The Executive Brief
Every CTO has their own version of the how-I-got-the-big-job tale. This is mine. In my case, it was filled with pressure and frustration, but ultimately satisfaction. Along the way I learned a few things that some of you might find interesting or useful. Maybe it helps you get your own how-I-got-the-big-job tale.
And if you’ve already got your own tale, enjoy mine.
The Day I Became a CTO
I was the technical lead in a startup, and we were down to just $5,000 in the bank. The rest of the team had left to go look for other jobs. Our remaining customers weren’t going to be a source of further revenue. It was just me and my co-founder, the CEO, sitting in our little huddle room wondering what to do.
Our company was about to die unless we made a sale.
We had one last chance. It was a Thursday night and the following Monday we had a big meeting scheduled with a potential new customer. This was our last and final hope to keep the company alive. But the customer was on the other side of the country and with the flights, hotels and transportation our cash-in-the-bank would dwindle even further.
The potential upside was that the customer was willing to pay $250K to finance the build of a product we had been talking about with them for the last 6 months. This deal would give our 3-year-old company life (and hope) again. But there was a huge “if” involved…we had to really impress their board with a demo that would, in their words, “knock our socks off.” A tall order with only me as the remaining “product guy.”
Our CEO had already done the job of setting up the meeting and bringing the customer to the very edge of writing the check. So I knew it was up to me now.
I was a developer, but that weekend I didn’t just start slinging code to build the demo. I started by researching the customer deeply and trying to understand how what we were building was going to create value for their business. I wrote down a long list of all the benefits it would create for them.
This was my first attempt at a business case. It was super-rudimentary, but it worked to help me focus on what was important.
With the business case in hand over the next few days I researched UI/UX design and writing effective web content. I designed the demo around my business case priorities. It was harder to design a focused product than I thought, and I had no idea if it was going to work. What if I had completely misunderstood what they were looking for?
After working around the clock virtually the entire weekend we flew out west for the meeting. I had to act like I’d gotten a good night sleep and was ready to roll so lots of coffee and Advil. We met their board and our CEO teed up the conversation. Then it was my turn to do the demo. Thankfully there were no technical glitches connecting back to our servers and it went off without a hitch.
At the end of it the customer was pleased. “You’ve designed exactly what we needed. This is better than we’d hoped.” We signed the contract while we were still there and a couple weeks later, we got the check for $250K which saved our company.
That was the first time I understood what it meant to be a CTO.
I had seen our people have to look for other opportunities. I had felt the financial pressure on our bank accounts. I had seen how hard our CEO had worked to set up the meeting. I had made an effort to deeply understand the customer’s needs. I had designed the UI/UX, content and functionality to meet those needs. I had written the script for the demo. I had even run the demo live with the customer’s board.
The lesson is that regardless of being in a startup or a large company, as a product or technology leader you have to understand all aspects of the business including its customers, market, value proposition and so forth, in order to become a value-creating partner to the commercial side of the organization.
Too many tech leaders have their heads buried in the technology sand and in this hyper-competitive world your company likely can’t afford for you to do that.
Is it a bit unfair that we have to understand both technology and the business? Perhaps. But that’s the price CPTOs have to pay for not just a seat at the table but influence on the direction and success of the company.
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