article thumbnail

Lessons Learned: What does a startup CTO actually do?

Startup Lessons Learned

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, September 30, 2008 What does a startup CTO actually do? What does your Chief Technology Officer do all day? So what does CTO mean, besides just "technical founder who really cant manage anyone?" So I initially gravitated to the CTO title, and not VP of Engineering.

CTO 168
article thumbnail

The Different CTO Roles

www.allthingsdistributed.com

Main July 11, 2007 The Different CTO Roles I was putting together a short panel presentation on the roleof a Chief Technology Officer in corporate innovation and I once again realized that there is quite a bit of confusion around the role of the CTO. I am posting it here as it might be of generalinterest.

CTO 40
Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

article thumbnail

Pitch Deck Month: The “Where Are You Going?” Slide

View from Seed

Projecting from the seed stage, there are two types of team-building topics you want to address – key senior hires and org-level team building. As the company progresses through product market fit (PMF), you will want to highlight other key senior hires required to scale and round out the functional expertise of the exec team.

article thumbnail

Corporate Acquisitions of Startups: Why Do They Fail?

Steve Blank

Most large companies manage three types of innovation: process innovation (making existing products incrementally better), continuous innovation (building on the strength of the company’s current business model but creating new elements) and disruptive innovation (creating products or services that did not exist before.).

article thumbnail

Announcing a Deal I’ve Wanted to Talk About for a Year

Both Sides of the Table

Because I am true to the hiring practices I preach, I wanted a strong exec who would “ punch above their weightclass ” by taking a job they hadn’t yet done but would hugely aspire to and thus work harder to out perform. And we wanted a head of global marketing. When Ethan was considering leaving Google we talked about it.

article thumbnail

You Negotiate Commodities, But You Seize Opportunities

Steve Blank

One of the first potential advisors I reached out to was someone who 10 years earlier tried to hire me as the VP of Marketing of his new division at Sun Microsystems. For lots of reasons that never worked out, but I liked him so much that the following year I tried to hire him as the VP of Engineering of Ardent. (He But I was crushed.

article thumbnail

Advice for CTO Founders: Don't Let Business Kill the Business

www.informationarbitrage.com

Main February 23, 2010 Advice for CTO Founders: Dont Let Business Kill the Business Founding a technology company is an amazing thing. Too often, however, I have found CTO / Founders paired with business people who not only don't add value, but frequently detract from the value of the business.