Interesting read. I've been approached by non-tech founders for CTO roles many times, and the main reason I turn them down is that I don't believe in their products, but don't have the heart to trample on someone else's dreams.
Having worked for a failed start-up before, I'll only go back to that madness for a very solid product offering, and a sizable financial reward given the risks.
Most of them had working prototypes to be fair, one even with dedicated hardware, but no market traction. A lot of them were trying to create new markets, which is always risky as hell. Anyone tries to hit me with a PPT-only and it's an immediate "no thanks".
While it is not clear from the article, I would point out that being a technical cofounder is not necessarily a CTO, which is a specific type of role. I have seen plenty of startups with technical founders and a lot of engineers that still had a desperate need for a CTO. Also, not every kind of startup really needs a CTO to execute well.
Part of the reason that there is a shortage of CTOs, particularly outside of technology hotbeds, is that it is difficult to develop the skills required for the job if you have not been immersed in a technology hotbed for many years. This leads to a strange phenomenon I've noticed where non-CTO types in Silicon Valley are pressed into service as CTOs in other cities; relative to the local talent in those cities, the've developed more of the required experience by proximity even if it is not their core competency than technical people that have been far out on the periphery of technology development. It is not enough to simply be an experienced software engineer.
Tips for the prospective founding CTO working from a clean slate with a non-technical cofounder:
* Get it in writing, and sooner rather than later.
* Do not work for free. A business cofounder should be in charge of finding money. If they can't get enough to pay you to build a PoC, you shouldn't work with them.
* Work together to set near-term goals for the non-technical party, and assess whether they can deliver. If they can't: beware.
* Do not accept less than a 50/50 split unless the other party has decades of experience in a vertical, glowing references, and an astounding Rolodex. A few years at McKinsey or Bain followed by an MBA isn't worth more than the work you put in to get here. (Although it is meaningful.)
* Check references on the other person and do background work. It's amazing how little folks put into this compared with, say, the amount they put into their first hire. This is a source of much pain.
* Qualitatively, you MUST feel a sense of respect for the other person, and it helps if you find them outright impressive. Again, a source of major pain.
> In its early stages, the only thing a startup “absolutely needs” is traction; traction will have to happen before everything else; before funding, before media exposure, and now before co-founders as well.
Well, the author just described a good portion of the startup scene which do many of these things before traction. Traction happens because of media exposure, which happens because of funding, etc.
> and now before co-founders as well
If the founder is the CTO, yes. Otherwise, how can you get traction without a working product. I don't get it.
> Traction happens because of media exposure, which happens because of funding, etc.
I believe funding isn't the only source of media exposure. You can get traction by creating something people want first, then use a lot of channels like HN itself, reddit and product hunt to get your initial traction. Those initial efforts may get you in an accelerator, or even get you your first seed round. So I think there is a lot a founder can do before hitting the funding milestone.
It's true that for some startups, it's hard to start without a product, but that's rare. A perfect example would be any of the the "fake-it-till-you-make-it" startup success stories out there, who launch a crappy MVP with just some front, and do the work manually on the back until they get some paying customers and can build the actual product
that'll do the work for them.
I recently came off of a string of startups being CTO and I can attest that the attempt to recruit me has increased 10x since the last time I was on the market.
