CTO as a Service

When you need an external CTO?

CTO as a Service For Startups

Do you need someone to help you meet with investors, to help you evaluate vendors, to help you create product design, engineering roadmap, and maybe to even help code your first app? Have you developed your first app using low-cost developers, and now you realize that the design is inadequate for the next stage of your product?

CTO as a Service For Business

Is your company growing fast? Are you overwhelmed by responsibilities? If you are also missing a technical co-founder, probably you need support in technological matters to consult. Ensure smooth transitioning in the early stages and replace redundant practices with a more consistent and scalable process.

What is CTO responsible for?

CTO services and their responsibilities vary from company to company due to the fact that the job title usually means different things in all companies. The expectations of never the same because all the companies possess varying goals:

Validating business idea

In the initial, pre-seed stage, startups are building product prototype. CTO often works with UX designers for designing prototypes at this stage by giving their technical assistance throughout the process. CTO works with the engineering team to ensure the most reliable development practices for developing the core product.

• Design and develop our core product prototypes during product discovery phase
• Rapidly iterate and test prototypes by collecting client feedback often using Google’s Design Sprint Kit

Technology selection

CTO consulting combines technical and business knowledge to drive organizational transformation by implementing technology like AI solutions, business processes automation, robotization, and much more.

CTO can assist a company with such tech solutions selection:

• Evaluate the effectiveness of the current tech stack
• Select the most cost-efficient and effective tech stack
• Plan integrations with external services

Project Planning

Failing to plan is planning to fail. Software development planning is an important part of starting any new software initiative. It serves as a roadmap that shows the project phases, and their start and end dates, and dependencies.

External CTO can help you with:

• Improving the development processes and project outputs
• Creating a development roadmap and prioritizing the features
• Estimating budgets and timelines

Learn more Starting a Software Project — Complete Guide to Project Planning

Project scaling

There comes a time in the development of a startup when the need for scaling becomes obvious. Hiring is a constant challenge for most organizations regardless of size, industry, or geography. Here an experienced CTO will help you:

• Enable better scaling by setting clear boundaries on software modules i.e. with SOA
• Help you with hiring A Players as well as generalists - dynamic software engineers who will enable you to move fast
• Help you nurture software development leaders within your organization

Project pitch

A CTO is valuable to your business as they are not just senior developers or technical experts, but someone who brings in a broad range of skills, knowledge, and experience. They perform business analysis and can simplify technical details during funding rounds.

Most startups hire CTOs as a service to pitch business ideas and products to investors. They can help you visualize your business ideas and educate investors on the technical details and what is in it for them.

As part of external CTO service we help:

• preparing a tech pitch deck
• explaining the technical value of your idea or product to investors
• providing answers to any technical questions asked by investors
• proving that the team possesses technical capabilities and deep expertise

Learn more about CTO Services for Startups

Project audit

Maintaining quality and product reliability might demand that you conduct an audit with an external CTO. That way, you will have an unbiased perspective about your business performance.

During the project audit session, a CTO can help with:

• assessing your code quality
• verifying team productivity
• project quality and assessment of functionality
• evaluating the effectiveness of the remote team
• compiling a recommendation list on improvements

Why do some Chief Technology Officers fail?

According to CTO Academy insights collected from tech leaders around the world, the most common in house CTO failures are related to:

• Inability to organize details - Effective leadership requires planning and attention to detail. No genuine leader is ever “too busy” to do their job as a leader. A successful leader is a master of all details.
• Unwillingness to render humble service/intemperance - Great leaders are willing to perform any task that they would ask others to perform. “The greatest among you shall be the servant of all,” observes and respects all wise leaders.
• Selfishness/fear of competition from followers - The leader who claims all the honor for the work of their team, is sure to be met by resentment. The truly great leader accepts no honors because they know that praise and recognition motivate people more than money.
• The expectation of pay for what they KNOW, Instead of what they DO with that which they know

This is why Chief Technology Officer need to create ownership mentality:

• Be a fully integrated team member, willing and capable of doing the exact same tasks required from the team.
• Leave room for the team to grow, take initiatives and responsibilities, observing them humbly from the outside.
• Create opportunities to recognize the team for their individual wins.

What skills does an effective CTO need?

Because the list of skills required of a CTO can be quite lengthy, we've divided it up by the role a CTO plays. The following are possible roles for a CTO in a technology startup:

• Software architect - CTO's skills will tell you that he or she is an experienced professional. However, if you are building i.e. a web product, your technical consultant does not need to be experienced in mobile development. Look for technical areas expertise that your project actually needs.
• Business-oriented mind - CTO should have a firm grasp of both the technical aspect and business aspects of the project. This is a person that provides solutions based on his experience and carefully selects technology solutions that will truly assist in resolving the present business problem.
• Communication skills - CTO supervises technical employees. Being a team leader requires not only solving technical issues but also soft skills management. As the technical team leader, the CTO is responsible for communicating with team members and resolving problems.
• Critical analysis skills - It's fantastic to follow software development and industry market trends. However, every CTO should be able to evaluate hyped solutions and trends critically to go after only those technologies that may help increase productivity and business performance growth
• Strategic thinking - CTO has to carry a strategic hat and identify how the organization can use technology to improve the bottom line and bring a tech perspective to the company’s strategic planning and product strategy.