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๐—ช๐—ต๐—ฒ๐—ป ๐˜€๐—ต๐—ผ๐˜‚๐—น๐—ฑ ๐—œ ๐˜€๐˜๐—ฒ๐—ฝ ๐—ฏ๐—ฎ๐—ฐ๐—ธ ๐—ณ๐—ฟ๐—ผ๐—บ ๐—ฐ๐—ผ๐—ฑ๐—ถ๐—ป๐—ด?

  • Writer: Kjell Moens
    Kjell Moens
  • Jul 24
  • 1 min read

Updated: 2 days ago

๐˜–๐˜ณ๐˜จ๐˜ข๐˜ฏ๐˜ช๐˜ด๐˜ข๐˜ต๐˜ช๐˜ฐ๐˜ฏ๐˜ข๐˜ญ ๐˜š๐˜ค๐˜ข๐˜ญ๐˜ช๐˜ฏ๐˜จ ๐˜ข๐˜ฏ๐˜ฅ ๐˜“๐˜ฆ๐˜ข๐˜ฅ๐˜ฆ๐˜ณ๐˜ด๐˜ฉ๐˜ช๐˜ฑ ๐˜ด๐˜ฆ๐˜ณ๐˜ช๐˜ฆ๐˜ด

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This question came from a founder-CTO last week


They'd built the first version of their product.ย 

Led a team of 3 engineers to Series A.ย 

But now at 15 people, they were coding 60+ hours a week and still felt behind.


The painful reality: ๐—ง๐—ต๐—ฒ๐˜†'๐—ฑ ๐—ฏ๐—ฒ๐—ฐ๐—ผ๐—บ๐—ฒ ๐˜๐—ต๐—ฒ ๐—ฏ๐—ผ๐˜๐˜๐—น๐—ฒ๐—ป๐—ฒ๐—ฐ๐—ธ ๐˜๐—ต๐—ฒ๐˜† ๐˜„๐—ฒ๐—ฟ๐—ฒ ๐˜๐—ฟ๐˜†๐—ถ๐—ป๐—ด ๐˜๐—ผ ๐˜€๐—ผ๐—น๐˜ƒ๐—ฒ.


Here's the transition every technical founder faces:

โ†’ ๐—œ๐—ป๐—ฑ๐—ถ๐˜ƒ๐—ถ๐—ฑ๐˜‚๐—ฎ๐—น ๐—–๐—ผ๐—ป๐˜๐—ฟ๐—ถ๐—ฏ๐˜‚๐˜๐—ผ๐—ฟ: You write the codeย 

โ†’ ๐— ๐—ฎ๐—ป๐—ฎ๐—ด๐—ฒ๐—ฟ: You enable others to write codeย 

โ†’ ๐—ฆ๐˜๐—ฟ๐—ฎ๐˜๐—ฒ๐—ด๐—ถ๐—ฐ ๐—Ÿ๐—ฒ๐—ฎ๐—ฑ๐—ฒ๐—ฟ: You enable others to write better code


The hardest part isn't learning new skills.


It's accepting that your value has shifted from ๐˜ด๐˜ฐ๐˜ญ๐˜ท๐˜ช๐˜ฏ๐˜จ ๐˜ฑ๐˜ณ๐˜ฐ๐˜ฃ๐˜ญ๐˜ฆ๐˜ฎ๐˜ด ๐˜ฅ๐˜ช๐˜ณ๐˜ฆ๐˜ค๐˜ต๐˜ญ๐˜บ to ๐˜ฎ๐˜ถ๐˜ญ๐˜ต๐˜ช๐˜ฑ๐˜ญ๐˜บ๐˜ช๐˜ฏ๐˜จ ๐˜ฑ๐˜ณ๐˜ฐ๐˜ฃ๐˜ญ๐˜ฆ๐˜ฎ-๐˜ด๐˜ฐ๐˜ญ๐˜ท๐˜ช๐˜ฏ๐˜จ ๐˜ค๐˜ข๐˜ฑ๐˜ข๐˜ค๐˜ช๐˜ต๐˜บ.


Most founder-CTOs resist this transition because:

โ€ข It feels like stepping away from "real work"

โ€ข They're faster at coding than explaining

โ€ข Technical decisions feel too important to delegate


But here's what I've learned working with scale-ups:

๐Ÿง  ๐—ฌ๐—ผ๐˜‚๐—ฟ ๐—ฐ๐—ผ๐—ฑ๐—ฒ ๐˜€๐—ฐ๐—ฎ๐—น๐—ฒ๐˜€ ๐—น๐—ถ๐—ป๐—ฒ๐—ฎ๐—ฟ๐—น๐˜†. ๐—ฌ๐—ผ๐˜‚๐—ฟ ๐—ฑ๐—ฒ๐—ฐ๐—ถ๐˜€๐—ถ๐—ผ๐—ป๐˜€ ๐˜€๐—ฐ๐—ฎ๐—น๐—ฒ ๐—ฒ๐˜…๐—ฝ๐—ผ๐—ป๐—ฒ๐—ป๐˜๐—ถ๐—ฎ๐—น๐—น๐˜†.


The moment you stop coding everything is the moment your team starts building everything.

You donโ€™t scale by doing more.

You scale by designing a system that does more โ€” without you.


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