Why Cant Find My Cto

“Why I can’t find my CTO? 🤔”

Several months ago, I joined YC cofounder matching platform and read around 4,200 profiles, and personally, I met some of them. Some founders already run their business over several years without a CTO, and, of course, they rely on their initial product by the outsourcing companies and or fractional CTO. Some of their businesses grow well, while others are still under development or idea stage. Some told me that they already had one or 2 CTOs before, some tried to hire an employee as a CTO instead of the co-founder. But still they look for a new CTO.

A few(?) cases I notice that They often offer tiny equity “because that is my idea and the CTO simply makes it work. Easy peasy very straight forward. And we all are an early stage startup so, in most cases, if we get a fund. It will dramatically decrease the CTO role and responsibility, so the given equity is should be sufficient for them.”

I feel that what they really need to find, someone who builds everything without any decent salary.

Most founders, including me, know that we can’t pay a high salary or probably any salary for the early stage. But In the market data, We need to know that CTO’s salary is higher than the CEO in startups [https://lnkd.in/gAPJzaje].

Assuming that you are a CTO type of person. And you know that you will get a better salary than any CEO in the same domain and region. Why bother to consider no salary with tiny equity if you get an offer from someone you have never met before? Even YC partners joke (seriously ask not to join the company) about that in this video “How To NOT Get Screwed As A Software Engineer”. (link in the comment below)

So, as you think you can hire a CTO with a cheap reward, 95% you will meet someone who can’t do something that they told you. 5% you will meet someone might be great but they will leave you soon.

Now you need to rethink about whom you look for, or at least you need to give a damn good reason why anyone will join your startup.