Roles and Responsibilities of a Fractional CTO
A fractional CTO can help you manage, scale, and streamline the technology side of your business. Here are the major roles and responsibilities of a fractional CTO in a startup.
#1. Research and Development
No matter what industry your business is in, evolution is inevitable.
There are changes happening everywhere, and for your business to survive, you need to stay on top of these changes.
But as a CEO, you might already have too much on your plate to bother about reading, researching, and taking note of these changes.
Hiring a fractional CTO can be the best way to get regular updates on tech trends in your industry and what areas to pay attention to.
A CTO can dedicate a certain number of hours per week to researching and developing a strategy for features your product must have so that you have an early mover advantage.
#2. Evaluating Buying Decisions
Acquiring a company or buying them and rebranding is a common practice for many investors and companies.
But in order to acquire a company, one should first know the ins and outs of the company and their product.
When it comes to deep technical expertise, a fractional CTO can be of great help.
Fractional CTOs can explain to investors details about the technology used in the product to give them a better understanding of what they’re dealing with.
For example, let’s imagine an investor wants to acquire a startup whose product is based on Augmented Reality (AR). An investor will want to hire a fractional CTO with an expertise in AR tech and ask them all about the AR tech the startup has developed so that they can make an informed investment decision. This process is similar for startups or funds acquiring a startup.
#3. Increase Technical Efficiency
Technical efficiency is the process of producing maximum output with minimum inputs.
The inputs for most technical startups are labor, cash, and technology, and the output is the product.
CEOs are often unaware of technical efficiency, and ignore the concept altogether; that’s because their mindset is to get things done and make progress, no matter how it’s done.
A fractional CTO is the one who can help a CEO figure out how to get things done efficiently.
CTOs can guide the CEO on how many developers they need, the budget for each project, and the right technology to invest in to build the product.
#4. Hiring Developers
Developers are the powerhouse of any tech firm and hiring them is an expensive, crucial, and time consuming task.
Oftentimes, a CEO isn’t much of a coder and might make the wrong hiring decisions or might bring more developers on board than needed. That’s where a fractional CTO can benefit a startup.
They can come in, shortlist candidates, conduct all the tests and interviews, and build an in-house development team in an efficient way.
#5. Cybersecurity
In this online age, your website has a high chance of being hacked if you don’t have a proper cybersecurity system and policy in place.
This might sound scary, but 46% of cyberattacks in 2020 were targeted to hack US-based websites.
CEOs often don’t have the knowledge or the resources to fight these attacks, but a fractional CTO does.
An experienced CTO will know the kind of threats your website/product is prone to and what to do when the attack is in progress.
