Technical Startup Founders | YCombinator Startup School x Startup CTO Handbook

Go watch the video to hear directly from Diana

As a technical founder, building a successful startup can be a daunting task. Luckily, Diana, a former YC partner and CTO, has shared her insights on how to navigate the different stages of building a startup as a technical founder. In this blog, I’ll highlight the key learnings from her talk “Tips For Technical Startup Founders | Startup School”, as well as integrate relevant insights from The Startup CTO Handbook by Zach Goldberg.

The Role of a Technical Founder

A technical founder is a partner in the startup journey, not just a developer. They lead the building of the product, talk to users, and make crucial decisions, often with incomplete information. The technical founder needs to be committed to the success of the company and be willing to do whatever it takes to make it work.

The CTO Handbook outlines three main types of startup CTOs: the tech-focused CTO, the people-focused CTO, and the externally focused CTO.

• A tech-focused CTO is also the Chief Architect of the company, focusing on forward-thinking strategy, architecture, and sometimes proof-of-concept implementation on how to help the business down the road; they help setting up tools, systems, and processes for how technical work gets done, and may even work as a product manager if tge company’s product is highly technical in nature (i.e., developer tools, API-as-a-service, etc.)
• A People-Focused CTO is the VP of Engineering, responsible for setting internal technical culture, the hiring process, and overseeing internal processes, spending much of their time actually managing either independent contributors or other technical managers.
• An externally focused CTO is the Chief Evangelist of the Head of Technical Sales/Marketing; they are the rock star of the company, spending lots of time writing blog articles or speaking at conferences, and they are brought into sales meetings to act as an executive technical representative to close large deals.

Technical founders should assess which type best suits their strengths and the needs of the company, and be willing to delegate or transition roles as the startup grows.

From Prototype to MVP, to Product-Market Fit, Quickly

Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash

In the ideation stage, the goal is to build a prototype as soon as possible, even if it’s not perfect. This could be a clickable prototype, a simple script, or 3D renderings. The key is to get something in front of users quickly to gather feedback and validate the idea.

When building an MVP, the focus should be on launching quickly, not perfection. This means doing things that don’t scale, creating a 90/10 solution, and choosing a tech stack that prioritizes iteration speed over scalability. The goal is to get a working product in front of users and get their commitment, even if it’s just manual processes behind the scenes.

After launching, the focus shifts to quickly iterating based on both hard data (analytics) and soft data (user interviews). Continuously launching new features and finding the right balance between building and fixing are crucial at this stage. Technical debt is okay, as long as it doesn’t prevent you from getting to product-market fit.

Evolving the Technical Founder’s Role

As the startup scales, the technical founder’s role evolves. They’ll need to focus more on hiring, communication, and architecture decisions, rather than hands-on coding. Knowing when to transition from a technical to a more managerial role is key to the startup’s success.

As Zach Goldberg emphasizes in the CTO Handbook, the technical founder’s role evolves as the startup scales. They’ll need to focus more on hiring, communication, and architecture decisions, rather than hands-on coding. Knowing when to transition from a technical to a more managerial role is key to the startup’s success.

Startup CTO upgrade tree according to Zapier CTO — Source

An interesting definition on how the role of a Startup CTO evolves according to the team size — a data point mentioned by Zach in the CTO Handbook — is also discussed by the Zapier CTO in his blog “”:

• Solo Hacker (1–2 engineers): This is the time when we were working in the basement. It’s both a very fun and very fast time. You’re building a lot of stuff. You’re iterating really quickly. There’s really no communication or management overhead because you’re all in sync. You’re all just trying to figure out what is going to work.
• Small Team of Hackers (2–6 engineers): As a startup founder, you want to grow the team, so you start to hire people. Usually this is when you hire friends. Some say not to hire your friends, but I actually think it’s great at this early stage. You know you can work with them, you know how smart they are, and they just fit right in. This small team is when the CTO starts to feel the pain of moving from a hacker to something else. It still feels pretty good because you only have a couple engineers. The communication overhead is pretty small. You’re still pretty much in sync. Things are happening that you know about. Nothing’s really a surprise.
• Growing the Team (6–12 engineers): Then it gets a little weird. You no longer are constantly talking with every single person on the team. You have to start doing this scary thing called management, which for me was totally different. This was not as natural for me as hacking. This is where communication overhead starts to blow right past the time you get to code. You may be trying to figure out how to hire people who aren’t your friends. And it gets tricky because things you don’t know about are happening. Things change really quickly in this stage, and you’ll face your first branch on the upgrade tree.
• Organizing the Team (12+ engineers): With a team of this size, you likely are working on different areas. You can’t do a good job of both people and code management, so this is where you get a choice between VP of Engineering (focus on management) and CTO (focus on hacking and architecture). The VP of Engineering is usually the person who puts in place process, puts in place tools to make the team more productive, and helps the engineers work through stuff. Or, you can remain CTO, and maintain the hacker aspects of your role. This is someone who knows the system in and out, who knows where all the skeletons are in the closets.

Conclusion

By following these tips from a seasoned YC partner, as well as the insights from the Startup CTO Handbook, technical founders can navigate the different stages of building a startup and increase their chances of success. Remember, startups move quickly, so being adaptable, user-focused, and willing to get your hands dirty are essential qualities for a technical founder.