Ask HN: Investors asking us for another technical co-founder
I have a pretty competent team building out the product for our local social commerce concept and we're on our way to raising angel funding (we've already had a seed round), but my CTO is overseas. He's a family friend with 6 years of RoR experience and he has been awesome to us, but right now we're running into some visa issues...
He may not PHYSICALLY be with us for a bit but can continue to work.
During the initial meetings, a lot of investors asked if we can try to hire someone from the U.S. as another technical co-founder or to maybe even replace the CTO. No one is worried about the business side because we're pretty stacked on that end.
Any thoughts on best way to go about this? What are the best sources to recruit a potential replacement CTO / another technical co-founder with potential to become the CTO?
Anyone interested? (haha. figured it wouldn't hurt to ask). Any help or advice from the hacker news community would be very much appreciated!
11 comments
[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 51.6 ms ] threadwhat problem are you trying to solve or if not a distinct problem what are you trying to improve?
to be completely honest with you, i am worried about leakage. from my experience, there are definitely some inefficiencies with working in a completely different time zones and having to skype all the time. also for a consumer facing / lifstyle type site, iterations have to be fast and constant. they are worried that even though he may be good enough from skill set standpoint on the backend, managing the product on a day to day basis, cultural differences, and being with the team as we gear up for mobile development would be crucial to have someone in the states, preferably working together, instead of overseas.
i think my current cto and i would both agree with them on that. i do wonder how much faster development would be if he was here.
If he has a history of inconsistency, you don't need potential investors to tell you that. If he has proven capable, I'd be concerned about your concept of loyalty.
It's not that he's proven capable in the past or not. It's the future (with a new set of investors and new set of obstacles).
Everyone wants to win at whatever cost. If I knew that I was not the best CEO for this job and someone else could do it better, I would step down.
What we're dealing with is that the inefficiencies that we faced in the past were overcome with harder work but everyone is working hard (and i'm not the one to complain about hard work - i can confidently say that i've worked ridiculous hours in investment banking and private equity and never complained once).
what i don't want is a scenario where he and someone else can do it better together or worst case scenario he knows that someone else can do it better here if he was to play a supporting role; it's not at all about the concept of loyalty, but rather the concept of putting the team in the best possible position to succeed. (i'd be willing to give up my equity share to make that happen - wouldn't dilute him at all). that's how much i work for the team because at the end of the day, i have no startup if i don't have my team with me even though my background alone could probably raise the money.
he's been proven capable on a limited basis thus far. website for my business is one thing. complex mobile and managing both parts is something we have to go through together because we've never done it together before. one thing i know is that just because people are very skilled at what they do doesn't mean that they are skilled at managing multiple projects, people, expectations at the same time.
do I want to run a startup from 9am - midnight and then from midnight get on a skype chat with him for 3 hours a night 7 days a week for the next 2 years when i know that if i had another tech cofounder or a cto here next to me that would not be the case? what is the reduction in probability of the team's success due to my lack of sleep, my stress, leading to my inability to properly navigate all facets of the business? this isn't a one feature SaaS business. this is a complex platform from a business/concept level.
he knows that it's less efficient and less than ideal scenario to be overseas. that's why he wants to come here in the first place.
investors are also not telling me to replace a critical member who 100% knows the codebase and how to scale this thing. they're simply saying is he in the best position to lead or at the minimum, asking me, do i think he needs someone else to fortify the tech development team so that development is not the bottle neck when marketing is the name of this game.
Missing in all this - What does your present CTO think? (what does he think/say , (not what you think he would or should say,what does he actually think/say is a good solution?)
2) it's not as simple math as you make it out to be. i'm raising money based on my credentials and years of connections in the industry and consequently, it'll be my head on the line if the business doesn't succeed. the cto can always say, well vision from ceo didn't make sense. the ceo has no excuse. now, how idiotic will i look if i took their money, didn't take their advice and then the startup fails bc of development issues i.e "i told you so" scenario. my cto doesn't have to worry about that now does he? he can just join another startup or go work for another firm. for me, how am i going to raise subsequent funding? for me, i can't go back to the industry i left that paid multiple times more than most engineers in the valley. that is the risk i took to start this business. so don't tell me about who's getting shafted and who's not.
no one is selling anyone down the river. in fact, you being from bangalore should be the first to know how difficult the situation must be to get visas in a hurry and to work on multiple platforms concurrently. and you definitely know communication/cultural dialogue is spotty to say the least.
3) also have you considered other employees besides just taking sides from the engineers' perspective? CTO/engineers are one component of my business to keep happy. If the sales/marketing guys can't get my full attention and get pissed off because i'm busy communicating overseas with a CTO all the time and they say "hey didn't investors and bunch of our advisors tell you not to do EXACTLY this b/c it's going to be a huge headache?" then i have another problem on my hands now don't i that you didn't think about- attrition of the supply side of my business as well as critical employees leaving because i'm not making them happy.
it's not just what does my cto think... it's what is best for the business and for every team member of this business so that we all succeed or we all fail. it's about the team. not about the cto. not about me. it's the entire unit as a whole and navigating the waters before it actually becomes a problem.
but interesting note nevertheless. thanks.