High growth companies inevitably experience leadership challenges. Often the Technical Founder gets frustrated at inflection points in the business and leaves due to evolving responsibilities. Sometimes the existing Tech leadership lacks experience and needs help to scale to the next level of growth. Other times a flurry of strategic initiatives are needed due to a proposed transaction or a new market getting unlocked with larger and more sophisticated customers.
The need for specialized Executive talent to quickly take over for a departing executive is very acute. Companies that have evolved organically can hit inflection points in the growth experience and cause a divergence in the executive team’s focus and strategic priorities. When Investors get involved and 8-figure checks have been written it’s not enough to simply let the organization run on auto-pilot for a few quarters while the holes in the organization fester.
A strong leader can make a huge difference in the trajectory of a growing company at times like these if you can recognize the opportunities and apply resources to fix problems.
Here are the stories of three companies that we’ve helped in the last year with Interim CTO services.
An MIT Sloan spin out, AirWorks was started by a few scrappy founders who were experienced business owners. The founders attracted a young athletic technical founder who was great at software, but had never had exposure to the business side of an enterprise. The Technical Founder built early software with a great deal of latitude and very little oversight. In the early days of startups everyone is very busy and communication suffers which caused this software team to start working on their own perceived priorities in a vacuum.
A rift in the executive staff started to form and the Tech Founder eventually went shopping for another CTO job at a small division of a much larger company. I got the call from the CEO a few days into his 2-week notice and was in Boston that week to take over the reigns of the software organization and lots of infrastructure in the office and in the cloud. It was a firehose for the first month, but eventually we got everything documented and humming along. We hired first line management for the Software and Machine Learning teams and established Product Management with the first Director of Product in the company.
As the company caught fire and started growing on the mythical triple, triple, double, double unicorn growth curve my role changed into a more strategic fractional CTO role and I continue to help with strategic product direction and have made successful introductions to additional venture funding through my network at TechCXO.
The best memory with this team is that many of us are pilots and we all crammed into a four seater for a pre-dawn flight from Hanscomb to Nantucket, Marthas Vineyard and Block Island! If you scroll LinkedIn you can find the picture where we are all ear-to-ear smiles!
At some point in the Fall I got an email from one of our CFO partners in NYC about an international Real Estate company that might need an Interim CTO due to a departing executive. Several emails later that week I met the CFO and the negotiations with the departing executive had faltered and he was off to head a division at a major Real Estate Investment fund. I was in NYC on Park Avenue by Wednesday and had about four hours with the Departing Executive and 48 hours with the rest of the outstanding leadership team.
E&V global had just sold a major stake to a PE firm and had to perform. The VP Engineering, Product Manager and Lead Software Engineer had just quit. One more Engineer was on the way out which made the first few weeks very eventful! To make it more exciting, a major Software Deliverable was due in four months. I brought in a Principal resource from TechCXO to run the development effort and to review & evolve the existing architecture which was not ready for prime time. We brought in our Human Capital partners at TechCXO to help build the software team and replace the missing Product Manager with a SME Real Estate professional that had been with the organization since they started the US division.
Ultimately we did deliver software to the major event in Las Vegas and eventually hired a full time CTO for the organization. I will always remember the work that went into the first class event in Vegas and the beautiful properties that E&V brokers represent.
TechCXO helps by performing Interim CTO services to bridge the gap. We work in any state and are experienced in many market verticals. If needed, we can be onsite anywhere in the US within 48 hours to take the reigns of the Tech organization and to begin the process getting your Technology organization to the next level. We will stay with your organization until the team is stable and the growth objectives are achieved.
Give me a call and let’s make some memories.
Todd Merrill
Partner – Product and Technology
email: todd.merrill@techcxo.com
calendar: https://fantastical.app/toddmerrill/tech-cxo
phone: +1 678-521-5305
