A constant guest is never welcome.

What is a Fractional CTO? What do you need, today?

I’m sometimes asked, what “Do you do?”, as we probably all do at some point in four lives. It’s kind of a big one to answer apparently. I am surprised sometimes when I tell a person that I’m a CTO, they aren’t fully aware already what that is. In an age where everything is an App with a business behind it, still they don’t know how all works. I think my next follow up is “I manage the technology behind the company”, simplified, I know they probably think of me more as an admin from The IT Crowd (which isn’t totally wrong because we’re responsible for that too), but who has time to explain it all without “talking shop” at a social event. Who wants to be that guy?

There are of 5 kinds roles that a CTO does and how they do it varies depending of various variables. Who / what / where / when / how, savvy? Let me break them down.

1. Software Development as a foundation - FE, BE, FS, DO, DB, PM, anything else? A CTO is needs to draw from experience the means to solve as many problems that may fall onto their lap. A minimum competence is required to aggressively solve any problem that may fall onto the company. Down time means lost revenues. If the CTO cannot protect you from at least this, then there isn’t much hope for them. Prepare for sleepless nights if they do not live by TDD.

2. Product Owner As A Mind-set. A CTO needs to see the application as a living organism. Apps are born, grow and evolve based on daily activities of the development teams, the creative teams, and product teams coming together to deliver an ongoing roadmap of ideas as a creative pursuit, meticulously considered down to the UX of each feature. All while listening to the customers, the errors, the wins & losses, the compliments & complaints, and keeping an eye on the competition.

3. People - team growth and culture. A CTO’s responsibilities are only managed successfully when scaled horizontally through their choices, by whom they trust to dutifully complete the tasks that are taking the most time, and then repeating until every duty is covered in confidence. The task list is never ending in the presence of an ever growing company and/or product. Building culture that keeps people fulfilled and invested takes practice, persistence and empathy. Juggling the Business vs People dynamic is an essential focus. Take care of the People, and the People take care of the Business.

4. Architect - Large products have a lot of moving parts, not just in technology, but also in people, information, security. Conjuring up the processes needed, maintaining the channels between all their interfaces, and keeping everyone’s time aiming in the right direction. A CTO is a portal for the rest of the company. Sales teams, Marketing teams, Creative teams, Legal teams are all in concert with each other as products, customers, revenues, and responsibilities grow. At this level, you cannot expect a CTO to enter into much operational work short of R&D.

5. Champion / Comms + PR / Advocate - Communications at this level is of the highest consequence and importance. Sometimes when the company screws up, there is no time for dilly-dally. Transparency, Accountability, and Stability are highly dependent on the leaders of a company to step up when they are wrong, and to share the ongoing developments of the products and company.

If the goal of the company is to go to market fast with a prototype, maybe you are testing an idea. You don’t need someone who is capable of doing much more than just coding and being a product owner/manager. Often times there aren’t many resources available at the start. You would be lucky if you are in a position to offer a piece of the company to a steady and reliable technical co-founder who, at least has the potential to, encompass all 5. Choose wisely, because it will affect your shares table if not your burn rate.

So, a Fractional CTO? That’s a CTO who can encompass all those who works traits, to deliver on value to part time, in little bursts of sage like experience. It could be as little as a few hours to 2-3 days per week, but may still work for other companies at the same time. Not every early stage product needs a full time CTO or a technology founder. It may need a product person. To help see the vision on paper, and to guide the team towards growth.

Startups need to focus the limited resources at the start very carefully, those who are lucky to find someone like us to invest their time and commit to the company with full trust and blind support. Well, many firms (especially startups) don't need a full time CTO, or they can't afford to hire a good one.

A part-time, or on-hand (or on slack? 👨‍💻) CTO and a full time developer is a great option for many starting out. For those who are pre-seed, having an experienced voice available to your departments, development, customer support, tech support, sales, marketing, creative, etc.. helps insure that the ship is heading forward in the right direction without a huge commitment.

What do you think? Because we need to know, could your team, advisers, and stakeholders benefit from 30 years experience at their fingertips? Or maybe you need someone more load the next cycles process a couple days a week? Getting a new dev started and growing a team? Setting up a Software Development Processes and Automation?

We got you covered, if you need us. Let us know!