CTO as a Service for Startups

For your startup to have a chance of success, you need more than just a team of top-notch developers. Today, you need to use the advice of the CTO to make the work of experts coherent and productive. But not all startups have enough budget to hire a full-time CTO, so CaaS (CTOaaS) services are becoming increasingly popular.

The StartupCraft team knows that CTO expertise presence can become a game changer for the business. Therefore, we have prepared a detailed Ultimate Guide about What is a CTO as a Service, in which we discussed all CTO's advantages for startups.

In this article, we will tell you more about:

• the real benefits of the CTO as a Service for your business;

• what a CTO does in a startup;

• when should you use CTO services.

So if you are looking for CTO for business right now – read this article.

Benefits of CTO as a Service

The main advantage of the CTO as a Service for startups and companies is the opportunity to receive professional CTO assistance at a reasonable price and within a reasonable timeline. With CaaS you avoid costs such as hiring & onboarding, running payroll, taxes and specific legal olbigations, managing sick leaves, and similar expidentures. The onboarding is done within days not weeks/months. You can also switch-off / switch-on CTO without losing the opportunity to work with the same expert in a future - we take care of workload for you.

Here are the substantial areas of your business that you will improve if you get CaaS:

1. Choose the suitable Technology Stack. Creating the best product using appropriate technology stack and programming languages according to your business needs.

2. Fine-tuning the team & processes. With the help of a Chief Technologist, you can easily vet the right specialists and setup proper processes flow.

3. A reliable technology partner. The CTO monitors the market and offers the end-to-end implementation of new technology trends.

4. Tangible results in your hands. CTO is a confident strategist who knows how to analyse the present state and forecast the future of the product. He doesn’t live in clouds but knows how to create a realistic plan to achieve goals.

5. More opportunities to expand partnerships. CTO expertise will help company owners show a product's or service's strengths to investors and partners, help present the product on demos and roadshows as well as explore networking opportunities in the technology world.

Now let’s talk about how exactly CTO is beneficial for startups.

What can CTO do for a Startup?

The role of the CTO as a Service for startups is outsized. There are the TOP-5 tasks the CTO will solve for your business.

Project planning and risk management

For startups to be successful, you need to plan each step skillfully. And it is CTO will help to audit and create a detailed roadmap.

Every Chief Technologist must have strong managerial skills. These qualities will help to achieve business goals much faster and with high precision.

Oversee the market trends

Business owners and CEOs lack time to monitor and implement modern technologies in their startups. It is in this case that the help of the CTO is required.

The main task of any modern startup is people's or business’ problem-solving. And with CTO’s technical expertise, MVP has a dramatically higher chance of success. Shortly after entering the marketing stage, CTO can help setup a smart product maintenance strategy with modern integrations & tooling so your business never loses a momentum due to technical challenges.

Improve product development processes

Technology issues and development team setup are one of the primary tasks of a CTO for startups.

If you do not want to hire a full-time CTO, at the same time, you need to:

• determine the list of technologies and programming languages to secure best-in-class infrastructure;

• develop a strategy for the product implementation to always stay within budget and timelines;

• gather a team of competent, cost-efficient specialists and insure your investment into the technology;

• have a reliable technology partner so you can focus on other tasks such as customers acquisition, marketing and sales;

• avoid building up a technical debt and avoid total project revamp when things get real;

• being confident that security and compliance is covered and any audit is a cakewalk;

• set up a strong processes map for technical department for efficient growth and scale.

Then CTO as a Service can cover you up.

Quality assurance

For tech company, to move forward is impossible without a reliable software. Customer can easily get frustrated if the challenges or bugs they have found left unattended or takes long time to fix. The solid technical implementation backed by experienced CTO or CaaS guarantees no critical bugs and quick response with a well-defined support maintenance process map.

To ensure modern technologies are used for the best performance and responsive application, successful business leaderes must run technical audit with the full-time CTO or CaaS.

To ensure high product quality (read "high-quality business performance"), internal or external CTO will cover:

• scalable and secure software architecture;

• high quality code and best practices;

• healthy teamwork and technical resources management;

• constant monitoring to prevent any adverse scenarios in the short or long-term future.

Help to pitch the product to investors

CaaS can perform the necessary tests and studies to organize the information for the meeting with investors and partners. CTO will help better present the technical position on the market by taking into an account:

• competitors on the market and similar solutions;

• team’s expertise and performance;

• used technology with current trends;

• key differences which makes product outstanding.

When should you use CTO services

If you regularly use a qualified CTO's services, your startup has a great chance of success.

• The CTO helps young startups set up proper teamwork, processes and create the product users want.

• The CTO will constantly monitor and audit the current product state and comes up with solutions on what can be improved.

If you’re looking for cost-efficient solution and at the same time you do not want to risk the entire’s product future without having strong technology partner start with a seamless consultation to better understand if CTO is right for you.

Final Thoughts

Idée fixe of businesses and startups is to optimize costs without risking results. And hiring CaaS slowly becomes a golden standard for startups and SMEs thanks to the value they can provide without strict limitations and financial setbacks otherwise inevitable hiring a full-time employee.