Startup CXO

Chapter 108CEO‐to‐CEO Advice About the Product/Engineering Role

Matt Blumberg

What comes before a full‐fledged Chief Product or Technology Officer? In most startups, this role is played by one or more founders. Sometimes it is engineering‐focused, sometimes it is a product visionary, sometimes it is both in one role, and sometimes it is two roles. Because of that, I'll address each role separately here.

Signs It's Time to Hire Your First Chief Product Officer

You know it's time to hire a Chief Product Officer when:

• You wake up in the middle of the night and realize that your product vision has gotten stale because your leadership of it has had to take a back seat to other issues around running the company or fundraising.
• You are spending too much of your own time managing the connectivity between Engineering and Product Management relative to the connectivity between product and go‐to‐market.
• Your Board asks you what the long‐term roadmap is, and you don't have a great answer and aren't sure how to get to one.

When a Fractional Chief Product Officer Might Be Enough

A fractional Chief Product Officer may be the way to go if you have solid mid‐level product management leadership but need extra experience to dig into product‐market fit issues and create a new high level roadmap, or even to lay out a new process for creating that roadmap.

Signs It's Time to Hire Your First Chief Technology Officer

You know it's time to hire a Chief Technology Officer when:

• You wake up ...