SoCal CTO

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Startup Software Development – Do Your Homework Before You Develop Anything

SoCal CTO

I just had an all-too common conversation with the founder of a startup who had spent more than a year working with a software development company who had produced a mess. If I’m being asked to do startup software development, I’m going to push fairly hard on key questions that the startup needs to have answered before they develop anything.

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Document Your MVP for a Developer

SoCal CTO

And in the case of defining mobile/web/software, there is even more variability in terms of form and format. Business Concept The key first part of the conversation with a developer is having a good capture of the business more broadly. The business canvas model is a good short list. Or you can have a pitch deck.

Developer 354
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Customer Validation - 33 Great Articles

SoCal CTO

" One was an enterprise software product. Vision Synching in a Lean Startup The Fallacy of Customer Development Entrepreneurs, Lower Investors’ Risk by Validating your Start-up Company’s Business Proposition Lessons Learned: What is customer development? The other was a consumer play with possible viral growth.

Customer 227
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Top 29 Startup Posts May 2010

SoCal CTO

Kathy Sierra at Business of Software 2009 - Business of Software Blog , May 4, 2010 "In the old days, getting customers was easy. Klout Puts Metrics Into Social Media Management - Tim Berry's Blog - Planning Startups Stories , May 21, 2010 I really like klout.com for three good reasons: 1.)

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Granularity and Consistency of Startup Metrics

SoCal CTO

Tim Berry has a great post on Why I Hate Those Huge Market Numbers tells us that he doesn’t like to see business plans with multi-billion market numbers used as the basis for projections. It’s the old – 5% of massive market gives us a big number. And it becomes really important to have that granularity really fast.

Metrics 159
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Product Management for Startups in Los Angeles – Steve Gilison

SoCal CTO

Steve Gilison worked as a market researcher and product manager at a startup where my company, TechEmpower , did the software / web development. I’m currently working with several startups, helping them launch new web businesses. It was great to hear from a long, lost colleague the other day. Remind me about your background Steve?

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Equity-Only CTO and Equity-Only Developers

SoCal CTO

Most of the great software startups that I’ve been involved in have at least one technical co-founder (and many have more than one.) In my experience, it’s naive to think you can just “get developers to build the product” although it does sometimes work. How To Find A Programmer To Build Your Startup Idea Another option is sweat equity.