SoCal CTO

JULY 23, 2012

I seem to encounter a lot of people who want to attach a CTO label to me as I'm the only programmer on the founding team of three. While I do fill that role at the moment, I'm a little hesitant to refer to myself as a CTO as we still haven't launched a product, acquired a single user, or turned or a penny in profit.

CTO Hire 231

CTO Hire Technical Review Developer Software Review 231

Austin Startup

SEPTEMBER 18, 2017

As a CTO, I can definitely say without a doubt that few people understand what a CTO does. When I tell someone I’m a CTO, I’m often met with a blank stare. Even when someone is aware of what a CTO does, they often have limited context due to the wide variety of CTO roles.

Fractional CTO 54

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Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 20, 2010

The terms “CTO&# and “VP Engineering&# have such stigmas associated with what they are that I’m sure some people will feel uncomfortable with the definitions I’ve put forward. I hope many will read this and have an answer for the question, “what’s the different between a CTO and a VP of Engineering?&#.

Fractional CTO 400

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SoCal CTO

MAY 21, 2012

So, here goes: Dr. Tony Karrer Over the past 15 years, Tony has been a part-time CTO for more than 30 startups. Most notably, he was the original CTO for eHarmony for its first four years making him partly responsible for more than 4% of the marriages every year. What does it cost to acquire a new customer?

Fractional CTO 175

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SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 13, 2013

Investors my tell you that, but what they can look at your product on paper and tell what it does and they will understand if it can be built. The second bullet, getting feedback from customers is most often not valid either. The real reason to build an MVP is to do early tests of key Startup Metrics for the business.

Technical Cofounder 338

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 1, 2023

Value factors include your related product breadth and depth, relationships with thought leaders, key vendors, and large potential customers. Building the product may be the easy part of your startup challenge. Level of responsibility and time allocated. The CTO of many technical startups was the original founder.

Technical Cofounder 247

Technical Cofounder Equity Distribution Cofounder 247

YoungUpstarts

MARCH 24, 2014

by Adam Root, founder and CTO of Hiplogiq. Most of us would want to hire the most experienced, cutthroat lawyer specializing in multimillion-dollar mergers. The same rule applies to product and app development. Do you want the product, or does your target market want the product? A DUI lawyer? Didn’t think so.

Fractional CTO 228

Fractional CTO Product CTO Hire Merger 228

mashable.com

MAY 9, 2011

a New York-based sizzle reel production company specializing in promotional videos for PR and marketing professionals, and the Young Entrepreneur Council. Hiring the wrong person for key company positions can cost a business thousands — or tens of thousands — of dollars and man hours. Zach Cutler , The Cutler Group.

CTO Hire 73

CTO Hire Fractional CTO CTO Technical Review 73

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 9, 2020

Value factors include your related product breadth and depth, relationships with thought leaders, key vendors, and large potential customers. Building the product may be the easy part of your startup challenge. Level of responsibility and time allocated. The CTO of many technical startups was the original founder.

Cofounder 435

Cofounder Technical Cofounder Equity Intellectual Property 435

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 19, 2017

by Steve Owens, Founder and CTO of Finish Line Product Development Services. In this article we explore the unique challenges of a lean start-up and how Outsourced Product Development (OPD) can be used to overcome them. Reducing product turn time. Extending the runway. The Lean Start-Up Environment.

Product Development 153

Product Development Lean Developer Product 153

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 26, 2020

He also said, “The most important hire I made in my time at the JAIC was the chief technology officer, Nand Mulchandani.” In this class session Nand Mulchandani, JAIC CTO who just completed an extended stint as Acting Director, continued the discussion of AI and the role of the JAIC. Nand Mulchandani. How the JAIC is Organized.

Artificial Inteligence 400

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YoungUpstarts

AUGUST 18, 2020

They were bogged down by several-hundred-page compliance documents written in the eighties, they needed lawyers who took weeks to make small changes to contracts and they had timid executives that would sideline interesting projects with corporate politics. Small is the new big.

Fractional CTO 147

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blog.aparttimecto.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

A Part-Time CTO Technology. One of the main challenges of starting a products based company is how do you build your product? This is especially true of web based companies, whose product consists of mainly a web site and very little more. In Plain English. Archive Jun 20th Sun In-House or Outsource?

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YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 2, 2020

They’re still built that way by the product’s engineers. Of course, users won’t be able to customize their project as fully as if they were coding it from scratch. But in most cases, that level of customization isn’t necessary. How no-code tools work. How small businesses can benefit from no-code tools.

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Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 16, 2014

But if you level up , raise capital and grow customers, revenue and staff – life changes. Eventually you need a VP of Product to handle your product roadmap, a CTO for engineering leadership and VPs of sales, marketing & biz dev. You hire great people. And then there’s product management.

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SoCal CTO

JUNE 26, 2012

I've done four Free CTO Consulting Sessions in the past month with startup founders who all had run into variations of the same problem. Investors and early customers were becoming worried about the ability of the founder to deliver. My belief is that you shouldn't sign that contract. They couldn't plan their business.

Software Developers 254

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

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."

CTO 168

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View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 18, 2019

Now it’s time to discuss the “where”. As a seed-stage company, it is understandable to have a nascent (or non-existent) product and a barebone team relative to the great ambition of the company. Once you get to this part of the pitch, investors are trying to get a few things out of this slide: The “people roadmap”.

Part-Time VPE 195

Part-Time VPE Seed Stage CTO Hire Forecast 195

www.bothsidesofthetable.com

MAY 13, 2012

Want to Know Difference Between a CTO and a VP of Engineering? The terms “CTO” and “VP Engineering” have such stigmas associated with what they are that I’m sure some people will feel uncomfortable with the definitions I’ve put forward. I’ve heard both arguments from CTO’s.

