Hi there,
I am a curious about what tasks/responsibilities you as the CTO have (besides obvious tech related things). Do you also talk to clients, pitch to VCs, get angels on board etc? What about business plans, financials etc? How did you split these tasks?
How do the responsiblities shift when being in early stage and no more funding is required?
I feel a bit overwhelmed with all the tasks. Especially in the beginning it seems that responsibilities kind of overlap on many parts.
Would be awesome if I could connect with some other CTOs here :)
CTO in hardware startup: when I’m not doing tech. It’s road map, strategy, and talking to investors. I do a little bit of operations mostly just setting up systems that are needed. I also do a lot of the hiring/receuiting.
I used to be a ceo so I can do any of those tasks, but prefer to only do it when asked/ needed.
As you go up the food chain, you’re job is to do less of the “work” and more time creating and debugging systems that do the work. Some new CTO’s find it hard to realize that means you probably won’t write a lot of code or do a lot of technical work. You’re job is to understand that and interpret it for the executives, and to keep the technical team on track.
If you’re having trouble with work load the first question to ask is what work is truly important and time sensitive, then what can only you do and what should be delegated or handed off. You’re probably doing a lot of non cto work.