I'm actually not sure who the OP is... I'm the author of the article. Came here to post it myself and saw that it was already here. (You can see that my username matches the username the article links to on twitter, @entreprenewer)
> Are you looking for someone to select the tools and the way those tools work together to meet your goals? Then they might not want to see an already built product.
That pretty much nails it for me... So, if that's the case, what do you think my best course of action would be to find a dev ops guy?
Hmm... what's the best place to meet technical advisors? Are these just friends, or would they want some form of compensation, assuming they just advice and don't have to stand in as CTO, maybe just do interviews...
1.) Definitely pay them. There's a lot of reasons for this, but most importantly, much like you pay a lawyer to be your most vocal and aggressive advocate, your virtual CTO is the person who has your company's back. His job is to provide you with good advice, vetting other technical staff and work, understand business climate and where your position is in the market, as well as augment your vision for your company.
2.) use them where its appropriate. The right person (or sometimes a firm) isn't going to be cheap—you're looking for the proverbial unicorn. Don't waste the budget having them work on perfecting CSS. When you have them working on code, have them build a foundation and show other team members how to leverage it. What you're paying for is their knowledge and experience. Have them review code, provide feedback, make sure you're getting your money's worth out of an outsourced team. Let them give you advice when you need it (and most importantly, take the advice! I can't tell you how many clients pay a lot of money for the advice then throw it out the window.)
3.) if you have a friend who can fill the role, that's great, but don't trust their technical skills just because they're a friend and will talk to you over beers. Advice is very much a get-what-you-pay-for kind of thing.
I usually bill hourly, but sometimes as a day rate, almost always with a retainer that we bill against.
Typically, having a full-time CTO is the "ideal" situation. For a company who can't afford a full-time CTO, however, having a virtual CTO means that they get access wealth of experience that they'd otherwise never be able to afford. A startup who's business is based on technology in any meaningful way absolutely needs someone to fill that role—you can't (or shouldn't) just trust that a run-of-the-mill contractor is going to deliver what you think you're getting, and you probably aren't qualified to determine whether they are or not. This is the main reason outsourced projects end badly. Having a virtual CTO isn't as good as having a technical cofounder, but its a damn sight better than having no technical members on the team at all.
I used to consult as a technical advisor (compensated). This is something that bigger companies use, but that smaller teams should look into. It provides insight into what the technology might look like or evolve into. A lot of times founders/engineers don't get the luxury of having someone more experience providing feedback. It never hurts, and usually helps discover issues that were not thought out. Issues that tend to be nails in the coffin.
How do you advertise that you are interested in becoming a technical advisor? I see people ask for help at meet ups. I usually give them a few minutes of advice. Any resources to explain how to forge a proper advisor role?
I would advise finding some local meetups for startup-focused technologies (Ruby, Python, Javascript) and look there.
If you can find a local community for startups too, I would advise going to the meetups and see who's interested. You may even find the CTO you're looking for there.
Hmm... I guess it could check, and if it's down, automatically check again in 5 mins to confirm. Or, you could turn it off at certain times, such as 9 pm to 6 am lets say...
