What Kind of Technical Help Does Your Startup Actually Need?

The question isn't "how do I find a developer?"

The question is: what kind of technical help do you actually need right now?

Non-technical founders treat "finding a developer" as one problem. It's actually four different problems with four different solutions—and picking the wrong one costs you $30,000 and six months you can't get back.

This guide helps you diagnose which problem you have. Once you know that, finding the right person becomes straightforward.

The four stages (and what each one needs)

Stage 1: You have an idea but no validation

Signs you're here:

• You haven't talked to 30+ potential customers yet

• Nobody has paid you anything (deposits, pre-orders, or subscriptions)

• The solution excites you, but you haven't deeply understood the problem

• You're thinking about features before confirming anyone wants them

Your real problem: You don't need a developer. You need proof that customers will pay for what you're building.

What to do instead of hiring:

1. Talk to 30 potential customers. Not friends. Not family. Real people who have the problem you think you're solving. Ask about their current solutions, what frustrates them, and what they've already tried.

2. Get 5-10 people to pay something. A $50 deposit. A $100 pre-order. A letter of intent from a business customer. Payment is the only validation that matters.

3. Build with no-code first. Bubble, Webflow, Glide, Airtable—these tools can test most product concepts without custom code. If your idea can't be tested with no-code, simplify the idea.

4. Run the manual version. Zappos bought shoes from local stores and shipped them manually before building inventory systems. Do things that don't scale to prove the model works before automating.

The cost of skipping this: Many founders at this stage waste $20,000-50,000 building something nobody wants. Validation takes 4-8 weeks and costs almost nothing. Custom development takes 3-6 months and costs tens of thousands.

When you're ready to move on: You have paying customers, a waitlist with deposits, or strong written commitments from buyers. Not interest—commitment.

---

Stage 2: You have validation but no product

Signs you're here:

• You've talked to customers and confirmed real demand

• People are paying (or have committed to pay) for your solution

• You've pushed no-code tools to their limits

• You know exactly what you need to build first

Your real problem: You need someone to build your MVP (minimum viable product) quickly and affordably.

Your options:

Option	Best for	Budget	Timeline
Freelancer	Clear scope, hands-on founder	$15,000-50,000	2-4 months
Development agency	Complex builds, hands-off founder	$50,000-150,000	3-6 months
No-code + technical support	Simple products, tight budget	$5,000-20,000	1-3 months

Key decision: How involved do you want to be?

• High involvement → Freelancer. You manage the project, communicate daily, make decisions quickly. Cheaper but requires more of your time.

• Low involvement → Agency. You hand off execution and check in weekly. More expensive but frees your time for sales and customers.

• Hybrid → No-code with a technical advisor. You build the core product yourself; hire help for the parts that require custom code.

The trap to avoid: Hiring a full-time developer at this stage. You don't have enough work to keep them busy, you can't evaluate their skills, and you're committing $150,000+/year before you know if the product will work.

When you're ready to move on: You have a working MVP, real users, and evidence that people will pay for it.

---

Stage 3: You have a product but it's struggling

Signs you're here:

• Features take much longer than promised

• "Simple changes" turn into multi-week projects

• You suspect the code is messy but can't prove it

• Your developers seem busy but progress feels slow

• You're about to raise funding and investors are asking technical questions you can't answer

Your real problem: You need better technical leadership, not more developers.

The diagnostic question: Is the problem your team or your technical direction?

Signs you need a fractional CTO:

• You have developers but no one making architecture decisions

• You're managing technical people but don't understand what they're doing

• Technical debt (accumulated shortcuts in the code) is slowing everything down

• You need someone to interview developers because you can't evaluate them

What a fractional CTO provides:

• Evaluates your current code and team

• Makes architecture decisions that prevent expensive rewrites later

• Interviews and hires developers for you

• Translates between technical and business concerns

• Provides due diligence for fundraising

Fractional CTO costs: $5,000-15,000/month ($200-500/hour). That's $60,000-180,000/year vs. $300,000+ for a full-time CTO.

