How to find a CTO: answers from 25 startup founders who found the perfect one

While mentoring startups in Startup Wise Guys , LEAD and few other startup accelerators, as a tech leader I often have been asked a question: “How to find a CTO?”.

I have my own thoughts regarding this topic, but receiving this question again and again I decided to do additional research by asking friends from my connections, how they found their CTOs and what they would recommend to those who didn’t find them yet.

I’ve got replies from 25 founders from different startups on different levels and want to share some insights with you.

In general, not surprisingly, the most popular answer was a “Network”.

But what does it mean? How do people build their network?

• 3 people told me that they met their CTO while studying in university
• 4 people mentioned recommendations from their network or “friend of a friend” reference
• 4 guys met earlier working on another project, so they were colleagues in the past
• And 2 guys said they met their CTO just by chance and 3 other said they were old friends before teaming up in the current company

Other answers were unique for each company, but they were even more interesting from my perspective:?

• Switching from another position in the company
• Hackathon
• FB Communities "I'm looking for a co-founder", and one more “Estonian freelancers group”
• Ads in Linkedin
• Startup Accelerator
• Or even “Bought a company with a CTO” answer!

I found my first partner Andrey Konoplenko more than 10 years ago among my first company employees. He demonstrated great business skills, so finally he became a CEO and I took a CTO role.

Another partner Eugene Ursalov ???? I met in the Startup Accelerator Eastlabs . We participated in it with different startups, and even though those startups ultimately failed, our friendship and later partnership continues to this day.

One more source to extend your network and look for a co-founder or CTO is relevant communities. One of my friend recommended Antler (https://www.antler.co/):

Antler is a place where you can find good co-founders, I would recommend to look for people also in the entrepreneur first program, met some cool ppl there

I would also like to add a few more online communities where you can look for a co-founder: https://cofounderslab.com/ and https://www.starthawk.io/.?

If you are developing your startup with an outsourcing company - also check with them if it’s possible to consider somebody from your developers / tech leaders to become your CTO and what would be the terms, buy out options. For example at Brocoders we have such an option and we encourage startup founders to build stronger relationships with their team members in Brocoders, so later they can become direct partners.

All suggestions above should help you to build a better network and have more friends. Now you have to pitch your startup to a potential CTO almost the same way you would do it to investors or an important client. One of my friends mentioned this in his recommendation:

There are lots of ideas and lots of non-technical founders who want a developer to implement those ideas, so most developers have heard this pitch before. Show them why you're different, and show them what value you're going to bring to the table. That value can be shown by -- having customers ready to buy your product once it's built, having investment, or having built out a prototype on your own. Otherwise, the developer may assume that you as the non-technical founder just want the dev to build things out and not contribute equally

And finally when you have one or better few candidates who are already interested in you and your startup, you? should evaluate them and understand who better suits you and your company. Here are a few suggestions from the founders I’ve got.

Being product-oriented

Make sure the CTO is not only a good programmer, but also someone who is product-oriented. It'll make the product development so much easier, especially at the beginning.

Ambitions and striving for challenges

Looking for young ambitious devs seems like a good recipe as well for early days. Someone who is willing to experiment a lot and is not dead set on a tech stack. That we can only built in X or Y and nothing else. But myb ur project needs some features that can't be done in Y. Is the dev then willing to quickly learn how to do it some other way or will he say that your idea is stupid instead. So ambition, looking for challenges, being able to think along with the product ideas etc.

Ability to learn quickly

Find someone who expresses the ability to learn quickly and then give them the opportunity and responsibility.

Ability to adapt to the new environment

How quickly such a person is able to adapt to the new environment. Startups require being very elastic and learning new things very quickly. This is really important at the beginning, but also when the company is growing and new skills are required (team management, leadership, etc.)

Enough knowledge and hard skills

Does that person have enough knowledge to bring a product to live MVP? The best option is to work with such person for a while and see if there is a fit (many technical people are too focused on product development rather than value proposition development)

And one more quote on this topic:

Experts are super critical for the first stage of development since they are better than 3 juniors. Ours is a phd

Similar beliefs and ambitions

Is that person have similar beliefs and ambitions as I do (i.e. hardworking, bigger vision, get things done approach, business oriented, can sacrifice short-term benefits over long-term, etc.)?

So finally you should pick somebody who will be your CTO, ideally for the next 5-10 years.?

Would I stand to spend a large amount of my waking time with this person over the next few years?

That was one of the recommended questions you should ask yourself before making any decision.

When you finally picked a person, don’t forget to put all the terms on paper:

In the beginning of the "project", write good contracts stating what must be achieved within certain dates in order to get percentages of the company. When you need to find people who can work for no money it is always a risk that you end up with someone not working, so it would be wise to have contracts enabling you to cut the strings if needed.

I would say that it is still relevant if the person works for money.?

Hopefully this article will help founders to find their CTOs and to build a new rockstar team!?

I’d like to thank all the founders who took the time to answer my questions and give suggestions.

How did you meet your co-founder? What would you recommend? Please share your stories in the comments!