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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? Often times, it seems like people are thinking its synonymous with "that guy who gets paid to sit in the corner and think technical deep thoughts" or "that guy who gets to swoop in a rearrange my project at the last minute on a whim."

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See More than 120 Speakers and Mentors at The Lean Startup Conference

Startup Lessons Learned

He was a very early employee of Facebook , and engineering director there through the moment it blew up. Companies of note Learn from companies that have been through the fire--and have lessons to share. Aditya Agarwal has lived through startup hypergrowth--twice. Now he’s VP of engineering at Dropbox , where he’s seeing similar growth.

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Lessons Learned: About the author

Startup Lessons Learned

Maybe youd like to start with The lean startup , How to listen to customers , or What does a startup CTO actually do? ) That institution will touch many people in its life: customers, investors, employees, and everyone they touch as well. Eventually, I came to summarize these themes with the phrase " the lean startup."

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Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot

Startup Lessons Learned

“Everybody felt the burden of supporting all those transactions every day,&# says Pascal-Louis Perez, kaChing’s CTO. “It took a ton of our time, and just wasn’t contributing to our long term vision.&# “It took a ton of our time, and just wasn’t contributing to our long term vision.&#

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Lessons Learned: A new version of the Joel Test (draft)

Startup Lessons Learned

Joel is focused on the fact that in many environments, programmers are considered "just the hired help" akin to manual labor, and not treated properly. I would add, though, a further question: Do new employees write code on their first day? The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

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The Ultimate Guide to Starting a Software Company

Up and Running

If you don’t yet have a team yet, list the roles you need to hire for. Also, make a bullet list of the marketing activities that will drive customers to your door. If you don’t yet have a team yet, list the roles you need to hire for. Noah Parsons says, “Start collecting contact information for interested, prospective customers.

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Fear is the mind-killer

Startup Lessons Learned

We eventually discovered (via five whys ) that we also had to get each new employee acculturated to a fearless way of thinking. For people we hired from larger companies especially, this was challenging. Because this was such a big cultural change for most new employees, we didnt leave them to sink or swim on their own.