This is something we are discussing as well. We are weighing all of our options but gotta move quickly. We think having a technical cofounder has its advantages for championing ideas, improvements and reassurance. Its hard to find talent that sees beyond the code that doesn't want to work on their own ideas by themselves.

We also think finding the right contractor is smart idea too because it will allow us to make the changes without equity like you said. Which than we can scale the product on our own to get the traction/funding we need to hire the right CTO.

We've really only had one investor question us on not having a CTO anyway.