The CPTO Role Gets Trashed, But the Problem It Tries to Fix Is a Goldmine for Builders

I read Jason Lemkin’s take on the Chief Product & Technology Officer over on SaaStr, and he doesn’t mince words. CPTOs? They’re neither product nor tech, they do nothing, and they fail 95% of the time. And I think he’s mostly right. The “one throat to choke” fantasy usually chokes the company instead.

But here’s what I can’t stop thinking about: if the role is so broken, why is it becoming popular? Why are B2B companies north of $100M ARR suddenly slapping this title on an executive? Lemkin nails the symptoms — absentee leadership, strategic layer bloat, a CEO who’s checked out. But digging into our own data, I see signs of a deeper cause. And it’s actually good news for anyone building in this space.

The problem isn’t just that product and engineering leaders don’t align. The problem is that alignment is genuinely hard. How hard? We’ve tracked 47 distinct problems in SaaS product development that stem from this rift, with an average severity score of 3.8 out of 5. This isn’t abstract org-chart friction. It’s missed deadlines, customer churn, features that land with a thud. It’s the stuff that makes a $150M company panic.

Lemkin says the cure is two strong, distinct leaders: a hands-on VP of Product and a technical CTO. He’s right — for now. But our data suggests that even with those roles filled, the pain persists. Frontline managers and ICs routinely report fragmented feedback loops, technical roadmap disputes, and AI integration stalling because no one knows who’s really in charge of the build. The CPTO role is a bad patch for a very real problem, and that problem isn’t going away.

The 12 App Ideas That Prove This Space Is Ripe

Here’s the part that should make indie hackers lean in: from those 47 pain points, we’ve already generated 12 app ideas. These aren’t vague concepts — they’re practical solutions to specific breakdowns. Think unified roadmapping tools that sync product vision with engineering sprints without the need for a monthly offsite. AI-assisted code review systems that surface customer feedback alongside pull requests. Automated pipelines that turn support tickets into prioritized dev tasks.

One of the most promising ideas we’ve seen is a “living roadmap” tool that connects directly to both customer-facing product boards and internal Jira tickets, so everyone sees the same priorities without a CPTO to translate. Another is an engineering impact dashboard that measures shipped features against churn reduction — so a VP of Engineering can prove technical decisions with product data, and a VP of Product can tie customer requests to code commits. These tools don’t replace someone with dual expertise; they make two separate roles work like one.

Lemkin warns that hiring a CPTO in the age of AI is suicide. I’d argue the opposite: the age of AI makes the underlying problem more solvable. The same AI that demands faster shipping also enables lightweight, automated collaboration that used to require a full-time executive. Builders who nail this intersection won’t just fill a gap — they’ll define how product and engineering teams function at scale.

The $200B Opportunity Hiding in Plain Sight

Seed investors are already smelling this. When we look at the broader data — 23,512 real-world operational problems across 88 industries — a pattern emerges: the most severe pain points aren’t at the strategy level, they’re in the daily fray. Lemkin says the CEO can’t outsource product involvement, and he’s right. But that means there’s a massive market for tools that keep leaders connected without drowning them.

The messaging is clear: the CPTO title might be a flag, but the gap it flags is bankable. Every failed CPTO hire is a signal that a company desperately needed a better way to align product and engineering. For indie hackers, those signals are live-demo'd user pain. For seed investors, they’re due diligence already done. The next big SaaS product won’t be a Chief Anything — it’ll be the tool that makes the Chief unnecessary.

Don’t build a CPTO. Build the thing that makes every CPO and every CTO as effective as a CPTO was supposed to be.