Raif Barbaros Startup CTO turned VC

I've been the CTO of six start-ups, two of which were acquired, and two reached millions of users. I've built and managed teams of up to 150 people while scaling revenues from $0 to $100M. In half of those roles, I managed Product and Design as well as Engineering and the other half Engineering only. I've developed a series of frameworks and mental models on the non-technical side of the Startup CTO job that I call "The Startup CTO's Management Handbook". I've used that material to successfully coach over a dozen Series-A and later startup CEO and CTOs in how to scale their product and engineering organizations. My coaching covers areas such as: Team: - Org structure: Team versus reporting structures - Implications of a perpetual seller's market - Performance Management of engineers - Progression management (inc a reference career ladder) - Best practices for managing promotions and comp changes equitably and transparently - People manager vs tech path and how to manage crossers - Recruiting and grooming engineering and product leaders - Managing diversity - Team culture - what to care about Product: - A step-by-step product strategy and roadmapping process - How to implement an effective quarterly product planning process - How to hire great product managers - Design sprint process (my abridged version) - SaaS Pricing Process: - How to do OKRs in Engineering and Product - Roadmap capacity planning - Engineering productivity and how to manage it - Ways to manage remote engineers - Ways to make offshore outsourcing work in a startup Relationships: Managing your CEO, the board and the peer relationships (Sales, Marketing, Product, Support, Customer Success etc) Career development: Navigating your career as a startup CTO, with an eye on your shelf life.