Alan Heppenstall

Founder, father, technologist

CTO Archetypes

October 26, 2025

I've been a startup CTO for over 10 years going from building the first product as a team of two with my cofounder, up to 8 figures of revenue and an overall team size of over 100. In that time, my title has remained the same, but the role has changed radically, and not in a linear fashion; the CTO the company *needs* at any given time has been wildly variable.

One question that I keep asking myself whilst I'm on the journey is: "What is the role of a CTO?"...