startup cto role v3

A look into methods for the CTO Role interacting with different parts of building a startup company.

Bryan Starbuck [email protected] Engineering, Inc.We are the engineering team for a Business founder

Startup CTO Role

CTOCEODepartment

Heads

Board of Directors

TalentSpring Founder & CEO - Acquired in 2010B2B Enterprise SaaS company with Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning

SPARKON Founder & CEO - 2011 to 2013B2C Online learning & Passion Discovery

Owner at WhiteHat Engineering: (Current)Our engineering team builds startup companies & products

Bryan StarbuckSTARTUPS & ENGINEERING [email protected]

I’m searching for:

Business Founder

with an idea

CTOTechnical Founder-type

Brings an engineering team

I look for Business founders.

I act as CTO. I also bring in 3 software engineers.

And we build out thecompany aggressively

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This talk is for:

Anyone who wants to

transition into a

CTO

Any first time startup

CEOfor managing &

measuring their CTO

or

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Techniques in this talk

My techniques are just my $0.02 opinions.

You will do things, your way.

I want to create a discussion at the end.

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This talk is about CTO exec skills

This talk is NOT about coding or programming technology skills.

Those skills can be learned at Udemy.com and elsewhere.

This is talk is about the CTO-specific skills.

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VP of Product Management

Early on, CTO often needs to back-fill “VP of Product”.

Later, a VP of Product Management can join.

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Startups built out with significant momentum

This is designed for startups with serious momentum.

Swift to market. Swift to grow in market.

Great for companies who raise capital.NOT for companies bootstrapping and going slow.

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The CEO picks the GOAL of the company

CEO owns the VISION and GOAL of the company

I’ve found the Pitch Deck is a great way to pin down lower level details. Keep the CEO & CTO on the

same page, and others who follow.

Blue Prints of the building

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CTO in blue print designing mode…

I found this process IRONS OUT

startup plans, AND unifies CEO & CTO.

Engineering Sprint work items

SPECs

Product Road Map

Pitch Deck(Top Strategy, Vision & Goal)

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Pitch Deck is great for top level planning

The pitch deck is great to unify on the TOP level VISION.

And then pin down medium level decisions.


SPECs

Product Road Map


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Product Roadmap & Milestones


SPECs

Product Road Map & Milestones


The Product Roadmap is then great to pencil out FEATUREs

until LAUNCH, and thru milestones

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SPECs for Distributed teams, etc.


SPECs

Product Road Map


“Just in Time SPECs”

SPECs make plans STICK. Great for Distributed teams.

Great to centralize information.

Don’t let everything blow in the wind. Emails. Verbal discussions.

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SPRINTs for top execution


SPECs

Product Road Map


Sprints are great for measuring execution SUCCESSES and

FAILURES.

Strategic facets of building the

startup from the early days

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Q: Do we deliver on this promise?

Q: Do we have a narrow focus?

Q: Are we building too much? More than is needed for customers to buy?

Brand Promise

It is great to build a startup against a:

BRAND PROMISE

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Q: How do we position our unique advantage?

Q: How is positioning wrt changes in the market?

Q: Does our strategic positioning mean customers will buy us INSTEAD, even when we are the same price?

Positioning Strategy

POSITIONING STRATEGY

Do you have a strategy?

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Q: Required when raising capital

Q: Did we REALLY create an excel financial projects making sure we can reach that large market size?

Actually reaching market size

Will pricing and market size allow us to reach our goal?

Strategic use of

Time

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Down the rabbit hole

Engineers start off their career going down the rabbit hole,

… as they focus on technical build outs

SYMPTOMS: Bad estimates, missed deadlines, etc.

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Accountability to time

Measuring everything to TIME is critical:

a) Do we have enough resources to meet that date?b) Are we starting to fall behind?c) Can we estimate correctly?d) Do we spot problems, early when they build up?

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Two Sprints per Month

Two sprints per month is great

a) Easy to planb) Agilec) Every dev self-manages to finishd) Measuring success in board meetings

CTO Decisionson building out a company

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Technical Co-founder CTO

As a technical co-founder, each area of the strategy & pitch deck needs to be double checked

a) Dev team size & capital needed to reach milestonesb) Math in financial projects reach market sizec) Product Brand Promised) Positioning Strategy

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UI Design summarizing busines

As a technical co-founder, each area of the strategy & pitch deck needs to be double checked

Is it very simple? Verify CEO & CTO on the same page. Understandable at one glance?

An important factor:One screen that summarizes the product (& brand promise).

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Verify product scope isn’t too broad

First time business founders can fall in love with delivering a huge range of features.

Co-founder (technical) should verify a clear narrow focus.

Operational Efficiencyfor the engineering team

From founding until profitable.

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Every sprint highly productive?

Do you have the system to MEASURE high vs low productivity? Every month?

Board of Directories will measure this directly, or indirectly

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Agile != Unaccountable

Be careful: Some engineers wantAGILE == UNACCOUNTIBLE

A board of directors & CEO expect managing engineers with accountability

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Board meetings: Measuring through-put

CTOs need to present their DEPARTMENT at board meetings

SUCCESS vs POOR execution should be measurable.

Needing to fix a problem is okay. Not knowing you have a problem is NOT okay.

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Sheltering DEVs

Devs want to be sheltered, when they are accountable to deliver on commitments.

Two week sprints is a great sheltered window.

Prevent external from engineering from causing CHURN. Prevent CHURN high moral & devs will remain accountable.

CEO CTO

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CEO CTO

CEO communicates the VISION, GOAL and FOCUS of the company.

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Blue print view of the company

Walk thru each stage


SPECs

Product Road Map


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CEO CTO sync up

Sync-up with fire hose like communication.

Blueprints get updated. CEO can focus on building up everything external: Fund raising, partnerships, customer acquisition, branding,

hiring, etc.

CTO Board of directors

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Board meetings: Measuring through-put

CTOs need to present their DEPARTMENT at board meetings

SUCCESS vs POOR execution should be measurable.

Needing to fix a problem is okay. Not knowing you have a problem is NOT okay.

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Sales teams & Product team

Sales teams can blame the product team.

Sales teams are under tremendous pressure on reaching quarterly revenue targets.

CTO Department Heads

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Keeping everyone on the same page

Writing the PLAN-of-RECORD down will help make it “stick” across a team.

Pitch deck. Projected financials. Product Roadmap.

Milestones. SPECs. Work items.