“CTO-To-Go”
Technology is a part of business now for virtually every kind of business. From doctors offices to hair salons. Every company needs a web site at least, and the bigger the company the more they need. One of the observations Silicon Chisel made during the “dot-com” boom was many companies were paying a lot of money for CTO’s (Chief Technical Officers) and really only needed about a quarter of that person’s time.
The concept of “CTO To Go” is that many smaller or emerging companies need some high-powered help in the technology space. The activities of a “CTO To Go” can include:
- Finding and deploying web infrastructure technology (call center, CRM, information portal)
- Negotiating technology licenses
- Hiring the core development staff
- Laying out a technology roadmap
- Defining technology requirements based on a business idea or plan
These tasks can take 2 or 3 months to complete, and then Directors and line managers can take it from there. The company is saved having to hire a full-time CTO, yet gets the benefits of having a highly experienced industry veteran guiding their technical development.
The usual working arrangement is that a member of Silicon Chisel is given a title such as “Director of Technology” at the client company to enable them to act on behalf of the company. Payment can be any combination of hourly rate, per-task fee, and equity.
