Unpacking the “Startup CTO” – Adam Martin

There are 4 necessary parts of a proto-CTO: Founder, CTO, VPE, Engineer

CTO doesn’t really exist as a role until SeriesB – but without someone performing the proto-CTO role the company probably won’t survive to reach that stage

I often tell CEOs: dont hire me, you think you need a CTO, but you don’t – and a good CTO will cost you a lot more (money and equity) than you can afford, or you’ll end up getting a low-quality one that costs you time and failed launches that undermine you in the eyes of investors and customers.

Good CTOs can operate effectively in companies all the way down to Pre-Seed – but in early-stage companies they’re not acting as CTOs, they’re doing something else

CEOs/recruiters reach out to me with roles often that are not what they think they are

Boards and VCs often demand their seed-funded CEOs ‘hire or acquire a top-tier CTO’ before proceeding; this is nearly always incorrect, and is a facade for something else

delay tactics waiting to see if your competitor proves a better investment opportunity
delay tactics waiting for you to de-risk the investment without increasing the valuation
decision-by-proxy: follow-the-leader risk-reduction by waiting to see if you can convince an experienced expert to join you, so the VC doesn't have to perform due-diligence themself / doesn't have to risk looking stupid if you turn out to be a con-artist

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Unpacking the “Startup CTO”

Startups/CEOs/Recruiters often reach out to me with ‘CTO’ roles where I end up telling them to save their money, not hire a CTO, and go with a Founding Engineer instead. Sometimes this makes sense immediately, often I get pushback ‘but I need a CTO!’, and I have to walk them through the reality that is hiding behind the fake title ‘Startup CTO’. Let’s go behind the curtain…

This is background for looking at one of the roles fCTOs encounter and should avoid (the “Founding Engineer in Disguise”). This is specific to startups, but non-tech/low-tech companies can also encounter it even quite far beyond startup stage. It applies more to non-fractional roles, but it dominates so much of the startup landscape that I’m covering it on its own.

This causes a common problem/tension in fCTO roles and candidates: in a very early-stage startup the main alternative to a CTO is a hands-on engineer. This colours everything that happens for the next few years, with CEOs/founding teams always looking at “fCTO” as an alternative to “Founding Engineer”. This is a grossly misleading equivalence – but from the abstract view of a CEO, worrying about fifty other problems, it’s an accurate simplification of their decision.

Roles by stages:

pre-seed seed SeriesA SeriesB+

Founder Founder – –

– CTO-ish CTO
– VPE-ish VPE
Lead Eng Lead Eng –
Eng Eng – –

In startups, the Boards and VCs often tell the CEO “you need a high-caliber CTO or you won’t get your next round / we won’t invest in your SeriesA / you won’t get beyond Seed”. No sane CEO wants to do everything themself, so this is great – it gives them license to drop everything and hunt for the CTO they always dreamed of, to help turbocharge their success!

I started writing about a common issue for early-stage-startup fCTOs: the startup/CEO who says they need a CTO, but in reality they’re hiring a Founding Engineer and rebadging it to sound more impressive / pay less money. But to understand/explain that we need to dig a bit into this false notion of a “Startup CTO”.

“Startup CTO” isn’t a true title, it’s pretty wrapping-paper around a jumbled set of loosely-related fragments.

But here’s where it goes wrong: CEOs and recruiters often approach me for such roles and are surprised when I look at their business and say: You want a CTO but you don’t need one; save your money, save your equity, and deliver a bigger business at lower cost by hiring the right kind of early-stage-startup Engineer. I run them through a quick analysis of what a ‘CTO’ actually provides, and show them why they can’t afford it – and don’t really need it – today.

To explain what’s going on here we have to unpack the term “Startup CTO”.

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