When you need to hire a Chief Technology Officer

Success and growth of any business or organization can provide many different challenges. Understanding the changing technology needs to support that growth is a very specific skillset. At some point you may have to consider hiring a technology leader.

Understanding when to hire and defining the role, however, is not as straightforward as one may think. In order to avoid making the wrong decision at the wrong time, lets understand a little more about the position.

What is a CTO?

A chief technical officer plays a integral part in the success of a company. The CTO is involved in both technology and business decisions. At any point in your business life cycle, the CTO's major objective is to make sure your business needs are reflected in your product through the best possible use of technology. 

When do you need to hire a CTO? 

The needs differ for growing organizations and startups.

For a growing organization, there are different factors that influence whether or not it is time for your company to bring in a chief technology officer. In order to help you make your decision. Here are four factors to consider if you are deciding when to hire a CTO.

  • Your company’s technical needs are overwhelming. If you lack the industry expertise to follow through on a project, hiring a CTO could be beneficial. 

  • Your company needs a serious technology upgrade. A CTO can ease your transition while making long-term goals to keep your company up to date, if your business has grown to a point where outdated technology or practices affect your productivity, it’s time for an update.

  • Your current technology team needs a leader.  CTO has a foot in both the business and technology sides of your company.  If your company’s technology departments need business guidance, a chief technology officer is well suited for the role.

  • You want someone to push your business forward. One of the main responsibilities of a CTO is utilizing new technology to grow a business. By hiring a CTO, your business can gain perspective and new practices that help you revolutionize the industry

When speaking of the job of a CTO, Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup says: “That's an important job, for sure, and I've been called upon to do it from time to time. But I don't think most startups really have a need for someone to do that on a full-time basis.”

So, what do startups really need? A CTO or even a technical Co-founder?

If by CTO you mean a classic hire, full time, dedicated one, who joins a startup with a predictable revenue stream, in exchange of a salary, then you should probably put that thought on hold for some time. As this is not a very smart move for an early-stage start-up. Perhaps keep it until you’ve crossed a few more milestones, like funding for instance.

If by CTO, you mean a Technical co-founder who joins for equity, and has ownership over the startup, then you should be bringing one on board as soon as you can. And the perfect time to do so is usually as soon as you validate your idea and start getting some initial traction.

How to hire a CTO

Since hiring a CTO is a very crucial decision to make for your business, you have to consider someone with both the technical and visionary skill set.  You have to decide whether to promote someone from within your organization or bring in someone from outside.

First, know your environment.  If you are not a technical person, it may be difficult for you to understand the environment enough for you to make the right hire. Consider getting an infrastructure assessment, in order to set the requirements for this crucial hire. Hiring a technical leader, without knowing what the true requirement is, is like hiring a cook for a restaurant, when you don’t even know what the cuisine is.

  • Hiring from within - If you have a shining star who is doing a really good job and has earned the respect of their peers, you should be open to giving this person serious consideration. Make sure when you interview you understand what changes if any, a successor candidate would implement.

  • External Hiring - When the needed skill sets are not available within your organization, then there is the option to look to bring in someone outside. The ideal candidate should have the technical ability, business acumen, be an avid thinker to adapt to changing technologies, be a big picture thinker with a vision in relation to where the product is going, and possess good communication skill.

Technical skills are difficult to measure if you’re non-technical. You can’t properly evaluate hard skills from the candidate’s resume. In fact, the resume has little value unless proven. So there is the need to hire a technical consultant to accurately test an applicant’s technical competence. However, keep in mind that a CTO isn’t just a tech guy. This is the person who understands the principles of business, is ready to make meaningful decisions, and is passionate about your software product.

A Different Option for CTO

As mentioned earlier, hiring someone on fulltime may not be the best option for a startup with average salaries of CTO's at $162,263 annually. There is another viable option to leverage. 

CTO as a service (Virtual CTO)

For a fraction of what you would pay a full time CTO, you can leverage a virtual CTO to bridge the gap to when you can make that actual hire. Our first step will be to come in and assess the environment and provide you transparency and a high-level understanding of what’s in your environment, with recommendations for any glaring vulnerabilities, gain valuable insights and be able to set appropriate requirements for your full-time hire, gain access to a team of resources for YOUR technology and leverage my network of hundreds of certified resources across the country. 

What I Offer

My CTO consulting is a unique offering whereas a highly experienced technology expert, I work with you to ease and support IT initiatives, outline tech strategies and approaches according to business goals, manage technology infrastructure, tools, and teams.

For more information, visit www.ivoryrobinson.me/CTO-Service

Having built businesses from startup to operation, been a CEO and CTO and everything in between over the last 20+ years, I am skilled at slotting into organizations and helping at the executive layer, however you need. If you’re interested in collaborating with me or have any questions regarding the role of a CTO on your project, feel free to message me hello@ivoryrobinson.me.

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