Romain Cochet

1. SO, YOU WANNA BE A CTO ?
ROMAIN COCHET / @COCHET

2. ROMAIN COCHET, CTO

5. WHAT DOES IT MEANS
TO BE A CTO OF AN
IOT STARTUP ?

6. CTO OF AN IOT STARTUP
You have to build a connected object, but you
don’t know exactly how yet. Then you want to
sell it, but you are not exactly sure who will buy
it, why, for what price and what will be their
favorite color.

7. CTO OF AN IOT STARTUP
You have to build a connected object, but you
don’t know exactly how yet. Then you want to
sell it, but you are not exactly sure who will buy
it, why, for what price and what will be their
favorite color.

8. CTO OF AN IOT STARTUP
You have to build a connected object, but you
don’t know exactly how yet. Then you want to
sell it, but you are not exactly sure who will buy
it, why, for what price and what will be their
favorite color.

9. CTO OF AN IOT STARTUP
You have to build a connected object, but you
don’t know exactly how yet. Then you want to
sell it, but you are not exactly sure who will buy
it, why, for what price and what will be their
favorite color.

10. CTO OF AN IOT STARTUP
You have to build a connected object, but you
don’t know exactly how yet. Then you want to
sell it, but you are not exactly sure who will buy
it, why, for what price and what will be their
favorite color.

11. CTO OF AN IOT STARTUP
You have to build a connected object, but you
don’t know exactly how yet. Then you want to
sell it, but you are not exactly sure who will buy
it, why, for what price and what will be their
favorite color.

13. IOT STARTUP, PROBLEM
What business? CEO
What object? DESIGNER
How to make it? CTO

14. IOT STARTUP, PROBLEM
What business? CEO
What object? DESIGNER
How to make it? CTO

15. SMIIRL FOUNDERS
CEO : Gauthier Nadaud
DESIGNER : Raphael Pluvinage
CTO : Romain Cochet

16. STORY OF AN IOT STARTUP
1. PROTOTYPE & ITERATE
2. HELLO WORLD
3. SHIP FIRST CUSTOMERS
4. SCALE

17. 1. PROTOTYPE & ITERATE

18. QUESTIONS
What object?
What is the selling price?
Is it useful?
Is there a real market for that?

19. HOW TO ANSWER
FAKE IT
GO AS FAST POSSIBLE
DO IT SIMPLE
QUICK & DIRTY
TEST WITH FEW PEOPLE

21. HOW DOES THE CTO FEEL
Code quickly, prototype, doesn’t sleep,
learn a lot of tricks to go quick.
This is exciting!

22. 2. HELLO WORLD

23. QUESTIONS
Are we able to manufacture this
object for the selling price/4?
How the world will react to our product?
Do we have a real market?

24. HOW TO ANSWER
Kickstarter / Pre-Order
Collect orders, funds, feedbacks.
Test the price at a higher scale.
Get rough quotations but manufacturers.

26. HOW DOES THE CTO FEEL
Taking big responsibilities on cost estimations.
Feel like a star.
Have the biggest todolist ever.

27. 3. SHIP FIRST CUSTOMERS

28. QUESTIONS
Why I don’t still have a life ?
Why is it so hard to transform
a prototype into a product ?
How to manufacture my first products ?

29. HOW TO ANSWER
Setup a manufacturing process.
Get into ALL details.
Courage, coffee & endurance.

31. HOW DOES THE CTO FEEL
Trying to make a 3 meters high castle of cards.
Exhausted.
Learning a lot of things about things.

32. 4. SCALE

33. QUESTIONS
Is it the end?
How to scale manufacturing?

34. HOW TO ANSWER
Setup a manufacturing process.
Get into ALL details.
Courage, coffee & endurance.

36. HOW DOES THE CTO FEEL
You are becoming a manager.
Recruit a team.
Find manufacturing partners.

37. SO, WHAT’S THE JOB?

38. MAKE IT

39. STORY OF AN IOT PRODUCT
Brand / Ecommerce / Dashboard.
Mobile App / User’s Website.
Back-end Servers.
OS & Firmware.
Electronic.
Atoms.

40. BRAND / ECOMMERCE / DASHBOARD

41. PURPOSE
You need a place to be visible, where the
customer can buy your device.

43. HASHTAGS
#e-commerce
#web
#front-end
#framework

44. MOBILE APP / USER’S WEBSITE

45. PURPOSE
You have an object to manage. So you want an
build a custom interface to interact with.
You want to do a mobile application ?

47. HASHTAGS
#ios + android
#responsive
#framework
#python / #php / #nodejs …
#databases

48. BACK-END SERVERS

49. PURPOSE
Now, your object will be interacting with your
servers. Hopefully you will have 100k working in
real-time in the world. 24/24h.

51. HASHTAGS
#rest
#api
#websocket
#networking
#AWS

52. OS & FIRMWARE

53. PURPOSE
Now we are in the device. We need an OS
working in a embedded system.
Have you ever take care of your code memory
usage? Speed? Interactions with OS?

55. HASHTAGS
#linux
#C
#lua #python #sh
#firmware

56. ELECTRONIC

57. PURPOSE
OS is running on hardware. You are also
responsible for this. Have you ever made a PCB?
Sorry, most of the time Arduino & Raspberry pi
is not the solution.

59. HASHTAGS
#PCB
#Schematic
#EMC
#Certifications
#Wifi #Bluetooth

60. ATOMS

61. PURPOSE
Now, you have to put everything in a box. In a
nice box. With a lot of constraints. It is easy to
design, hard to design for manufacturing.
Sorry, 3D printing is not the solution.

63. HASHTAGS
#PCB
#Schematic
#EMC
#Certifications
#Wifi #Bluetooth

64. BONUS

65. By the way, you also have to manage the
assembly, shipping, quality tests, customer
service.
On a human level, you also manage developers,
partners, customers.

66. img : enought

67. HASHTAGS
#PCB
#Schematic
#EMC
#Certifications
#Wifi #Bluetooth

68. THIS

69. IS

70. THE

71. BEST

72. JOB

73. EVER

74. (IF YOU ARE PREPARED FOR IT)

75. SO, YOU WANNA BE A CTO ?
ROMAIN COCHET / @COCHET