What should be the CTO in a web startup?

Question

Freelance

Hello!
I am a happy owner of an interesting idea that seems to me, which I would like to implement in the form of a web service. With a large, fast and complex database, an attractive feature-rich interface with lots of Javascript and AJAX, interaction with mobile platforms and future integration with electronic document management systems.
But here's the problem, I'm not a web developer at all. I have programming experience, but I have nothing to do with the web. Therefore, my goal now is to find an intelligent specialist who could take on the duties of the chief technical officer - that is, on the basis of the TOR, select the most suitable tools for the project, develop a technical specification, implement it at an early stage of the project, and then select and advise ordinary programmers.
And here the main question arises: what should be the ideal candidate for this position? What should he be able to do? On the one hand, I want to cut off amateurs who think they are the kings of the world after writing the first somehow working script. On the other hand, I don’t want to overly wring my requests to candidates, requiring them to have a thorough knowledge of all modern technologies and web development techniques: this will narrow the circle of potential applicants too much, and those who fall into it will want such money that I simply can’t use their services. pull.
Therefore, I ask the respected habra community to share your vision of the necessary and sufficient combination of knowledge, skills and abilities, which, in your opinion, makes its owner a worthy candidate for the position of a leading technical specialist.
Thank you!
PS: I am aware that in addition to understanding what skills to require from the applicant, you also need to be able to check the real availability of these. But this is a completely different topic, and, it seems to me, it is better not to mix these two questions into one.

Answer 1

A candidate who is able to choose the right technology should at least know what implementation options generally exist and be able to compare them. He must know the development aspects of both the server side of the application and the client side, no worse than his subordinates. Tell us briefly about your idea, and ask what, in his opinion, is better to implement? What are the alternatives? How long will it take?
Also, he must be realistic, and realize that the time to market for a startup is more important than beautiful architectures and newfangled frameworks. There is no time to develop architecture in a startup. This is a rare quality. Also, to be in the spirit of a startup, he must write the code himself.
A note about newfangled architectures is extremely important - 90% of developers, having the opportunity to make decisions and do everything from scratch, will set up such plans for you that you will not implement all this in 10 years. If, upon hearing about your idea, a person’s eyes light up, and he starts to generate a stream of ideas, wishes and additions for you, drive him away. If he throws buzzwords like “and here we use web sockets, local storage and a NoSQL job queue” - drive him away. And by the way, neither sockets nor localstorage normally work in IE.
Oh, and you also need a designer. No one wants to pay to use an ugly or unusable site.
Total. IT talents and professionals are one of the main business assets. Naturally, they do not roll on the road and do not go to interviews for a long time. If you don't have these on hand, it will be very difficult for you to find them.
Judging by the fact that you write about a complex interface and a large database, you also have the wrong priorities. A startup does not have the time or resources to develop a large and carefully designed database and complex interfaces. Imagine that your idea is already being implemented by competitors and a beta version is being launched in a month? A good, crazy developer will make a working prototype of anything in one month, and together with a fan designer, they will also make a beautiful prototype.
Some well-known service, for example, in order to save time on developing a payment system and billing, and enter the market as soon as possible, simply made the use of services free at first.
Moreover, I doubt that your idea is worth anything. If this is not a clone of a successful Western service, it is most likely futile. Every time another startup describes its “brilliant” idea on Habré, I want to cover my palm with my face in a gesture of despair.
If it is appropriate to give advice in such a situation, then I advise you to leave your idea and take up the production of something else, such as gingerbread cats. Or good cakes - these days it's so hard to find a delicious cake with a biscuit base, with an original culinary idea, but not overloaded with cream and cream, and without chocolate (I don't like chocolate). I think this is a very promising niche.

Answer 2

First, decide who exactly suits you best: a single freelancer, a team of freelancers, a company developing similar things, programmers on staff.
The most budget option (if the project is large and one person can not cope) is a team of freelancers.
Freelancers can be found on many sites, for example, on the site I work on - Weblancer.net
To select the right person, you need to create a project / vacancy on the freelance exchange with a description of who is required. And also go through the list of top freelancers in the required direction and invite them to personally see your project. This must be done, because. top freelancers rarely leave applications in projects, because they have everything on stream and customers come by themselves.
You should also read reviews and get acquainted with the portfolio, make sure that you have experience in developing large projects.
Adequate proposals for an interesting project will not keep you waiting. The main thing is to choose people with experience, great experience, and a lot of reviews.
Well, then from a private conversation, I already think you can draw conclusions about the adequacy of the developers and their abilities.
Ideally, you need to find one good one and instruct him to assemble a team if he does not have one.
For many, a team has already been formed after 2-3 years of freelancing.
In general, before starting work, you should evaluate yours with people with experience in startups, it will be great if there are any among your friends.
After all, it may seem brilliant and profitable to you, but in fact it will collapse.
There was just a case with my friend just recently, I tried to dissuade him in every possible way from developing a startup that he came up with, saying that the idea was bad, but everything seemed perfect to him and he felt like a genius. As a result, time and money were spent, the project was not in demand by users and was abandoned.

Answer 3

Often the CTO in a startup turns out to be extreme. I know firsthand.
And get ready to start a startup 48 hours a day, otherwise the deadlines and plans can be sent towards the trash can.
The average programmer is a creative and restive nature. A little overlooked - he was carried away into unknown distances.
2 people will not be enough, you need a third - a tester. Someone has to test with an open mind. The programmer himself, often, is not able to qualitatively test what he has built, experiencing for creation, almost a parental weakness. At least for my fighters, I had to check the code very carefully, repeatedly wrapping it for doping.
In my experience, nothing ever takes off the first time. Too much subjectivity in understanding the essence of the matter. I will keep silent about some kind of paradoxical resistance that you often have to face when you set a task.
You need a person, a pro, who is still interested in all this bother, and who the developers will not be able to lead around the finger.