29: How to Scale a Developer-First Startup with Daniel Jarjoura

Join The CTO Playbook Slack Community to connect with other CTOs!

Daniel Jarjoura is the Managing Director at Avolta, specializing in helping engineering-led companies prepare for mergers and acquisitions.

In this episode, you'll learn the importance of building products that solve broad problems for developers, how to use open source as a growth tool while monetizing through premium services, why GitHub metrics can help predict future success, how to scale from a developer-led market to enterprise sales, and the 18-24 month process to plan for a successful M&A exit.

Daniel Jarjoura specializes in 'developer-first' companies, open source, AI, cloud, infrastructure and cybersecurity. Prior to his current role, Daniel served as a CTO advisor for four years and founded The Unicorn CTO, a community and leadership training program dedicated to CTOs. A software engineer by training, Daniel began his career managing tech, product and support teams before transitioning into entrepreneurship. Over the last 12 years, he launched two companies: Startup42, one of France’s first tech startup accelerators, and H2 Innovate, an innovative platform offering on-demand expertise. Additionally, Daniel founded and directed the entrepreneurship department at EPITA, a leading software engineering school in France, for ten years.

Timestamps:

[00:00] Introduction

[05:00] Startup42: A tech startup accelerator for engineers

[07:00] Challenges faced by engineer-led startups

[09:00] Business model for Startup42

[12:05] Lessons learned when transitioning to a second company

[14:00] Shifting towards advisory work for CTOs and developers

[16:00] Due diligence and M&A transactions in small cap companies

[19:00] The importance of scaling to enterprise sales

[21:10] Developer-first companies and the importance of solving broad problems

[24:00] Evaluating market demand and finding alternatives

[26:10] The difference between developer-first and VC-compatible companies

[29:00] How to determine if your company is ready for VC funding

[31:00] Open source as a tool for growth

[36:05] The evolution of open source and its business model

[39:00] The challenges of scaling developer-first companies

[42:00] How to approach sales in a developer-first startup

[44:30] Scaling from selling to developers to selling to enterprises

[47:00] How cultural differences affect sales strategies in the US and Europe

[50:00] How to position your company for an exit

[52:00] The importance of getting noticed by the right acquirers

[54:10] Strategies for attracting M&A attention

[56:00] The 18-24 month preparation for a successful M&A exit

Connect with Daniel on LinkedIn

Resources Mentioned:

The Unicorn CTO | Website

GitHub | Website

GitLab | Website

MongoDB | Website

AngelList | Website

Datadog | Website

H2 Innovate | Website

Startup42 | LinkedIn

EPITA | Website

Find more from Adam on LinkedIn and YouTube and check out Adam's CTO coaching company Synova Tech.