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Startup CTO or Developer

TechEmpower SaaS

What does it mean to be a CTO for a startup? Should a startup CTO spend their time programming? Exploring new technologies? The role of a CTO varies as the company matures. Hiring a hands-on lead developer might seem like the right move for an early stage startup. A CTO can help you find the right answers.

CTO Hire 390
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Dear SaaStr: What’s The Number One Challenge for Scale-Up Stage Founders?

SaaStr

Or churn will increase, NPS will stagnate and decline, and upsell and revenue retention will be a fraction of what it could be. You’ll need more than 5–10 engineers to go big. You will need a VP of Engineering to manage these processes, recruit and build the team, and make your product more secure and enterprise-ready.

Scale 254
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What’s The #1 Challenge After $1m-$2m ARR?

SaaStr

Or churn will increase, NPS will stagnate and decline, and upsell and revenue retention will be a fraction of what it could be. You’ll need more than 5–6 core engineers to go big. You will need a VP of Engineering to manage these processes, recruit and build the team, and make your product more secure and enterprise-ready.

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What were 5 distinct milestones that you encountered on the road to becoming a CEO?

SaaStr

To hire our CTO, our first VPE, etc. And to close $6m in customer contracts through founder-led sales. You don’t always need to raise money to do a start-up. Bootstrapping is far better. But if you do need to raise money, it’s the CEO that has to do it. And I learned to recruit. I’m still learning.

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The Founder’s Guide to Developer-led Growth with WorkOS (Video)

SaaStr

They’re able to actually swipe a credit card, and what starts off similar to a freemium self-serve product can turn into a six-figure contract in just a few months. It might even be months later that a VP of Engineering or a CTO or CFO realizes that they’re built on a new platform. The contract size grows.

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Dharmesh Shah of HubSpot: From Day 0 to IPO. What Went to Plan. What Most Certainly Didn’t (Video, Podcast + Transcript)

SaaStr

Co-founder and CTO Dharmesh Shah shared with us how they got there — and the top mistakes they made — just 3 quarters after their IPO. We have someone that probably 98 percent of you know virtually or socially in some sense, Dharmesh Shah, founder and CTO of HubSpot. ” We didn’t do any annual contracts.

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Founder’s Guide to Scaling Applications: When to Build, When to Buy and What Breaks by Algolia Co-founder (Video + Transcript)

SaaStr

Julian Lemoine, Co-Founder, and CTO of Algolia will share his lessons learned on how to stay focused and innovative as you scale while also avoiding the innovation for innovation’s sake pitfalls. Julien Lemoine | Co-founder and CTO @Algolia. So I’m Julien, Co-founder and CTO of Algolia. Want to see more content like this?

Scale 124