Ask HN: Best way to find a CTO?

Are you looking for someone to select the tools and the way those tools work together to meet your goals? Then they might not want to see an already built product.

Are you looking for someone to help you scale the application as engagement (hopefully) goes through the roof? You may be looking for more of a devops person.

Are you looking for someone to set up the developer culture, the process and hire/mentor an internal team? A good lead developer can handle these issues.

Are you looking for someone to which to hand ALL of these issues, to just handle them? Then, you are actually looking for a CTO. This person will be more expensive than the others, and will likely drive additional expenses through hiring those others as well. So consider your MVT (minimum viable team) as well as MVP, and go looking for the people you really need.

Best of luck!

- A legacy code base from an offshore team can be a blessing or a curse.

- How's your cash flow situation? Remember your perspective CTO is probably being offered 6/7 figures elsewhere.

- Tightly related to the above, what is your CPA? What about LTV? How do those numbers compare? Are you making money or loosing money on every user?

You're welcome to shoot me an email... @gmail.com.

1.) Definitely pay them. There's a lot of reasons for this, but most importantly, much like you pay a lawyer to be your most vocal and aggressive advocate, your virtual CTO is the person who has your company's back. His job is to provide you with good advice, vetting other technical staff and work, understand business climate and where your position is in the market, as well as augment your vision for your company.

2.) use them where its appropriate. The right person (or sometimes a firm) isn't going to be cheap—you're looking for the proverbial unicorn. Don't waste the budget having them work on perfecting CSS. When you have them working on code, have them build a foundation and show other team members how to leverage it. What you're paying for is their knowledge and experience. Have them review code, provide feedback, make sure you're getting your money's worth out of an outsourced team. Let them give you advice when you need it (and most importantly, take the advice! I can't tell you how many clients pay a lot of money for the advice then throw it out the window.)

3.) if you have a friend who can fill the role, that's great, but don't trust their technical skills just because they're a friend and will talk to you over beers. Advice is very much a get-what-you-pay-for kind of thing.