Many friends work in large companies for a few years, will receive startup CTO offer, in the heart of trepidation. On the one hand, I lost my passion when WORKING at a slow and repetitive pace. On the other hand, I was worried about whether I could adapt to the requirements of entrepreneurship in All In.
In the end, before deciding to start a startup, please make sure to adjust the following thinking and cognition in advance:
1. Focus on founder genes and patterns
For technical people, when choosing a startup company, they will first pay attention to the startup project, the industry, the technology, the engineer culture, and the self-realization. But what is often overlooked is the founder’s genes and patterns, which often determine whether a startup will be hard or hell (sorry, there is no Easy model).
For some resource-based founders, his expectation for CTO is to meet the demand and go online. After being told the difficulty of research and development, the first sentence is always “Why BAT can?” ; Or when you need to ask your boss for resources and development time to optimize and develop some non-functional requirements, the cost of communication goes up. You are very important before the product is produced. In the later stage, when the product enters the market by operation and sales, the role of technology is to ensure that there is no problem. Usually, there is no value. As Mr Feng puts it: “Technology is always overvalued in the short run, but always undervalued in the long run.”
Vo: Have you ever been challenged? Why is BAT ok?
2. CTO is a test of humanity and heart
Usually in a large company, it is ok to do a good job in their own technical field, but in a small company, the ability to master as much as the better, if ignorant, the short board of the barrel principle will make themselves and the company are very passive. We often say that ctos at startups are more likely to be technical team leaders and busboys under the guise of Ctos.
If no one on the team can do it, we have to find resources to solve it. From the technical point of view, it is to learn to use limited resources to meet changing needs under the premise of ensuring business continuity. The core responsibilities include:
With the team. Without the brand halo of a big company, the project is never busy, but the recruitment is always in the state of being interviewed. You can’t find people with a score of 90, and people with a score of 70 don’t understand why the company doesn’t have a year-end bonus, and why they don’t even give out gifts on holidays. In particular, a CTO that does not know how to lead the team culture and a team that does not have an incentive system to nurture existing talents is even more frightening. A CTO should not be limited to technology, but should make the technical labor of team members reflect the value they should have, and turn technology and products into the engine of a company.
Set the strategy. We expect CTO to have strong strategy and thinking, be forward-looking about the industry pattern and technology direction, know when to invest what resources to strengthen which technology, have excellent business/technology balance ability, understand the business, and support the company strategy with technology strategy. As a CTO in a startup company, you need to put out fires on a daily basis, but don’t lose yourself in putting out fires and forget to practice.
With the results. I believe that from technology to management, many people have realized to be results-oriented, no matter the choice of technology direction, or the choice of technology implementation and way, should be responsible for the final result. Besides, Ctos, like everyone else, know that starting a business is hard and that they are dying. However, in order to avoid the death of the project after the launch and overcome my poor communication skills, I need to proactively propose non-functional requirements when everyone is preoccupied with functional requirements. This is true responsibility for results.
Voiceover: Have you ever wondered if you are a technical person?
Always remember self cultivation
The best development of technologists is divided into four stages: learning, sedimentation, sharing, and influence. In addition to the study and understanding of technical knowledge, the study of technical personnel should also include the coordination and communication skills mentioned countless times before. In the face of all kinds of O who do not understand technology, it is necessary to cultivate tao and skill. After learning and settling, I should share and express my own value to the maximum, use my personal charm to dominate the team culture, and use my own influence to enhance the influence of the company.
Learning is a continuous thing, the higher the ability, the greater the responsibility, CTO should constantly recharge their own, this is the best era for technical people, but also the era of higher requirements for technical people.
In this era, cognitive upgrading is far more important than knowledge upgrading. To realize this, you may need to systematically improve your CTO capabilities before accepting an offer from a startup company and deciding on an “all in” in your life. You might as well experience the CTO Training Camp, listen to the CTO mentors’ understanding of CTO, and join a group of like-minded people. To discuss the problems and puzzles encountered in the work.
CTO Training Camp — MBA for technical managers, one of the platforms for technical managers under 51CTO, is committed to providing knowledge learning and value growth for technical leaders in the industry, emphasizing technical managers’ “technical vision” and “commercial vision”, and improving technical decision-making ability, commercial knowledge and leadership ability. Senior technology executives, technology founders and investors in the industry participate in the design and teaching of the course content, helping China’s most potential technology managers to become future leaders in the technology field.
In the fifth season of CTO training camp, the [application review] mechanism will be adopted for registration.
【 I am Foley 】 Students who fill in the application form can get the right to watch the video of “Self-evolution in the Changing Era” module of CTO training camp for free, worth 880 yuan. \
Click here to redefine cTOS!