A CTO’s View of the Startup Process

A few words for people with an idea for a tech startup

You’ve all heard of this person who had a great idea for an app that will change the world and now they’re the owners of this huge corporation, or of the one who made an exit and now owns their private island, travelling the world and drinking champagne from crystal glasses.



Well this story is very nice, no doubt, but it isn’t real. Or at least, it doesn’t paint the whole picture. The truth is that running a startup isn’t all rainbows and unicorns – it’s a long, and many times frustrating, process and between having the idea and becoming very successful, you will have to go through many stages, do a lot of hard work, and have very little sleep. It will be hard to get investment when you most need it, and when you finally do find an investor – you will never be happy with the deal you’ve got. It will also be hard to find suitable partners, and even harder to find loyal employees – you will need to check on some of them, you will need to motivate some of them, and you will need to fire some of them. Some of them will leave at the worst time possible. You will also sweat your guts out before you master a process that attracts clients, and you will have to chase some of them to get paid. You will work endless hours, you will be depressed and exhausted, then thrilled and energised, then depressed again, like a rollercoaster journey you didn’t sign up for.

I see people with an idea and sparkling eyes, calling themselves entrepreneurs, asking for free advice and services while blowing their savings on shiny startup events and entrepreneurs-only ‘networking’ 5-star skiing holidays. They’re using buzzwords they hardly understand, telling everyone they meet about how well they are doing, and about customers that don’t exist and financial success they don’t have. This is not what startups are about.

A successful startup is made of an idea (not necessarily a good one), a good execution of it, some great marketing, well-connected partners, and the right management coordinating it all, making sure everything goes according to plan and to budget. There’s also a component of luck but this article will not cover that; you may want to contact a spiritual leader, a fortune teller, or a medium -  whatever works for you.

This article will go over the process of creating a technology solution from a CTO’s point of view and will explain what is required of you as a founder for the process to succeed. To be able to do so, let’s first explain what a CTO is. A CTO is a chief technology officer – the person in charge of all the technology in your company. A CTO will many times have background in development as well as management. Some CTOs will agree to do the development themselves, some won’t – but it’s important to understand that CTOs have much greater responsibilities than only writing the code.

To count a few of those responsibilities, they should:

✪	Decide on technologies to use – both code and database-wise.
✪	Plan the architecture.
✪	Decide on the servers to use (not just going with Amazon Web Services as a default).
✪	Hire, manage, train, nurture and sadly sometimes fire developers.
✪	Make sure the developers write the code in the right way.
✪	Decide if the help of other tech professionals is required – Designers, Database (DB) Admins, User experience (UX) designers, Server Admins, and many others.
✪	Communicate with service providers.
✪	Choose hardware and software for the internal use of the company.
✪	Explain everything that is important for the CEO to make decisions.
✪	Predict costs, timetables, problems that may arise.
✪	Consider and cut costs, so the tech aspect doesn’t drain the company funds.
✪	Make sure that the tech side of the company works as efficiently as possible in respect to the financial state and personnel.

A CTO is a C-Level executive, not a developer. They need to understand business, finance, and must be able to solve tough managerial problems. If your CTO can’t replace you as CEO for a month or two while you’re away, they are not a CTO.

I believe that starting to work on the technical side before you are ready is a waste of my time and your money. I also choose to work with people I believe have a chance to succeed, so you need to make sure you have the right qualities, and that you completed stage 1 of the process, which we will discuss shortly.

The chapters we will cover in this guide:
1. Intro - A few words for people with an idea for a tech startup
2. The qualities you should have to become a founder of a tech startup
3. An overview of the stages in the startup's life
4. Stage 1 – Pre-MVP
5. Stage 2 – MVP
6. Stage 3 – Marketing, sales and networking
7. Stage 4 – Pitching to investors
8. Stage 5 – Measuring, analysing, and getting feedback
9. Stage 6 – Scaling and expanding or pivoting
10. Hiring my services

➠	Go to the next chapter