Over 20 years ago, Watts S. Humphrey discussed how “every business is a software business.” In short, companies that do not adequately leverage technology cannot compete with companies that do, and that's even more true now than when he said it in 2002. As such, it's no surprise that the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) has become such a crucial role. They are highly experienced, dynamic, creative, and ultimately responsible for the strategic vision and direction for the use of technology throughout the organization.
One thing CTOs are not is cheap. In areas such as New York, the median CTO salary was $312,889, and with a bonus, total compensation is closer to $400,000. For well-established companies, the benefits of a full-time CTO are well worth the cost. But as a founder of an early-stage startup, do you need all of the services a full-time CTO offers? Do you really need a CTO around the clock? Are you better off spending on other resources at this company stage?
Enter The Fractional CTO
Your choices aren't limited to highly paid-CTO or nothing. You can still get many of the benefits of a full-time CTO by hiring a Fractional CTO that targets specifically the areas you need help in on a part-time basis. So why pay for things you don't need? Further, you get the collective leadership experience and capabilities of Wilder Innovation by using our Fractional CTO service. You get higher quality and value than by hiring a jack-of-all-trades CTO.
At a high level, a Fractional CTO can help you:
- Define a technical strategy to assist the business in achieving its goals
- Create an implementation plan so that the strategic vision can be attained
- Ensure that organization is using the right technology for the tasks at hand
- Establish processes, patterns, and practices to ensure that the product is built to be correct, secure, and scalable
- Help you hire your first tech hires
- Determine that engineers are working on things that matter
- Help diagnose tech org failures such as high defect rates, slow delivery, and terrible performance
We believe in hiring the right people, at the right time, for the right amount of time. Most startups would do well by not going through a drawn-out interview process while in the middle of a tech talent shortage to hire a highly paid CTO that they won't have the capacity to take full advantage of for quite a while. Instead, they should opt to quickly hire someone that can onboard rapidly and advise leadership on how to ramp up their technology organization for success.
Schedule a call to learn more about how a Fractional CTO can help you.