SoCal CTO

MARCH 3, 2011

I talk to roughly 2 or 3 new startups every week who need advice from an experienced CTO. Generally I can provide quite a bit of help in that brief time. Of course, I provide part-time CTO services. So, I wanted to use this post to make it official - we are offering free startup CTO consulting sessions.

Fractional CTO 259

Fractional CTO CTO Hire NDA Technical Review 259

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 26, 2010

I’ve been having discussions with several people recently about the role of the CTO (Chief Technology Officer) in very early stage companies. In December 2007, I described how I commonly take on an Acting CTO Role in a Start-up. I used an image from Roger Smith that describes the varying roles of a CTO as the company matures.

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CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 225

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 10, 2012

It was like having a bunch of mini- Free Startup CTO Consulting Sessions all in one room. Structure development contracts appropriately or directing the in-house team appropriately. This is exactly the kind of thing I'm doing as a Part-Time CTO or Technical Advisor for startups.

Technical Review 332

Technical Review CTO Hire Fractional CTO Software Review 332

SoCal CTO

NOVEMBER 1, 2010

I had a recent email dialog with the founder of a company looking for a CTO for their startup. Was it a Startup Founder Developer Gap ? Did they really need a Startup CTO or Developer or both? And do I fit as a Part-Time CTO , Technology Advisor , CTO Founder , Acting CTO ?

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Technical Cofounder CTO Hire Equity Sweat Equity 241

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

Fractional CTO CTO Hire CTO Technical Review 54

SoCal CTO

APRIL 18, 2012

Todd Gitlin of Safire Partners - a go to resource here in LA for recruiting C-level positions at startups - was nice enough to compile some data again this year (see last year's Startup CTO Salary and Equity Data ). Or they are looking at Hiring a CTO and want to see what salary and equity ranges look like.

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CTO Hire Salary Equity Los Angeles 294

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 27, 2011

I was asked by a reader how much equity he should give out to early employees and to service providers in a very early stage startup. The first few people into a startup are on a spectrum of founder vs. early employee. For your first key hires, three, five, maybe as much as ten, you will probably not be able to use any kind of formula.

Early Stage 391

Early Stage Equity CTO Hire Sweat Equity 391

Duct Tape Marketing

JANUARY 19, 2024

Despite not going to university, Ash became a serial tech founder and the first marketing director of a unicorn startup – Just Eat). Hasan built a successful startup from his bedroom with nothing more than an online course and a yearning to escape the ‘rat race’. Click here to listen to the episode.

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Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review Marketing 77

www.bothsidesofthetable.com

MAY 13, 2012

Want to Know Difference Between a CTO and a VP of Engineering? I recently did a post for startups on understanding sales people. A few people asked me to try and define the perfect startup organization chart. But I do have more insight into understanding your startup team. Every great tech startup needs one.

Fractional VPE 89

Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE Fractional CTO CTO Hire 89

mashable.com

MAY 9, 2011

Hiring the wrong person for key company positions can cost a business thousands — or tens of thousands — of dollars and man hours. This is especially true when it comes to tech companies hiring the wrong chief technology officer. Leadership Abilities Are A Must It’s natural to want a tech savvy and competent CTO.

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CTO Hire Fractional CTO CTO Technical Review 73

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 16, 2014

One of the vivid memories I have from being a startup CEO is the feeling that most people in your company have a look in their eyes that like they can do your job as well as you. Eventually you need a VP of Product to handle your product roadmap, a CTO for engineering leadership and VPs of sales, marketing & biz dev.

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CTO Hire Entrepreneur Technical Review Leadership 385

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."

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CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

SoCal CTO

MARCH 20, 2007

skip to main | skip to sidebar SoCal CTO Tuesday, March 20, 2007 Kevin Federline Search Engine Just saw a post - Sleep with a pop star, get your own branded search engine. He has twenty years’ experience as a CTO. He has been the CTO for several start-ups, most notably eHarmony. in Computer Science.

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Technical Cofounder Southern California Search Engineer 150

This is going to be BIG.

FEBRUARY 22, 2010

A week or so ago, we launched the Key Hire Wire at First Round. If you know of senior level business and technical professionals looking for exciting startup opportunities, they can sign up here. If you know of senior level business and technical professionals looking for exciting startup opportunities, they can sign up here.

