How to find direction as a prospective CTO founder?
So, I'm a fullstack dev. I've worked at startups, worked at small and medium companies, and worked as a contractor.
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?
18 comments
[ 17.7 ms ] story [ 56.1 ms ] threadAlso, throw your contact information into the world. Fruitful relationships have started just like that, even on HN.
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.
Me: front end dev (ng) / IM / biz dev
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.
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!
Find me on twitter or GitHub @chakrachi to connect ^~^
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.