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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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Lessons Learned: The hacker's lament

Startup Lessons Learned

And we cant hire new engineers any faster, because you cant be interviewing and debugging and fixing all at the same time! Even with the highest standards imaginable, theres no way to hire just genius hackers. Hire a CTO or VP Engineering. Worst of all, your teammates are constantly wanting to have meetings.

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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? ) I got my start programming on an old IBM XT; it was thanks to MUDs that I first discovered the internet. Thanks to the anonymity of the internet , I landed a few jobs, and did quite a bit of writing.

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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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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.

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Lessons Learned: Why PHP won

Startup Lessons Learned

At IMVU, when wed hire a new engineer, we could get them to ship code to production on their first day, even if they had never programmed in PHP before. Which makes them exactly the kind of programmers companies should want to hire. In my role as a CTO, Ive always tried to choose the right tool for the right job.

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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? Do programmers have quiet working conditions? Completely necessary. Expo SF (May.