If you want insights into building a tech unicorn, the chief technology officer (CTO) is your best source.
At TechSparks Bengaluru 2024, in a hall buzzing with tech enthusiasts, Ajit Narayanan, Chief Technology and Product Officer (CTPO) of Licious; Krishnendu Majumdar, Chief Product and Technology Officer (CPTO) of Yubi; and Madhusudhan Rao, CTO of Swiggy, underscored the critical role of finding the right technology partner for a startup’s growth.
The CTO should know when to over-engineer or simplify, and how to make smart tech investments to keep businesses evolving in today’s fast-paced landscape.
“If you do not have a technological mind in the leadership, you will end up making mistakes… and the partner that you need to identify should be somebody who understands business and product deeply,” Narayanan said in a panel discussion moderated by YourStory Founder and CEO Shradha Sharma.
“If you don’t know whether your business is going to scale, there is no need to build for that scalability right from day one. That’s over-engineering. You need to know when to over-engineer and when to under-engineer,” he added.
Narayanan emphasised that a CTO must be aware of a business’s shifting tech needs. Otherwise, the company risks using outdated technology stacks that are hard to upgrade, slowing down growth and creating a competitive disadvantage.
Majumdar of Yubi added that it’s crucial to invest in newer technologies as every tech architecture has a limited shelf life. This is important because technology enables non-linear scaling of a business.
Rao emphasised that the person leading the tech team must possess sound judgement, balancing how much, when, and where to invest. Additionally, it’s essential that the CTO has a voice at the decision-making table.
Be curious, keep learning
Majumdar believes that startups in India need to step up their game from an engineering perspective. “It’s not about having a huge army of engineers to work on things all the time. Have a boundaryless mindset,” he advised.
According to Majumdar, engineers should be “super curious,” with nothing outside their realm of inquiry. As engineers, they must be multi-skilled, respecting every skill and technology available to them. They should focus on building resilient and scalable solutions that leverage AI to solve problems differently from practices used over the last decade.
“Having an engineer understand the problem better, as opposed to the solution aspects, is a more likely fit in a fast-growing business… It’s just that in a fast-growing enterprise… probably an engineer who has a solution mindset will grow faster and may not hit the ceiling,” Narayanan added.
Swiggy’s Rao stressed the importance of being super curious and continually learning, as this will help engineers understand the business problems at hand.
“Understanding the problems for the space you are in, the company you are in, and solving for that, because the moment you start doing it, you will actually create a lot of impact in any company that you are in, and that will just accelerate your growth,” Rao added.
Think about business problem
Narayanan believes that the approach to building a business should prioritise the business problem rather than focusing on technology.
Once the business problem is identified, the next steps involve determining the solution, defining the product-market fit, testing the hypothesis, and implementing the technology that effectively drives progress toward the goals, according to him.
“Let not technology drive your business, but rather let business drive your technology. And that is not only just true for the initial phases of the business,” he added.
