Your Startup Doesn't Need a CTO (Yet)

The tech industry has convinced founders they need a full-time technical co-founder from day one. Investors ask about your "technical team." Accelerators want to see a CTO on the cap table. The mythology of the Steve Jobs/Steve Wozniak partnership looms large.

Here's the problem: most early-stage startups don't need a full-time CTO. They need technical leadership—which is a very different thing.

The CTO Myth

Let me be blunt. If you're pre-seed or seed stage, here's what a full-time CTO actually means:

• Someone collecting £120-180k+ in salary and burning your runway
• Someone who's probably too senior to be writing code day-to-day
• Someone who needs a team to lead (which you can't afford)
• 10-20% of your equity gone before you've validated the business

The title itself creates problems. "Chief Technology Officer" implies an organisation with officers. You're three people in a WeWork hot desk. What you actually have is an expensive developer with a fancy title and misaligned expectations.

What You Actually Need

At the early stage, you need someone who can:

• Make architectural decisions that won't cripple you in 18 months
• Help you build (or buy, or outsource) an MVP that actually validates your hypothesis
• Speak credibly to technical investors during due diligence
• Prevent you from building a Ferrari when you need a bicycle

Notice what's missing from that list? Full-time presence.

A fractional CTO—someone who works with you 1-2 days a week—can deliver all of the above at a fraction of the cost. You get senior technical judgment without the senior technical salary. You get experience across multiple companies, not someone learning on your dime.

When You Actually Need a Full-Time CTO

There's a point where this changes. You need a full-time technical leader when:

• You have 5+ engineers and need someone managing day-to-day technical decisions
• Technology is your competitive advantage (not just an enabler)
• You're scaling fast enough that architecture decisions happen daily
• You're entering regulated industries where technical governance matters

For most B2B SaaS startups, that's post-Series A. For others, it might be even later.

The Investor Question

"But investors want to see a CTO on the team."

Some do. The unsophisticated ones. Smart investors want to see that you've de-risked the technical side of your business. That can be a full-time CTO, but it can also be:

• A technical advisor with real skin in the game
• A fractional CTO who's genuinely embedded in your decision-making
• A development partner with a proven track record
• Your own technical competence as a founder (yes, this counts)

The question investors are really asking is: "Can you build this?" Not: "Do you have the right org chart?"

Below the Waterline

I've spent 25 years building the infrastructure that platforms run on. The work that happens below the waterline. And here's what I've learned: the companies that scale well aren't the ones who hired a CTO earliest. They're the ones who made good technical decisions at each stage of growth.

Sometimes that means a full-time hire. Often—especially early—it means being smart about when and how you bring in technical leadership.

Don't hire for the company you want to be in five years. Hire for the company you are today.