I want to keep the CEO role as I recruit a co-founder because it's important to me to maintain control in the long-term of my company.
Do I recruit a CTO, so we split technical/non-technical work? Or should I be looking for a COO-type to help with sales/marketing?
Can you handle spending 50% of your time on sales and marketing? This will be expected of you after you launch a product.
If the answer is no, then you’ll need to hire someone sooner to handle that. It doesn’t mean you have to drop the CEO role but you need to be clear with yourself and your team/investors/board that you are a technical founder and will remain focused on the product.
If you do decide to relinquish the CEO role at some stage then make yourself chair of the BoD, a director in perpetuity, and be the CTO. You’d be surprised how much control a CTO retains over the company. You could potentially be even more influential.
Anyway every company is different. Good luck