Ask HN: Best way to find a CTO? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Best way to find a CTO?

#11

Post by hkarthik » Wed, Jan 29, 2014, 9:11 PM UTC

curbenthusiasm wrote: post #3

dylanhassinger wrote: post #2

yes, exactly also having money to pay them last but not least, before you get a CTO, get some good technical advisers. They can be your virtual CTO until you get a real one, and help you to vet candidates too.

Hmm... what's the best place to meet technical advisors? Are these just friends, or would they want some form of compensation, assuming they just advice and don't have to stand in as CTO, maybe just do interviews...

I would advise finding some local meetups for startup-focused technologies (Ruby, Python, Javascript) and look there.

If you can find a local community for startups too, I would advise going to the meetups and see who's interested. You may even find the CTO you're looking for there.

Re: Ask HN: Best way to find a CTO?

#12

Post by curbenthusiasm » Wed, Jan 29, 2014, 9:16 PM UTC

karmajunkie wrote: post #9

curbenthusiasm wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm... what's the best place to meet technical advisors? Are these just friends, or would they want some form of compensation, assuming they just advice and don't have to stand in as CTO, maybe just do interviews...

I function in this role for many of my clients. 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…

Do you get paid hourly then as a virtual CTO? Also, what are the upsides of having a virtual cto versus an on-location guy?

Re: Ask HN: Best way to find a CTO?

#13

Post by rush-tea » Thu, Jan 30, 2014, 2:35 AM UTC

Rather than employ the candidate with salary and minimum stock, why don't ask him to join as a co founder with decent share? With that, you will have someone who can own up as his share value and wealth also depends on his performance.

Re: Ask HN: Best way to find a CTO?

#14

Post by tostitos1979 » Thu, Jan 30, 2014, 5:00 PM UTC

bliti wrote: post #8

curbenthusiasm wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm... what's the best place to meet technical advisors? Are these just friends, or would they want some form of compensation, assuming they just advice and don't have to stand in as CTO, maybe just do interviews...

I used to consult as a technical advisor (compensated). This is something that bigger companies use, but that smaller teams should look into. It provides insight into what the technology might look like or evolve into. A lot of times founders/engineers don't get the luxury of having someone more experience providing feedback. It never hurts, and usually helps discover issues that were not thought out. Issues that ten…

How do you advertise that you are interested in becoming a technical advisor? I see people ask for help at meet ups. I usually give them a few minutes of advice. Any resources to explain how to forge a proper advisor role?

Re: Ask HN: Best way to find a CTO?

#15

Post by karmajunkie » Sun, Feb 02, 2014, 10:01 PM UTC

curbenthusiasm wrote: post #12

karmajunkie wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I function in this role for many of my clients. 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…

Do you get paid hourly then as a virtual CTO? Also, what are the upsides of having a virtual cto versus an on-location guy?

I usually bill hourly, but sometimes as a day rate, almost always with a retainer that we bill against.

Typically, having a full-time CTO is the "ideal" situation. For a company who can't afford a full-time CTO, however, having a virtual CTO means that they get access wealth of experience that they'd otherwise never be able to afford. A startup who's business is based on technology in any meaningful way absolutely needs someone to fill that role—you can't (or shouldn't) just trust that a run-of-the-mill contractor is going to deliver what you think you're getting, and you probably aren't qualified to determine whether they are or not. This is the main reason outsourced projects end badly. Having a virtual CTO isn't as good as having a technical cofounder, but its a damn sight better than having no technical members on the team at all.