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Solo founder dilemma; CEO or CTO?

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Re: Solo founder dilemma; CEO or CTO?

#11

Post by didgetmaster »

It seems to me that every great tech company needs two things to get off the ground. A product that actually works well and execution on the business side. Few people have the skills to do both of these things well. Apple got started with the two Steves (Jobs and Wozniak). One built the first couple of computer designs. The other was a sales and marketing genius.

If you have a product that is possible to launch in just a couple months, then you might be able to get by as this guy did. If your product is much more complicated and takes several years for a solo developer to build, then you have to pick the CEO or CTO role and go with it.

My own project has been a work in progress for several years now. I can build it, but my sales and marketing talents are quite lacking. It is a new kind of data management system and it can be really tough to raise awareness and get people to try it out.

Re: Solo founder dilemma; CEO or CTO?

#12

Post by hellolemon »

didgetmaster wrote: post #11

It seems to me that every great tech company needs two things to get off the ground. A product that actually works well and execution on the business side. Few people have the skills to do both of these things well. Apple got started with the two Steves (Jobs and Wozniak). One built the first couple of computer designs. The other was a sales and marketing genius. If you have a product that is possible to launch in ju…

Getting products to market cost a lot of money. It’s hard to do organically unless you have your niche well defined.

Re: Solo founder dilemma; CEO or CTO?

#13

Post by NetOpWibby »

didgetmaster wrote: post #11

It seems to me that every great tech company needs two things to get off the ground. A product that actually works well and execution on the business side. Few people have the skills to do both of these things well. Apple got started with the two Steves (Jobs and Wozniak). One built the first couple of computer designs. The other was a sales and marketing genius. If you have a product that is possible to launch in ju…

Link to your project (if it has a site)?

Re: Solo founder dilemma; CEO or CTO?

#15

Post by navaneethpk »

didgetmaster wrote: post #11

It seems to me that every great tech company needs two things to get off the ground. A product that actually works well and execution on the business side. Few people have the skills to do both of these things well. Apple got started with the two Steves (Jobs and Wozniak). One built the first couple of computer designs. The other was a sales and marketing genius. If you have a product that is possible to launch in ju…

Agreed.

>I can build it, but my sales and marketing talents are quite lacking.

Can relate to this. What worked well in the case of ToolJet is that the product did not require marketing efforts to get the initial traction since the project is open-source.

Re: Solo founder dilemma; CEO or CTO?

#16

Post by rubenfiszel »

Just want to add, I followed pretty much the same path with Windmill [1], which is also in the developer tool space, and also open-source. Built everything solo for 5 months. I thought it would be impossible to get into YC, it is not and I was fortunate enough to join YC on the latest batch, on my first try [2].

Getting into YC changed the course of the company, increased many orders of magnitude my ambition and made fundraising much easier. Most importantly, even though I worked in tech in the bay many moons ago, at the time I was very isolated in Paris and thought I understood the startup game but I did not really. Being part of a cohort like YC with like-minded amazing peers, truly felt like I was able to go up to speed on many subjects that would have been out of reach for a solo founder.

If you are a solo technical founder and considering applying to YC, reach out to me, I am more than happy to help.

[1]: https://windmill.dev

[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31272793

Re: Solo founder dilemma; CEO or CTO?

#17

Post by matchagaucho »

didgetmaster wrote: post #11

It seems to me that every great tech company needs two things to get off the ground. A product that actually works well and execution on the business side. Few people have the skills to do both of these things well. Apple got started with the two Steves (Jobs and Wozniak). One built the first couple of computer designs. The other was a sales and marketing genius. If you have a product that is possible to launch in ju…

Developers selling to Developers is the exception.

There are many talented Sales/Marketing people. But few who can effectively target Developers.

The Authors path of bootstrapping via open source is a known tactic/strategy.

Ultimately growth will require directly approaching other Developers with a commercial proposal.

Re: Solo founder dilemma; CEO or CTO?

#19

Post by mannyv »

The important point here is that he got funding first, and it sounds like at least half a million because he didn't talk about begging angels for money or running out of runway.

He was able to hire someone fast.

You won't be this good/lucky.

In the traditional non-traditional startup you need a salesperson and engineering to be free, because money. I suppose with dev tools you can get rid of the salesperson because you're selling tools to individuals? Which is more risk, but if it works then go for it.

Re: Solo founder dilemma; CEO or CTO?

#20

Post by Bilal_io »

dadoge wrote: post #7

Interesting…maybe we should normalize/de-stigmatize Dev tooling companies to have a ceo who is an eng for the first ~ 3 yrs, and then hiring a replacement (maybe even some early “vp of product person”) There are probably so many good ideas that devs have, but they don’t have enough interest in being a ceo of a big unicorn company, but understand the problem and can get a prototype up with no red tape

> Interesting…maybe we should normalize/de-stigmatize Dev tooling companies to have a ceo who is an eng for the first ~ 3 yrs, and then hiring a replacement (maybe even some early “vp of product person”)

I wasn't aware there was any stigma there. Considering that Gates, Dorsey and Zuckerberg were engineers who wrote code and continued to be CEOs of their companies for very long.

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