Find an amazing co-founder CTO
Great founder-CTOs are as rare as the Bengal tiger.
So how do you recognize one?
Here is a checklist:
Must Have’s
1. Best-in Class Technical Skills.
[ ] Evaluate their thought leadership (e.g. contributions to Hacker News, stack overflow etc.)
[ ] Ask about key technical innovations in [insert your industry here]
[ ] Ask for their thoughts on best software architecture in [insert your industry here]
[ ] Speak to at least 4 of their references (don’t skip this step!)
[ ] Ask other engineers to do a technical assessment. Pay them if you have to.
2. Willingness to Build Product from Scratch.
This can be an issue if you are partnering with an experienced CTO used to running large teams.
[ ] Look for recent products building experience
[ ] Ask for side-hustle examples
[ ] Ask what engineering team size is optimal for the first six months of your startup’s life. Benchmark against other experienced CTO estimates.
3. Willingness to Roll-Out Less-then-Ideal Minimum Viable Products (MVPs)
We once rolled out a website optimized for 100k users.
We had 100 users at the time.
We lost a lot of time and I learned this lesson the hard way.
[ ] Ask for an MVP plan. See if you can jointly design a more “bare-bones” version of the same product.
4. Customer centricity.
Your product should follow customer needs not vice versa.
[ ] Have your CTO join customer calls. Observe how client feedback gets incorporated in product design.
5. Professional Curiosity
Your CTO should constantly be learning. So should you.
Nice to Have’s
- Prior People Management Experience
There is a set of traits that distinguish amazing CTOs. By following this simple checklist you can dramatically increase your chances of finding one.
