If your startup relies heavily on technology, you need a Chief Technology Officer (CTO) who is a technological visionary and will lead your project to success (CTO). This isn’t just another employee; rather, it’s one of the important stakeholders who either helps or inhibits the growth of your product.
A CTO is a specialist who is well-versed in the most recent technological advancements, the general market environment, and rival activity. Additionally, this visionary is goal-focused, creative, and adept at developing a solution that satisfies both market objectives and sophisticated technological capabilities. The duties go beyond mere theory; a CTO needs both solid technical knowledge and leadership abilities to take the reins of the development team and lead it toward success.
When selecting the ideal candidate for employment, consider their talent, level of professional competence, vision, and tenacity, among other qualities. In this essay, we’ll go over the value of a CTO and what you look for when hiring one.
Who is CTO?
A C-level executive in charge of the technology component of business growth is known as a CTO. A CTO controls hardware or software development, or both, depending on the particulars of the organization, and creates a technology business plan. Although CTOs aren’t usually involved in operational concerns involving technology, their main responsibilities include:
- Developing a Compelling Technology Strategy and Vision
- Building the Product Development Processes
- Constantly Seeking Innovation
- Hiring Key Engineers and Technical Managers
You can learn more, including
- What is the Difference Between a CTO and CIO?
- Is a CTO a Must, or Which Startups Can Do Without a Chief Technology Officer?
- How Can a CTO Help a Startup at Different Stages?
- We are Founders of a Tech Startup. But We aren’t Technical Specialists. Are We Doomed?
- Where to Find a CTO?
- We Have a Talented Senior Developer in a Team. Can They Become a CTO?
- What Alternatives are There to Having a CTO?
In our article: How to Find a CTO for Your Startup?
Today we’ll talk about different options for making the tech side of your project done like finding a technical cofounder, contractor developers, or a technical partner. Looking for a startup partner may take some time, but we’ll try to help you with this challenge. So, how to find a technical cofounder and what other options are available? Let’s figure this out!
You have a great startup idea, you believe in this idea, you live this idea. You are willing to start asap and create something new that will change the world! And even more than to make your idea real you want to find someone who will believe in this idea as much as you do.. and together you will conquer the world.
Recognize yourself? I bet you do!
But the great idea isn’t enough for a startup to become successful. You can have a$1,000,000 idea, a perfect business plan, investors willing to pay you, potential customers and users waiting for your product but it’s only 50% of work to be done. You can handle everything connected with marketing and sales, but what about the technical side?
Why do you need to find a co-founder, a CTO or a Tech partner?
The first idea that usually comes to entrepreneurs’ mind when they start a new business is to hire freelance developers. A lot of small businesses work using this approach, but if you don’t have a tech background or at least a tech lead in your existing team it will be difficult to create a scalable MVP.
There are different ways to solve the problem. You can find:
- Tech cofounder. A technical founder is one of the key roles in a company. It is a person who will be responsible for all the tech-related processes and have a share of overall profit. In this case, he or she will also call you a cofounder of his company, a non-technical cofounder.
- CTO. It is an employee who will be your hired technical director.
- Tech Partner. An outsourcing team which will care about all the development processes — not as just a contractor, but considering all the business needs.
Once you define whom exactly you are looking for — you can start searching for the ideal candidate. Or maybe you’ve already tried but haven’t succeeded?
So let’s figure out how to find a cofounder for your startup (or maybe a CTO) and what to do if you can’t find them through your connections or with the help of referrals.
Where to find a cofounder or a partner for a startup?
Here are some popular solutions to find the right technical specialists to join your team.
1. СoFoundersLab — is a platform that helps entrepreneurial-minded people access the resources they need to thrive. It’s one of the best options to find a technical cofounder for a startup.
How to find a cofounder here? You need to register on the platform (you can do it with your Facebook, Google, Linkedin or email), answer a couple of questions about you and your business, and then navigate to the search page. The platform is free but also has premium options.
2. Founders Nation is another place where you can find a startup cofounder. It’s not so big but still a platform with similar options like CoFoundersLab. It was built to connect dreamers that wish to make the world a better place through innovation and technology.
How to find a technical cofounder here? The idea is practically the same. You register on a platform and then find appropriate people using filters for better accuracy.
3. Angel.co is a popular platform created for startups, investors, and professionals to find each other.
Here you can find a technical co-founder, a CTO or experienced developers. The website is very simple, as well as the previous two. All you need to do is to register as a recruiter and post the vacancy. Also, there are filters available to navigate through the professionals’ profiles.
4. Indie Hackers — a relatively new platform for entrepreneurs to learn from the founders behind hundreds of profitable online businesses. The platform was built to connect with others who are starting and growing their own companies.
Looking for a programmer partner or finding a technical cofounder on this website may be a bit more difficult than in the previous examples because it’s all about communication here. No filters, no structure, but lots of professionals speaking with each other in a kind of a forum. But nevertheless, it may be also an effective tool for finding a technical cofounder or another professional you need.
5. Co-founder’s subreddit on Reddit.com. It’s a thread on the popular Reddit platform.
To find a technical cofounder or a partner here you should register and then navigate through a number of threads and also create your own thread describing your business and your needs. Again, it may be a bit difficult to find information because of the structure of the service. But Reddit has lots of great tech professionals all over the world. It’s definitely worth using.
6. Co-founding threads on Discordapp and Slack channels. These are two messengers which have business and entrepreneur channels. In order to find a co-founder here, you should register and use the shortcodes to find the channels by keywords.
For example, on /r/startups in the Discordapp you can find #Cofounding and other channels, and ask people for what you need there.
7. Tech Partner
Finding a technical partner for a Startup is another quite popular option which is often even more goal-, time- and cost-effective than looking for a programmer partner, CTO or a co-founder. In this case, you use the services of a special company which has a considerable experience in tech development and provides “CTO-as-a-Service”.
This significantly reduces such risks as “it’s the wrong person”, “they’ve got not enough experience”, “they work too slow”, and “we need more money than expected” that you face when trying to find a CTO, freelance developers, or even a technical co-founder.
On the other hand, it gives you:
- an experienced team of professionals who keep the terms and the requirements;
- not just contractors who are waiting for your directions, but a partner who cares about your business and takes all the technical matters in their hands: creating an architecture, planning the works, platform design, scaling, monitoring, coding etc.;
- often even more reasonable prices compared with freelance teams (especially considering finance- and time-connected risks).
We work on this model with a number of startups. And for all of them this is exactly what they were looking for. To get the idea what I am talking about – just check our Partners testimonials on Cutch.co.
If you see a fit and need a reliable Tech Partner, just fill in the short form, tell us a few words about your startup idea, and let’s find the best way to develop your project!
With an increased range of offers and products, businesses from all over the world are shifting from the physical thing of printing advertisements and hanging billboards to the mobile domain.
Mobile apps are turning out to be the main and primary medium for organizations to connect with their customers in a more lucid manner.Therefore, by possessing such amazing qualities, a mobile app development company becomes the fulcrum of the company’s success and adds flair to their working techniques.Let us find out the aspects in detail about how tech-savvy partners add finesse to your Business?
