Austin CTO Club
In June of 2025 the Austin CTO Club celebrates its one-year anniversary! That means it’s time to share how we got here and what we’ve learned.
The Group That Wasn’t There #
A CTO occupies a lonely role. Perhaps not so much as CEO, but difficult nonetheless. And the scope is broad. At a minimum you must understand technology, product, management, and business. Often you are considered far from the money, making you an ugly duckling of the C-Suite. You rarely have a peer in your organization. You need someone who understands your problems.
In May of 2024 I looked around for a CTO peer group in Austin, hoping to share insights into the problems we have in common. It wasn’t there.
There were dinners focused on CTOs, typically put on by recruiting firms or development shops gathering potential buyers in a room. The ones I attended were fun and introduced me to great people. The organizers did well to keep sales out of the picture and focus on the relationships. But these more formal settings constrained the engagement and generated only limited discussion of CTO problems.
When I arrived in Austin in 2015 I participated in the Austin Technology Leaders group that Douglas Ferguson ran. We sat around in a circle at Capital Factory and discussed whatever topics people offered in the meeting. This was a great introduction to technical leaders in Austin.
Earlier, in New York City, I frequented Jean Barmash’s CTO School. The early meetings were small group discussions around a table. Later they were formal presentations and networking with a larger crowd. They were lively and fun across these formats. And Jean provided very helpful guidance as I made my plans for Austin.
I also participated in the excellent lean coffee meetings that put Jonathan Hansen organized for NYC Lean/Kanban. These events had impressive engagement.
These experiences contributed heavily to the Austin CTO Club launch.
What’s In A Name? #
A brainstorming session with some like-minded friends raised a number of basic questions:
- What format makes sense?
- Where should we host it?
- Who will sponsor?
- Who may join?
- How do people register?
- Should we charge attendees?
Many good ideas came out of this session, though little was fully settled. However, we did select the name Austin CTO Club.
None of us knew at the time that there were CTO Clubs scattered across the country. Since then I’ve connected with organizers of clubs in New York, Miami, DC, Chicago, and Atlanta. Our chosen name drove many of those connections.
Simple Engagement #
The first meeting in June 2024 was really a “What do we do with this group?” session. We had 18 attendees, which demonstrated that there was interest. A number of those attendees have become regulars. And in a stroke of serendipity, the venue we found for this planning meeting became our regular home.
Several key insights came out of that initial meeting:
- It must remain simple.
- Each meeting needs a theme.
- We need explicit attendance criteria.
The question of arranging speakers arose then, and periodically resurfaces. Most of the other clubs reportedly organize their meetings around speaker presentations. It seemed like a lot of work: organizing speakers, setting up a venue to accommodate presentations, handling the inevitable absence of a scheduled speaker, etc. Not simple.
The simple, participatory approach of Lean Coffee had more appeal. So far it has served us well. Setting a theme each month bounds the discussion. Under the theme, attendees offer whatever topics they like. And although the group seems too large for a single Lean Coffee discussion, we’ve managed to pull it off with high engagement.
We recently tried having a lightning talk in advance of the Lean Coffee, and it worked well to frame the discussion.
Complex Judgement #
There are explicit attendance criteria:
- Senior technical role (exact title may depend on org size)
- Manager of a team
- Experience in hiring and firing
- Client-facing aspect to role (i.e. your role extends beyond pure tech)
I normally ask people how these criteria map onto their last round of team management. It provides some background on the prospective member and also helps determine whether the group is a good fit for them.
People from two groups routinely ask to join and get rejected: Vendors who view members as prospective buyers, and those who aspire to the CTO role but are not there yet. This is the most difficult part of organizing, because CTO is a very broad category.
What about Fractional CTOs? What about the CTO at a development shop? What about the Team Lead who recently stepped into a CTO role? What about the start-up CTO with a team of three people? What about people who have moved into adjacent roles in Product or Operations? What about the former CTO turned advisor or investor? Judgement applies at every margin.
A Network Of Clubs #
Organizers of some other CTO Clubs contacted me after the Austin CTO Club launched. Now I know where to send people in other cities. You can find a short list on the CTO Clubs Network home page. I hope that page will make it easier to find the club near you. The Austin CTO Club even has its own website!
Some Lessons #
The monthly meetings for Austin CTO Club are rich in perspective, and full of learning opportunity. Organizing the club has also taught me a number of lessons about running the group, presented here in no particular order:
Venue Matters #
We have a wonderful venue, on a high floor downtown with a commanding view of Austin. Attendees enjoy it a lot, and it matters to to them more than I expected. Also, book the room for the evening and avoid a hard stop at the end of the scheduled time. Lots of our attendees stay late and continue the conversation.
Succinct Themes Work #
Paragraph-length theme suggestions are not uncommon. Taking the time to distill them into a single punchy phrase helps catch people’s interest.
Introductions After Topics #
We usually run 25-30% new attendees and the rest returning. A quick round of introductions helps people connect. Brainstorming topics before introductions lowers inhibitions in topic creation, as compared with the reverse order.
Everyone Loves A Givaway #
The meeting-branded Yeti mug we raffle off at the end of the meeting is very popular.
Solid Sponsorship Is Key #
Putting on these meetings incurs a number of costs: a pro subscription to Meetup, food, drink, parking, supplies, and significant organizer time. Having a solid sponsor makes all the difference. We are fortunate to have ongoing support from our amazing sponsor Coltech.
Benefits #
There is no shortage of personality or opinion in a room like ours. As organizer I attend every event, and all of that perspective is eye opening. Each meeting brings up angles on a topic that never occurred to me before. The networking opportunity is first rate. And it’s in person, so you get a full sense of your peers. Our attendees are great people, and that’s what make it work so well. If you are a senior technology leader in Austin, you should join us!
Finding Us #
Interested in learning more about the Austin CTO Club? Find us here: