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You have a great idea for a new app, and you can’t believe no one has thought of it yet. (OK, maybe it’s been thought of, but you can do it better!) You have the industry knowledge, you know the pain points, you set up your Delaware LLC company (because that’s what you heard all tech startups do) and you even have a few partnerships lined up from people who told you, "Yes, this is awesome, how do I sign up?"

The only issue is that you don’t have the product yet, and you haven’t spent the last 20 years in Silicon Valley honing your skills as a top-notch software developer and product manager.

Time for a technical cofounder to play CTO, right?

Well, let's slow down just a bit.

Let's assess the assets at your disposal and consider the value you can bring to a chief technology officer (CTO) that matches your CEO contributions. You might be contemplating the extent to which you're willing to allocate shares in your company to compensate for the absence of a regular paycheck, given the potential benefits of the startup's success.

“Offering a cofounder 30% of my company should be enough to allow me to recruit one of Google’s directors of engineering at the very least.” -You, perhaps.

While your confidence should be applauded, that caliber of technical leader is making $300,000 base pay with stock and other incentives that put them comfortably over half a million a year. Even if you are sitting on the next unicorn, these experienced potential cofounders also have families to support, not to mention their beloved healthcare insurance.

CTO Options

Long story short, your pool of potential CTOs likely falls under these categories (in order of likelihood to get).

1. Someone you have known for years (bonus if they like you too).
2. Someone with just a handful of experience out of college. Maybe they worked on an app before, maybe it even launched. But a leader? Probably not quite yet.
3. Someone who has enough experience technically and can hold a conversation and who is "between" commitments at the exact right time (perhaps their own startup failed last week or they just got laid off).

Race To The TopNo matter what option you end up with from before, you are running against two clocks—your internal financial runway and their employment search. (Yes, they are still looking for a better job if you aren’t paying market rates). So if that cofounder bails, you are now looking at a company that is CTO-less, three months in, holding the following bags.

1. Less equity than before you hired that CTO.
2. Technical debt from a half-started platform with no architect.
3. Contract nightmares.
4. No working product.

Enough complaining—what should you do?

Beyond hiring a candidate, there are options for you that don’t involve giving away your company, though it's no surprise that you'll have to spend some money to make money. And don’t make the mistake of thinking that your time is free (though I’m sure you don’t need a lesson in opportunity cost). So, let’s lay out some options in no particular order.

Just keep going.

If what you are building is more of an innovation on the "process" side of things or not a massive machine learning/AI product, you may have a chance at getting to that technical MVP all by yourself. Your guiding light is "get customers, get paid," and if you can get there on your own, why complicate the world with a CTO right now?

Network at industry events.

For those introverts out there, this might be a tough pill to swallow. But as a founder, you and your startup are only as good as your network. Participating in local pitch competitions, tech conferences, industry meetups and seminars can be a goldmine for connections. These events are often frequented by experienced tech professionals, including potential CTO candidates or advisors.

With all that said, you have to put the work in. Don’t expect someone to just walk up to you and say, "Hey, can I be your CTO?" Start getting comfortable walking up to people and getting the conversation started.

Get a consultation.

Believe it or not, there are a fair number of people in the world who have built digital products before. Further, some of these folks have built so many of these products that they offer their time and experience "for hire" to people just like you. These include software consultants, fractional CTOs and app developers.

You may be surprised at just how much a simple meeting with someone who has been there and done that will help you build your roadmap and even boost your confidence. Going down this route may sound like something only bloated corporate offices do, but more often than not, you will find that the companies catering to small-stage startups are full of extremely dedicated, passionate people who will care just as much about your vision as you do (during the length of the engagement, at least).

In this case, you don’t give up that valuable equity. If you find the right consultant, you can walk away with anything from actionable steps on how to get to an MVP to a full-blown product live in the marketplace. At an absolute minimum, they can help you establish what it would actually cost to build that first version, which is always a helpful figure when hitting up your friends and family for that initial investment.

Putting It All Together

Let it not be said that the universal and sole recommendation here is that a CTO co-founder is a bad idea. There are more than enough voices out there pushing the idea that the CTO is a "must-have" on your startup team, so use the information here as a balance.

When getting through a meeting with a current or potential investor, you really are just trying to get them to "check" a technical box in many ways. Where the needle truly moves is with customers, sales, revenue and profit.

At the end of the day, you believe in your company, so believe in the value of its equity and try to protect it if you can. Based on the advice above, you can take the right steps to give your company the strategic boost it needs.