How to find direction as a prospective CTO founder?
18 comments
I think finding a business partner is a great idea, unless you are making some kind of low-level software, let's say db, web server etc.
I was at the same situation a year ago, and I was browsing through some startup oriented fanpages, where I found a guy who posted comment like "I'm a construction site manager, and have an app idea, looking for cofounder". I contacted him (this was over a year ago), we talked, but eventually it didn't work out, we were based in different cities, and I was still finishing my master degree.
He hired a software house to make the whole product for him. He was able to get couple customers, but the software house was just very slow, made a lot of bugs, and made him pay a lot of money for fixes.
Couple months ago, he wrote me back and basically said he needs me as CTO. We met, shook hands and started working. I've redesigned and made a new iOS app, fixed backend and released a solid update. He is talking to customers, gathering feedback, analyzing keywords, buying ads.
It is working splendidly, and I see that this relation is somehow a Nash equilibrium. I don't have construction site knowledge or contacts. He doesn't have any technical background. So we are both better off working together.
It's still early days, and a lot of work ahead of us, but this is my first side-project that already helps people in the real world.
I was at the same situation a year ago, and I was browsing through some startup oriented fanpages, where I found a guy who posted comment like "I'm a construction site manager, and have an app idea, looking for cofounder". I contacted him (this was over a year ago), we talked, but eventually it didn't work out, we were based in different cities, and I was still finishing my master degree.
He hired a software house to make the whole product for him. He was able to get couple customers, but the software house was just very slow, made a lot of bugs, and made him pay a lot of money for fixes.
Couple months ago, he wrote me back and basically said he needs me as CTO. We met, shook hands and started working. I've redesigned and made a new iOS app, fixed backend and released a solid update. He is talking to customers, gathering feedback, analyzing keywords, buying ads.
It is working splendidly, and I see that this relation is somehow a Nash equilibrium. I don't have construction site knowledge or contacts. He doesn't have any technical background. So we are both better off working together.
It's still early days, and a lot of work ahead of us, but this is my first side-project that already helps people in the real world.
Great story. What was that startup oriented fan pages you mentioned?
It was a fb fanpage of a local meetup group. They make events to integrate startup scene. Invite speakers, have time for networking or pizza. I'm based in europe, but I'm pretty sure you will find sth like this in any bigger city.
Short answer: YES you do need a competent business minded cofounder.
Technology is a component of many solutions to real world problems. It is a common trap to have solutions in search of problems.
Perhaps you could look at your past contracts and identify which industries you enjoyed working in the most. You could then go back and talk with contacts you made in those industries. Based on those conversations you might be able to identify people who have a big problem that you can help create a solution for.
BTW you mention having a couple of devs, etc. Do you have funds to pay salaries for them or do you need the cofounder help you with getting starting capital? The more people you expect to work for 12+ months for sweat equity alone, the less likely you are to be able to successfully launch a new business.
Technology is a component of many solutions to real world problems. It is a common trap to have solutions in search of problems.
Perhaps you could look at your past contracts and identify which industries you enjoyed working in the most. You could then go back and talk with contacts you made in those industries. Based on those conversations you might be able to identify people who have a big problem that you can help create a solution for.
BTW you mention having a couple of devs, etc. Do you have funds to pay salaries for them or do you need the cofounder help you with getting starting capital? The more people you expect to work for 12+ months for sweat equity alone, the less likely you are to be able to successfully launch a new business.
Given your goals and interests, I would focus on building a focused solution for a problem you see in and around the work that you've done in the past.
Focusing on a problem space you understand and you yourself might be a potential customer for gives you a lot of advantages. If your solution can accomplish two big goals 1) make developers happy and 2) increase efficiency (reduce bugs, make releasing functionality faster, etc) then you'll have something worthwhile on your hands.
From a pure operational perspective, building a single focused tool that is low cost enough for a solo developer to gladly pay for or for an employee to gain easy sign off on will make support and sales much easier. By focusing on a simple solution, you also limit the breadth of the functionality you have to maintain. This will allow you to focus on refining and improving the value proposition and help minimize spaghetti code. It also makes growth possible with a small team.
A good example of this might be jell.com which helps teams handle standup and work visibility. Making a SaaS product with a low initial cost means you accumulate revenue over time. Compared with traditional software/app sales, you have a much easier path to sustainable monetization.
Good luck on the effort. I also recommend reading into the lean startup methodology and taking small iterative steps and measuring their impact to get started.
Focusing on a problem space you understand and you yourself might be a potential customer for gives you a lot of advantages. If your solution can accomplish two big goals 1) make developers happy and 2) increase efficiency (reduce bugs, make releasing functionality faster, etc) then you'll have something worthwhile on your hands.
From a pure operational perspective, building a single focused tool that is low cost enough for a solo developer to gladly pay for or for an employee to gain easy sign off on will make support and sales much easier. By focusing on a simple solution, you also limit the breadth of the functionality you have to maintain. This will allow you to focus on refining and improving the value proposition and help minimize spaghetti code. It also makes growth possible with a small team.
A good example of this might be jell.com which helps teams handle standup and work visibility. Making a SaaS product with a low initial cost means you accumulate revenue over time. Compared with traditional software/app sales, you have a much easier path to sustainable monetization.
Good luck on the effort. I also recommend reading into the lean startup methodology and taking small iterative steps and measuring their impact to get started.
If you don't know what area you want to work in, you should go find the communities that interest you and engage with them. This is regardless of whether you're looking to collaborate, or to solve someone's problems professionally.
Also, throw your contact information into the world. Fruitful relationships have started just like that, even on HN.
Also, throw your contact information into the world. Fruitful relationships have started just like that, even on HN.
Fair enough, very reasonable advice. I've updated my profile with contact info.
I believe you would enjoy building a developer's tool startup. The only problem is that developers are a hard consumer niche to get revenue from. Not impossible, but harder than, say B2B.
I am building myself a SaaS product with the same goal of a significant monthly revenue, but no explosive growth. If you want we can exchange ideas on how to find a good product to build and how to build it (from a business point of view). My contact is in my profile.
Good luck!
I am building myself a SaaS product with the same goal of a significant monthly revenue, but no explosive growth. If you want we can exchange ideas on how to find a good product to build and how to build it (from a business point of view). My contact is in my profile.
Good luck!
Different idea: If you have an interest into stock markets/business in general, look into stock market trading robots, you don’t need developers, cofounders or customers... I think it is the perfect life style business model...
Sounds interesting for sure. Can you provide any direction on where a dev could start reading up on such things?
This is a classical AI/ML problem if you will, so the best approach is to get as much data as you can and start back testing any trading idea you can come up with, until you find one that will work for you, after that , the automation portion is easy, every discount brokers offers an API for the orders execution...
I can relate with you, I have similar passions/issues.
Find me on twitter or GitHub @chakrachi to connect ^~^
Find me on twitter or GitHub @chakrachi to connect ^~^
I'm currently working as a contractor exclusively, and really would like to found (or cofound) a company this year. I can contribute 40+/hrs a week to this.
I would really like to found a small company that is tech-focused, with a stack that can be maintained by 1-2 devs. I am not looking for investment, IPOs, whatever. Just a sustainable SaaS (or otherwise) that can do 10-50k revenue per month on the longer term.
My main problem is that my real passion and interest lies in web technology itself, not something that is _delivered by_ web technology. I am fully confident I could CTO a small enterprise and build an effective product, I just don't know what that product should be. Do I simply need a business-minded cofounder?