The math that matters: A fractional CTO for three months ($15,000-45,000) can identify whether the problem is your team or your technical direction. That diagnosis alone can save you from a six-figure mistake.

Signs you need to replace your team instead:

• Communication is consistently poor despite clear feedback

• They miss deadlines without explanation

• Quality issues persist after multiple conversations

• The relationship feels adversarial rather than collaborative

When you're ready to move on: You have technical leadership you trust, a team that delivers reliably, and a product that's growing.

---

Stage 4: You have traction and need to scale

Signs you're here:

• Revenue is growing and you need to ship faster

• Your freelancer or agency relationship is maxed out

• You have 12+ months of runway

• You need people who are deeply invested in your company's success

Your real problem: You need people with skin in the game. Freelancers ship features. Owners ship products.

Your options:

Option	Cost	Equity	Best for
Full-time developer	$150,000-200,000/year	0.1-1%	Execution capacity
Technical co-founder	$0 salary	10-30%	Strategic partnership
Full-time CTO	$200,000-300,000/year	1-5%	Technical leadership + execution

The technical co-founder question:

At this stage, you have something most technical co-founders want: traction. You're no longer asking someone to take a risk on an unvalidated idea. You're offering a partnership in something that's working.

Signs a technical co-founder makes sense:

• Technology is your core differentiator (not just an enabler)

• You need someone who thinks strategically about the product, not just executes

• You're building something where the tech itself is the moat, not just a delivery mechanism

• You're willing to give significant equity (15-30%) for the right person

Signs you just need to hire:

• You need more hands to execute a known roadmap

• Your tech stack is standard—SaaS, marketplace, or e-commerce

• You already have technical leadership through a fractional CTO or advisor

• You want to preserve equity for fundraising

The sequencing that works (and almost nobody follows): Hire a fractional CTO first to help you build your technical hiring process. Then hire your first full-time developer. Then, if needed, convert the fractional CTO to full-time or have them recruit a permanent technical leader.

The decision flowchart

Start here: Have customers paid you for your product?

• No → You're at Stage 1. Stop looking for a developer. Start validating.

• Yes, but I don't have a product yet → You're at Stage 2. Hire a freelancer or agency to build your MVP.

• Yes, I have a product, but something feels broken → You're at Stage 3. Consider a fractional CTO before hiring more developers.

• Yes, and we're growing but need to ship faster → You're at Stage 4. Time for full-time hires or a technical co-founder.

The expensive mistakes to avoid

Mistake 1: Hiring before validating

Cost: $30,000-100,000 and 6 months building something nobody wants.

Fix: Validate with customers before you write any code.

Mistake 2: Hiring full-time too early

Cost: $150,000+/year for someone you can't keep busy or properly evaluate.

Fix: Use freelancers or agencies until you have consistent work and can evaluate quality.

Mistake 3: Adding developers when you need leadership

Cost: More people making the same mistakes faster.

Fix: Hire technical oversight (fractional CTO) before you scale a dysfunctional team.

Mistake 4: Giving co-founder equity for employee-level work

Cost: 15-30% of your company for someone who's really a senior developer.

Fix: Be honest about what you need—execution or strategy—and structure the relationship accordingly.

What to do next

Now that you know what kind of help you need, you're ready to find the right person.

If you're at Stage 2, 3, or 4, the next step is learning how to evaluate and hire developers without technical knowledge. That means knowing where to look, what questions to ask, and how to run a trial project that reveals real skill.

That's a different skill than diagnosing what you need—and it's covered in the companion guides:

How to Find and Hire a Developer for Your Startup — The tactical playbook for sourcing, evaluating, and hiring.

5 Hiring Mistakes That Sink Non-Technical Founders — The expensive errors to avoid (and how to avoid them).

But don't skip ahead until you're clear on which problem you're solving. The most expensive hiring mistake isn't picking the wrong person—it's solving the wrong problem.