What is a Fractional CTO? Why?

A few years ago, my wife wanted to get a bench seat built for our bay window dining area. When she got estimates, I felt the cost was too much. I had never done any woodwork or built anything out of wood before, however felt that I could figure it out. As she found plans for what she wanted it seemed a little more elaborate than I was expecting. Still, I was up for the challenge. In my head I felt it could only take a little time on a Saturday. So I did some measuring and went to purchase the materials. I started looking for all of the tools that I'd need and went back to purchase more tools. The first Saturday I was able to get the base built. It took me forever it seemed! I was faced with some challenges, like figuring out the cuts to make the boards meet for the 10 degree angle on the back rest area. I did some routing to create a rounded look on the edges. I jigged some designs in the base. Despair set in. How long was this going to take? How much more materials was I doing to need? I was lost, however decided to press on. After 7 Saturdays I completed the bench seat!!! I don't know if it can be removed without sawing it into pieces, however it is there.

In the end, it cost me way more than I had expected and it took way longer than I expected because of my lack of experience. I had to figure everything out along the way.

Building Software can be the same way. As you get an idea or find a problem that needs to be solved with software, you set out on your journey and think it can't take that much time, effort and money. There are software products all over the world. Andreessen Horowitz said Software is Eating the World. You aren't sure how much it'll cost, but it can't be that much. You aren't sure how long it'll take. You believe you could have something up and running within a short period of time. However without experience of all of the unknown and unseen effort, the unknown needed materials, the unknown needed solutions for issues that you'll run into...it's just really difficult to understand how much effort it takes.

I have been building Product and Technology Software since May of 2000. I was full stack from DB schema design to architecting and building business logic libraries, to building robust APIs, to building client facing user experiences. I then became passionate about delivering software faster and more efficiently. I wanted to solve process problems and team problems. I wanted to connect Product and Technology to the Business' Mission, Vision and Strategy.

Over the years I have collected many experiences to many different problems faced with growing and scaling a Software Business. My experience allows me to pattern match issues with Product and Technology Strategy and Execution quicker than it was take doing it yourself.

A Fractional CTO can give you the experience to help you on your journey. You also do not need to hire a full time CTO and take on that expense at the early to mid stages of growth. So at a fraction of the cost, you will have someone sitting at the table with you, helping you make decisions quicker, creating strategies quicker, executing quicker. All without the pains of having to figure out for yourself. You can definitely figure it out yourself. It will just take longer and you probably should be focused on other areas of your business.

Defining everything that a Fractional CTO is cannot be summed up in one post. There are 10s of 100s of activities that a CTO does to marry the Business with the Product and Technology. I am creating the Sherpa CTO Playbook that will cover all of these areas. Over the next several weeks and months, I am going to provide insight into the different areas that a CTO focuses on to help paint a picture of what a Fractional CTO is and why you need one.

If you are facing challenges getting started or growing Product and Engineering, I'd love to help you. Contact Sherpa CTO by reserving a time that fits your schedule.

The next Play from the Sherpa CTO Playbook that I'll review will be the Product and Engineering Growth Areas and the Problems that you are either facing today or will face at some point in your journey building a Software Product using Technology.

Here are a few photos from the 7 Saturday bench building journey. I did have some really good little sherpas helping me along with way!