The CEO met me in an office in SV so lavish it would not have been out of place as a Ferrari showroom. Halfway during the meeting - we didn't hit it off all that well - he made the momentous announcement that if we did not accept his offer we'd be going on a head-on collision course for a game of chicken and he had just thrown away his steering wheel.
I just laughed, bade my farewells. They failed spectacularly (not a bankruptcy but the service was shut down) several months later after burning through a very large fraction of $30M.
What puzzles me to this date is what he thought he was trying to accomplish by showing me that he was a reckless cowboy with very little sense for business relations but it certainly wasn't going to end in a partnership with him 'at the wheel' (since he'd just thrown that out).
He's still around, selling toothpaste.
What would lead you to expect a smooth path to being hired as a tech manager without tech management experience?
It's a different job and the skills required to succeed have less overlap than many devs think.
IME, the easiest path is within a company, not in a new hire situation. You take someone with demonstrated technical skill/credibility, a track record of success, and a desire to lead and you give them progressively more management tasks, culminating in a formal role change to manager. They already know the company, the team, the codebase, the business, etc. and it's much easier for them to step back into a pure technical role if it doesn't work out or if they hate it.
I've had extremely "good luck with that".
It's much riskier to take a fresh new hire with no management experience into a tech manager role at a new-to-them company.
Unfortunately, all of these managers also got in through networking not demonstrated ability. So to the person that wants to jump into management, you need to focus much more on networking and less on applying to open positions.
If you can't get in through networking, you need to put in the long slog to get in through working at the same employer (and likely suffering on the pay front until you make it into management and have enough experience there to jump).
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founder: I have a modest, growing business, but the marketing costs are rather high. What can to do to bring that cost down?
wannabe-founder: whoa, you really failed to validate the core concept and establish your basic value prop. You're going to see an astronomical CAC until you ultimately pivot and achieve LGTM or BBQ. I'd recommend you shut down and find another vertical.
CAC : Cost to Aquire a Customer
LGTM : Looks Good To Me?
BBQ : ? Not a clue other than a delicious way to prepare meat. Maybe something Quality?
BBQ : Business to Business Quotient (or Quantity). A measure of how much of your income comes from B2B transactions as opposed to direct to consumer transactions.