Doménica Obando, Talently | How to Recruit a CTO, and How to Raise a Seed Round [Ep. 3]

The audio and video are in Spanish. These notes are a translation.

Working at a startup is sexy! Much more fun, and with greater learning, than working at a large corporation. But it usually means sacrificing salary and benefits to do it. For that reason, a startup’s ability to attract talent is KEY, even more so when recruiting a CTO. To talk about this topic, we invited Doménica Obando, CEO and cofounder of Talently.

Talently is the startup that trains Latin American software developers to help them get remote jobs at technology companies around the world. Talently has gone through accelerators such as UTEC Ventures in Peru and 500 Startups in Mexico.

What You Can Learn Today

Process for recruiting a CTO
Fundraising at the seed stage
Building a remote culture

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Doménica’s Start in Entrepreneurship

[1:32] - How did Doménica arrive at the fascinating world of startups?
- Internships in order to connect with the entrepreneurship ecosystem

Recruiting a CTO

[4:21] - Tech talent within the Latin American entrepreneurial ecosystem
- Is starting a technology company sexy for a CTO?
[6:17] - Being a CEO with a business background in LatAm
- The hunting ability to recruit a CTO and tech talent
[8:10] - Doménica’s experience recruiting her CTO
- What is traditional hunting?
- The stages of Doménica’s hunting
[9:59] - How do you find a CTO?
- Thinking of a key long-term partner
- Exploration in the tech world
[14:37] - Other alternatives to a CTO
[16:35] - Remote culture
- The relevance of mindset in founders
- Ownership and OKRs within the team
- The role of communication in remote culture

Fundraising

[20:12] - The differences between raising a seed round and applying to an accelerator
[22:15] - Doménica’s experience raising a seed round
- What not to do in your first seed round?
- Pitching in order to learn
- The small wins: angel investors
[25:47] - Talently’s learning for raising a fund
- Selling not only dreams, but also results
- Strengthening the mindset for raising capital

Future of Talently and Edtech in LatAm

[29:53] - The future of Talently
- Insert 1,000 tech talents into the world
- Raise more capital?
[32:48] - The Edtech world in LatAm
- The role of SaaS in the Edtech market
- The tech careers that are needed in LatAm
- Up skilling or credentialing for tech talent?

Tweet Round

[35:29] -
- Recommended books: The Great CEO Within: The Tactical Guide to Company Building
- Talently’s best investor: the one who feels most committed to the mission
- A change in the world of startups: bad practices and the ego of investors and entrepreneurs
- The best entrepreneur: the one who truly wants to solve the problem