Alex Mercer

I remember reading posts on Reddit where people were outraged by the work of the CTO. And while I actually know a lot of CTOs who are great, some of them make very familiar mistakes in the early stages of startup/product development (primarily seed/pre-seed). These posts on Reddit: 1. https://www.reddit.com/r/Experie... 2. https://www.reddit.com/r/Experie... I talked to different CEOs and top managers and heard similar problems. Whether you are the CEO, CPO, or any other manager dealing with the product development process, there are times when you ask yourself questions like: 1. We have received investments, will we have time to scale the MVP in time? 2. Why do we spend so much time and money looking for specialists? 3. Are these specialists good, and on what basis has the CTO elected them? 4. And what are our options in general? For example, definitely not outsourcing, as it is not clear how we will control them and understand whether they have experience in a particular area, let s say, UX. And in theory, all these solutions holes should be patched by CTO, but even those who had a bunch of awards and experience, made errors, such as: 1. Poor team communication: For example, hiring a group of data scientists without any engineering team to support them. Much of the data engineering work, such as building ETL pipelines and data warehousing, is done by data scientists. 2. Selection of outdated software: a person may not be flexible and choose what they are used to working with. 3. Fear of a sprint : this is a situation when, due to deadlines, a seemingly good specialist is hired, but even their dubious decisions are defended, as it is much faster than looking for a specialist again. 4. And the most important mistake is internal: the CTO is afraid to be fired if he finds a solution cheaper and faster, but the same in terms of quality of execution. There are also rare errors: here in this post (https://www.reddit.com/r/Experie...) on Reddit, it generally seems that the CTO tried to completely change the development process only to show its distinctness in comparison with the old solutions. Or even the CTO just wanted to let go of all the old developers and hire his own (it looks like he has some kind of outsourcing of his own there). But in this case, the question arises: how will such a CTO work with new specialists if he or she is not able to make contact with those who have long-established themselves in the company? The reason for this behavior here is simple: if the CTO has less management work or any other innovative ideas/movements, then he will probably be fired. Well, in fact, if he releases the company s resources, then no, since this very release of resources will also need to be controlled, just on a smaller scale of diligence. Well, in fact, if he or she saves some of the company s resources, then this very saving of resources will also need to be controlled, just on a smaller scale of diligence. The 3 points above are focused on building a team from scratch and giving them something that allows them to quickly create a product. In corporations or in cases where a person has a ready-made team (from acquaintances or previous work with a bunch of skilled specialists) this is not a problem. Again, I do not lead to the fact that you need to engage in simple outsourcing, since they are unlikely to understand the specifics of your field and aren t truly transparent in the processes. In this case, indeed, the CTO can withdraw a bunch of responsibilities, but along with cheap cost and short time, bring a questionable result. Which way do I see? Here in this post (https://www.indiehackers.com/pos...), for example, the CTO says that both options lead to emotional burnout. Just because in the early stages of startup development, you must either find quick, but possibly low-quality (due to lack of time to think/look for more) solutions, or follow the quality path , but fail to meet deadlines and run into displeasure from the boss or even get fired. The question immediately arises: what is more important to you having time to fulfill all the wishes of the investors, but losing a little in quality, or missing all the deadlines, but doing everything perfectly? In fact, I m sure the first option has popped into your head since it is essentially the basis of startups according to many books. They advocate that it s better not to try to make the product perfect and polished, but to quickly set up the minimum functionality. But it s hardly worth missing out on the legislative subtleties of different countries, the standards of which need to be adapted in a product, or UX that fights for the hearts of users. Otherwise, you won t get any retention, purchases, and LTV. Moreover, you can receive a serious fine for not being able to delete patient data for several months, for example. In short: the answer is in the middle Ideally, you can ask the CTO and any other guys you trust to advise all possible specialists. At the same time, for specific specialists such as projects or UX-designers, it is worth looking at the scope of their experience. For example, in the health industry, a lot depends on understanding CJM and patient patterns with a wide variety of illnesses. If this ideal option is not available, then look for a solution in the middle: hire a studio team highly specialized in the industry with a good project, striving for frequent joint iterations. And then organize their interaction with the CTO. The main thing here is that you, your CTO, and such a team exchange views and critique each other within these iterations. In this case, in essence, you get the same in-house employees, but you and your CTO do not spend: - time to search for each specialist individually; - efforts to build a team; - money for higher salaries and social benefits. Other options remain open to question. By the way, a question: could you share your stories when you had questions about the work of the CTO, and how did you get out of such situations?

Hello everyone I have a question. Maybe someone has faced such a problem? Our team has an MVP Medical product, but to create a more scalable version in the shortest possible time, we need to hire additional developers. This is very expensive, since it's not just about their salaries, but also about the search process itself. It's a very long time. Outsourcing teams are one of the options that come to my mind. But without micromanagement, I am afraid that they will not fully understand the idea of the product or there will be people in their team who do not understand the medical field. Developing with the current squad is a matter of time. Competitors may overtake or even worse motivation may disappear. What are the options for solving such a problem?

Hello everyone! I recently asked here about whether there is an alternative to outsourcing. In general, I once had such a situation when I gave the task to an outsourcing company to make a Healthcare product and, if possible, if my thoughts about the idea and features of the product were wrong, correct everything, but discuss it with me beforehand. But in fact, despite the fact that there was communication with the outsourcing team and they performed the technical part well, I still got something that was good six months ago. Yes, the deadlines were met, but the competitors did not sleep and the crowded market got new features, which I did not think about and which I could not react to quickly due to poor experience specifically in Healthcare. Moreover, the outsourcing team did not even take into account the legislative framework for working with the deletion of patient data, which needs to be adapted in the application. Therefore, the work was only delayed in terms. And in this case, the question arises: why do you need IT outsourcing if the team that received high marks on Clutch can't even help you get through what you don't know yourself. There is no time to study, because investors are pushing. Therefore, I put all this on the shoulders of another team that has developed dozens of projects before. But unfortunately, my experience and the experience of some of my colleagues suggest that IT outsourcing is just performers who need a manager who understands a particular area in detail. Because it is impossible to take everything into account if you turn to someone who works in several fields at once. That is why, by the way, the outstaffing proposed in my last question also goes by. Are these problems familiar to you and how did you deal with them?