Live data from Hacker News

Solo founder dilemma; CEO or CTO?

nvnt.substack.com

51–60 of 98 posts

Re: Solo founder dilemma; CEO or CTO?

#51
post #28

> if someone from the team steps up and adds a lot of value that is expected from a co-founder, we will definitely promote the person as a co-founder How can someone get the title of a cofounder of an already (at least) 2 years old company which is already set up an running? I understand that traditionally this person then represents in investor meetings, but why does it need to be a _founder_ title of something that…

Elon Musk

Re: Solo founder dilemma; CEO or CTO?

#53

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…

You need a third thing, which is the ability to "sell" what you're doing to some combination of customers/users, investors, and people you want to hire.

Re: Solo founder dilemma; CEO or CTO?

#54

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…

Off-topic but have to say OSS Pipedream is something I've wanted to see for so long. Definitely checking that out!

Re: Solo founder dilemma; CEO or CTO?

#55
post #50

Do you have to give yourself titles everyone else is using? If I start a company I would rather have "Captain" or "Masterchief" or perhaps just keep the C from CEO and be just a "Chief".

It’s helpful to align titles with the rest of the industry so that everyone outside of your small group knows what role you play without a long explanation. Custom or non-standard titles is like mixing code styles in the same file. So much fun when you’re doing it but such a huge pain when the next person comes in.

Re: Solo founder dilemma; CEO or CTO?

#57
post #28

> if someone from the team steps up and adds a lot of value that is expected from a co-founder, we will definitely promote the person as a co-founder How can someone get the title of a cofounder of an already (at least) 2 years old company which is already set up an running? I understand that traditionally this person then represents in investor meetings, but why does it need to be a _founder_ title of something that…

"Founder" is not a title you can add casually under US law. It's determined at the time of incorporation and stock issuance. QSBS, and other legal structures, do not allow transferability of "Founder" to follow-on Investors and employees.

I don't think QSBS has anything to do with founder titles specifically, but I'd love to be corrected. Anyone who with stock that is QSBS eligible gets the exemption, whether they are a founder, investor, employee, etc, and it's more about the eligibility (ie you paid for the stock, you didn't acquire it on a secondary transaction, the business was <50M, etc). Whether your title is founder or not doesn't really matter.

Re: Solo founder dilemma; CEO or CTO?

#59
So early on CEO is going to be selling customers and employees 80+% of the time but every Founder will need to. So why not delegate that to someone much better than you when you truly need the extra help. If you are not a killer technical founder, than what chance do you have in the market, as you've already signaled you're not the best sales person by not defaulting to the CEO role. Thus I'd argue you have little choice.

Re: Solo founder dilemma; CEO or CTO?

#60

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…

People always describe Steve Jobs as a “sales and marketing” person but IMO that grossly undersells his value. He was also an amazing product visionary, and could bridge the gap between sales/marketing and technical.

Yeah. That too!
Post reply on HN