Every startup needs a technical manager. Without it, scaling the project is almost impossible. At the initial stage of the project, more experienced developers can take over control of the processes in the first stages.

But over time, you will need an experienced manager who can give the right advice and help implement the business goals. If you do not have the resources to pay for the salary of your own technical director, it makes sense to use a new service — CTO as a service. This is a smart alternative that will help you save money.

What is CTO as a Service?

CaaS is a whole new kind of interaction. You will be able to handle important technical tasks, create the project, and solve key problems. This will help you realize all your ambitions and get your product to market faster. The outsourcing model gives you the opportunity to use a flexible payment system. Use a service for a few hours a week, or hire a full-time specialist. You can also meet with them periodically to get helpful advice.

In what situations would a CTO as a service be helpful to you?

You’ve come up with a brilliant idea, but don’t know what to do to bring it to life.
You already have a product, but need an understanding of how to implement the next stages.
To further create your business, you need help from someone who has already had experience in implementing projects, communicating with investors and contractors, and writing roadmaps.
You already need a CTO on your team, but don’t have the money to maintain one.
There is a need for an objective look at technical issues as well as expertise.

If at least one of the above points is relevant to you, CTO as a service is what you need.

A benefit CTO as a Service

Given the niche in which a company operates, and depending on what its goals are, a CTO can perform different functions. Also, the current stage of the startup, the number of team members, management principles, and other factors determine a lot. The CTO is directly responsible for the process, research, budgeting, strategy planning according to goals and ambitions, and innovation. The list of responsibilities usually includes:

Short- and long-range strategy. Tracking key trends in the technology world, influencing current goals. The CTO also makes strategic decisions for the project.
Making effective decisions based on current technology.
Responsibility for the process of integrating new technologies into the project.
DevOps and MVP — helping with projects from concept stage to finished product.
Testing the results of the work done, setting up the security system.
Building communications with partners, investors, employees, team control, customer and public relations, etc.

For Startups

Is your startup about to market a new product? Then it is important to think through each stage of its implementation and further in advance. The developers and their responsibilities, the technologies involved, the tools and systematization of internal processes. This way the risks can be minimized.

Consultations from an experienced technical director within the CTO as a service will help you choose the right technology and architecture, create a good and cohesive team. You get useful advice:

Artificial Intelligence. Implementation of effective solutions that will help achieve better success and will not affect the final budget.
UI/UX design. Project architecture and logic, design solutions that will help your users better appreciate the value and importance of the project, and will enable you to stand out from your competitors.
Implementation of highly loaded systems which will become commercially successful in the future.
MVP — with CTO as a service, you will get expert help to better test your idea and take the right steps to make your project successful in the long run.
CTO as a service will be useful even if you are planning to develop a startup from scratch, even if other have worked on it without success before.
SaaS. Experience will help you realize an exclusive SaaS product.

Duties and role of the CTO as a Service in the company

Technical director will have exactly the duties that the company itself and the general director have on his shoulders at this (abstract) stage of development of the company. He can be assigned many different tasks, in which you need to be technically savvy.

The technical director will decide what specialists should be assigned to this or that project, and also what technology stacks to use while developing an application or thinking over a strategy of development of a certain product.

The role of a technical strategist is perfectly suited for a technical director. Duties are as follows: setting goals and objectives, dividing a large task into small pieces, assigning tasks to the staff, controlling the execution of tasks, hiring employees, supporting and motivating the development team. And then it all depends on the place of work. Somewhere the CTO as a Service can make reports, sometimes communicate with clients, count employees’ working hours, and even train.

The smaller the IT company, the more personally involved in programming (development) the CTO will be and less involved in management and optimization of business processes. And vice versa.

This is a good manager who has knowledge in the required niche, understands the organization’s business processes, and is willing to be involved in the production processes.

Conclusions

Today, there are not so many reliable companies on the market that are ready to provide an outsourced technical director. For startups, such a program allows you to get more than just professional help and support. This is a true business partner, who is just as interested in the successful implementation of your ideas as you are.

The key goal is a high-quality and sustainable result. Modern firms calculate ROI before they start working on a project. All in strict accordance with the client’s request.

Every idea needs help. A startup needs that kind of support. Remember that without this kind of experience there is no way you can successfully bring even the coolest and most interesting idea to life.