Fractional VPE 89

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ConversionXL

JUNE 16, 2022

They map out a repeatable process to avoid chaos and confusion in your team and with customers. This consistency creates familiarity, breeding trust that turns prospects into customers and customers into advocates. So, how can marketers align every department for a consistent customer experience? Positioning.

Campaign 149

Campaign CTO Marketing Social Media 149

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

I continue to collect great content that is the intersection of startups, products, online and technology. Equity-Only CTO and Equity-Only Developers - SoCal CTO , November 1, 2010 I had a recent email dialog with the founder of a company looking for a CTO for their startup. It may be that all the doomsayers are right.

Technical Review 175

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crowdSPRING Blog

FEBRUARY 7, 2019

Files you need to collaborate on with others, sometimes across different time zones. And then there’s all of the critical information, like legal contracts and forms, you and your employees need to access. We are in a golden age for productivity apps. That’s where products like RealtimeBoard are really useful.

Small Business 55

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A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

NOVEMBER 5, 2013

You love converting marketing requirements into 960-wide artwork, replete with whitespace, custom fonts. We can all write code — at least well enough to get a product launched and through a few iterations. Have you talked to 50 potential customers? The weakness is your love of creation. Here are two: 1.

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Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2017

None of this was law, and nothing in writing required this; this was just how these firms did business to protect their large institutional customers who would buy the stock. Twenty-five years ago, to go public you had to sell stuff – not just acquire users or have freemium products. People had to actually pay you for your product.

Founder 257

Founder Technical Review CTO Hire IPO 257

This is going to be BIG.

FEBRUARY 22, 2010

A week or so ago, we launched the Key Hire Wire at First Round. Because people live, shop, and buy in real time, Monetate products enable e-commerce web sites to market in real time. You will initially spend majority of time personally working with individual accounts and coaching sales team.

Part-Time VPE 92

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SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 5, 2010

Great content again in September that meets at the intersection of startups, technology, product and being a Startup CTO. 8220; His three things (worth reading his whole post anyway) are set vision/strategy and communicate broadly, recruit/hire/retain top talent, and make sure there’s enough cash in the bank. It’s great advice.

Technology 191

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 21, 2014

The truth is you really don’t know how your teammates or your bosses will perform in good times and bad. You hire people who look good on paper. So one of the surest signs you’ve hired a leader is the willingness of his or her former team to re-assemble. After 6 months – you know. You REALLY know.

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CTO Hire Cofounder San Francisco Silicon Valley 320

konamoxt.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

January 21, 2009 Why Your Startup Can’t Afford To NOT Hire a CTO As I mentioned in my last post, one of the many things I do as an entrepreneur is to advise other start up companies. One of the common requests I get as an adviser is the help interview and vet potential CTO candidates. This is critical!

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CTO Hire CTO Hiring Engineer 40

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 14, 2017

Remember your customers, culture, and connections. Instead, ING has adopted a company-wide focus on three Cs: customers, culture, and connection. It’s “creating something really useful for the customer that is solving the need of the customer.” LESSON #3: Avoid these three hiring mistakes. They’re qualified.

Lean 245

Lean Startup CTO Hire Cofounder 245

This is going to be BIG.

OCTOBER 10, 2010

A CTO will also want to ensure that the businesspeople on their team will understand important product and technical decisions. They want to work in an environment where their opinions are respected and they also feel like they can have intelligent discussions about product. This is where product and design leads come into play.

Cofounder 144

Cofounder CTO Hire Design Founder 144

Steve Blank

MAY 27, 2010

After some heroics from our CTO in extracting data from SAP, the Visio CFO loved our product, thought we could save them a ton of time and money and wanted it installed ASAP. We were excited that we were getting our first six-figure check and a reference customer. Then Visio gave us their boilerplate contract.

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CTO Hire Fractional CTO Software Review Startup 296

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

As your organization grows and you hire senior staff where you are no longer managing every employee directly the issue of how to manage people that are not your “direct&# reports arises. You’ll get sales information from your VP of Sales, marketing information from your VP Marketing, tech information from your CTO and so on.

CTO Hire 308

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www.lanceglasser.com

MAY 13, 2012

Product development. Queuing theory and product development. The Essential Product Investigation Phase Gate. So you want to ship the product early? Customer Equity. What does a CTO do? The minimum viable product. What does a CTO do? So what is the CTO job? The Year of the Black Swan.

CTO 40

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 10, 2018

Value factors include your related product breadth and depth, relationships with thought leaders, key vendors, and large potential customers. Building the product may be the easy part of your startup challenge. Level of responsibility and time allocated. The CTO of many technical startups was the original founder.

Equity 238

Equity Cofounder Technical Cofounder Intellectual Property 238

Austin Startup

AUGUST 19, 2018

Why Corporate Innovation Fails Design Sprints Done Right: Creating Lasting Change User-centered design is critical in making or breaking consumer technologies, but sometimes, on small product teams, day-to-day needs can get in the way of larger, longer term goals and solutions that resonate with your customer can’t manage to get off the launch pad.

CTO Hire 48

CTO Hire Fractional CTO Fractional VPE Austin 48

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 15, 2014

Much has been written about when it is time to hire a “professional CEO” to run a startup company and of course that has long been a norm in Silicon Valley when founders find that their inexperience may be a limiting factor in company growth ( know as the Peter Principle ). It now seems that Mark is more firmly in control.

Founder 309

Founder CTO Hire Silicon Valley Leadership 309

SVPG

OCTOBER 14, 2014

The role of the product organization is to consistently deliver significant new value to the business through continuous product innovation. At a startup, the product team either innovates and provides real value or the startup dies. They just make minor optimizations to existing products.

Product 91

Product Technical Review Engineer CTO Hire 91