3 Recommendations For Aspiring CTO's

December 17, 2018

As I’m sure many of you do, I often receive lots of messages on LinkedIn and again like many of you it’s usually people trying to sell their products or service. Since we won the award for SME of the year, I have now started to receive messages from people asking for advice. I’m very honoured that people value my input and it’s a testament to a fantastic year that we have had at B13 Technology. I try to answer as many as I can especially when I’m commuting across the UK or travelling on International business.

Recently, I was messaged by a Gentlemen on Linkedin who asked for some advice on what he could do to achieve his goal of becoming a CTO; he has some excellent project management experience so just needed a nudge in the right direction. After replying to him, I thought my answer would make a great blog especially for similar people that aspire to become a CTO. Here are my three pieces of advice to become a CTO, I hope you find it useful…

Network

When you get to that level, it's as much about who you know as what you know. Recruitment companies often arrange C-Level networking events. See if you can wangle an invite onto one of them. For example, Crimson is holding a Christmas curry networking event this month and tickets are free on Eventbrite.

Just Do It

My second piece of advice is just to do it. It would be much easier to get into a startup as CTO. There are several independent "startup only" job sites out there. E.g. Workinstartups. You should be able to find an opportunity with a startup who would be willing to accept less experience for cost savings.

Training

The third is training. There is a CTO specific training course that I heard of recently that has been created by Martin Sadler; if you can get a place on this, it would be fantastic. If not, the next best thing is to read books. Here are a few that I would thoroughly recommend:

Lean Startup - Eric Reis

Pitch Anything - Oren Klaff

Predictable Revenue - Aaron Ross

The Advantage - Patrick Lencioni

The 7 habits of highly successful people - Stephen Covey

The 4 hour work week - Tim Ferris

How to get rich - Felix Denis