior Experience in Startups
Though not mandatory, it’s a good idea for a startup CTO to have previous experience working in a startup environment.
The practices and culture found in a startup are quite different from larger companies. Startups are more disruptive, fast-paced, and require working with limited resources without sacrificing quality. It can be a difficult adjustment for a professional who hasn’t experienced it before.
Understanding and being able to navigate the startup world is definitely a quality to look for in a CTO. From being able to secure funding for a venture to leveraging its network to grow the company, it definitely pays off to have somebody familiar with the startup scene.
Negotiation Skills
Besides leading technical projects, a CTO needs to communicate with the human resources department, executives at the company, stakeholders, and whoever else may have an interest in the development process.
Startup CTOs tend to be more invested in these interested parties than a CTO from a large company. They must negotiate with these parties to reach a compromise that will result in a productive development project.
Problem-Solving Skills
Leaders of all kinds need to have a sense of creativity that will aid them in solving complex problems that arrive unexpectedly. As the expert technical managers on the team, it’s natural that others would come to a CTO for support on more difficult issues.
Tech Skills
It goes without saying that CTOs have technical skills. These technical skills should also be quite advanced given that they will lead the company in all things tech. Testing, DevOps skills, MVP, and API development, are just a few examples of what a CTO is expected to know.
Strategic Thinking
Strategy defines every business effort, technical or otherwise. Naturally, as technical leaders of an organization, CTOs need to be able to think on their feet and create viable plans for scaling the company.
Top 3 Challenges of a Startup CTO
As you’ve seen here, the CTO’s role in a startup has many sides to it, each coming with its own set of challenges. These are some of the specific challenges that a CTO might face, especially in a startup environment.
1. Managing Talent
One common struggle in a startup is acquiring the talent needed to build the company’s vision. This is especially true for hiring software engineers.
A hurdle that a CTO must overcome is the difficulty of sourcing these types of talented individuals, training them, and getting them up-to-speed on startup projects.
Geography can sometimes be a limiting factor when hiring staff. Startup leadership has increasingly begun to hire remote workers as a solution.
Though hiring remote comes with a unique set of challenges, it also allows for flexibility for how a team can be scaled.
Once talent has been obtained, retaining it is the next thing to worry about. There’s an endless sea of opportunities within the startup ecosystem.
There are also numerous ways to retain your startup talent. Oftentimes it’s as simple as having an interesting product that truly makes them passionate about their work. Balancing an enjoyable work environment with sufficient benefits is key here.
2. Managing Innovation
Truly innovative ideas are the fuel for any successful startup. Whether a company will ‘make it or break it’ often boils down to whether something new is being brought to the table.
A startup can’t afford to think in three or five-year cycles as their limited resources don’t allow them that privilege. Ideas need to come quickly for a tech startup to survive.
This can be a challenge for CTOs that is overlooked. Ideas need to be tested and validated to ensure they are innovative, a great CTO has to be able to produce innovative ideas and be ready to pivot them whenever required.
The process of managing your company’s innovation is easier said than done.It comes down to creating a company-wide culture that promotes innovation for everybody involved.
For a CTO to be an effective leader at a startup, they need to actively encourage their team to bring forward new ideas to make the product they are building more groundbreaking.
3. Managing Priorities
Project management can be one of the hardest parts of developing software. There are many philosophies describing exact methods for overseeing development. But there is one thing that can consistently derail a project: feature creep.
This is when a development team continues to add more to their planned feature list until the project becomes impossible to actualize. When crafting and executing innovative ideas, it’s difficult to balance a realistic product or service with an idealistic vision of one.
Good CTOs know how to manage expectations, and translate this into effective project management.
By focusing on what can be achieved in a timely manner, and prioritizing features that will have the most impact, a CTO can successfully balance the development plan with what matters most for the company.
Conclusion
Startups are by definition risky.
They revolve around an entrepreneurial mission to develop a unique product and an invested hope that it will perform well on the market. That said, more than hope is necessary to manifest a creative vision.
This is where CTOs come in. A CTO can manage the technical aspects of your company’s vision, bring an advantageous skill set, and be prepared to tackle the routine challenges involved in their duties.
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Having a qualified CTO on your team is essential to seeing your startup reach new heights and develop important projects.
