Looking for CTO mentorship ☝️

[BuffMcBigHuge]

Hello Jason!

Marco here, CTO of Acadium.com. Just watched your Zoom talk on Traction. You shared some valuable insights and I was happy to see that our organization has already adopted many of your ideologies; however, many were insightful and new that I will be bringing to our leads team at Acadium.

My question to you is whether you know of any CTO communities, or ways to find CTO mentorship. I'm certainly a novice and always looking to grow in both leadership and engineering management (coming from a science/engineering tech-founder background), and I understand guidance from a seasoned mentor can ensure I'm prepared for caveats that are common has companies grow.

Any suggestions? Thanks a ton!

[jasoncwarner]

I don't know of any CTO communities tbh.

If you are any type of funded company, I would reach out to your investors and ask, they likely know a few good ones.

And if you are taking money, I would look for those types of people when you are accepting investors.

One thing I really would like founding teams to do more of is be critical of who they take money from, assuming they have the luxury. And this goes doubly so for later rounds.

Money is a commodity in startupland and it's literally the same dollar from one investor or another. What you really should be assessing is who you are taking money from and what they can do to help. If you are an early stage company, or anything less than literal hyper growth, pour money on the fire stage, I would be looking for ex-operators who can help you in the business. The last thing people need on their cap table or board room is people whose only value is money.