Part-Time VPE 92

Part-Time VPE CTO Hire Engineer Sales 92

Austin Startup

OCTOBER 29, 2020

Eynon has spent the majority of his career in the semiconductor industry, over 20 years of which in executive roles over the areas of R&D engineering, high volume manufacturing, marketing, and new business development. and for Baylor University’s Electrical and Computer Engineering Department.

Technology 86

Technology CTO Hire Fractional CTO Austin 86

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 18, 2019

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.

Part-Time VPE 195

Part-Time VPE Seed Stage CTO Hire Forecast 195

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

We all like to think of startups as “non hierarchic&# organizations and to some extent that should be true. 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.

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CTO Hire Management Technical Review Part-Time VPE 308

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 21, 2014

Startups are hard. You’ve heard that a million times. The truth is you really don’t know how your teammates or your bosses will perform in good times and bad. 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.

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CTO Hire Cofounder San Francisco Silicon Valley 320

This is going to be BIG.

APRIL 13, 2022

Its one thing if your investor is the former CTO of a blue chip startup and they’re commenting on the engineer hiring process or various technical platform choices—but when that same investor starts to opine on the color scheme for the brand guidelines, that may not come in as an opinion you can trust.

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Founder Fiji CTO Hire Term Sheet 159

The Startup Magazine

JANUARY 8, 2019

When International Technological University’s CTO Kranthi Lammatha was a boy in the Indian farming village of Kasipuram, he would walk nine miles to get to school every day and another nine miles to get back home in the evening. Looking to Solve Problems. Success and Sustainability. Kranthi Lammatha.

Technical Review 116

Technical Review CTO Hire Silicon Valley Software Engineering 116

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 1, 2014

Guest post by Lisa Regan, writer for The Lean Startup Conference The Lean Startup Conference is next week--and now that we can step back and see all the speakers and mentors, we have to say: Wow. Ben Horowitz ’s book The Hard Thing About Hard Things is driving the conversation around startup management this year.

Lean 165

Lean Fractional CTO Part-Time VPE Fractional VPE 165

Austin Startup

AUGUST 19, 2018

Being part of a community means lifting each other up and one easy way you can do that is with your mouse clicks… please take 5 minutes to go and vote for these other Austin entrepreneurs! If you are in the Austin startup community and have another panel to promote, please leave it in the comments below! Deadline to vote is August 30.

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CTO Hire Fractional CTO Fractional VPE Austin 48

rapidrollout.wordpress.com

JANUARY 15, 2011

Web Startup Lessons Advice from a CTO and Entrepreneur Home About Startup Advice: When to Use a Consulting CTO There are not many to be found. Most likely, this is a person who is a serial entrepreneur and was the chief technology officer for two or more web startups. .&#

Fractional CTO 40

Fractional CTO CTO CTO Hire Fractional VPE 40

Hunter Walker

JUNE 7, 2014

Most of the startups we’ve backed at Homebrew don’t rush to announce their funding. Contrast this to just a few years ago when it seemed every startup was jumping up and down to shout about their initial raise. Hiring Has Changed: Before the press was a way of generating interest for hiring.

Technical Review 117

Technical Review CTO Hire Finance Stealth 117

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 16, 2015

Fred Wilson also wrote on a similar topic in his usual more succinct manner , with a great quote being: “One thing I know for sure is that those who advise and invest in startups cannot and should not meddle in the day to day decision making. It’s harmful and hurtful to the startup and those that lead it. Startup Lessons'

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Startup CTO Hire Sales Leadership 150

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 ).

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Founder CTO Hire Silicon Valley Leadership 309

ReadWriteStart

APRIL 18, 2019

There’s always a tinge of “TBD” that accompanies the role of an early stage startup CTO. Early stage companies can’t immediately hire someone with the tech and executive know-how needed to handle the job. Most startups appoint a lead developer or some other tech go-to […].

Early Stage 118

Early Stage CTO Hire Hiring Startup 118

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 17, 2011

I recently wrote a post about why I didn’t think early-stage startups should have COOs. What a luxury in a startup to have the number one person in the business get to focus on just strategy? One great solution I see is to hire an outstanding CFO who runs both. I expected it to be controversial and it was.

Operations 292

Operations CTO Hire Startup Early Stage 292

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 20, 2014

Guest post by Lisa Regan, writer for The Lean Startup Conference Eleven months in the making, the full schedule for The Lean Startup Conference is at last complete, and we can’t wait to show you around! For first-time attendees, this conference offers a complete introduction to Lean Startup.

Lean 156

Lean Programming San Francisco CTO Hire 156

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 22, 2012

I think I’ve read Paul Graham’s post on “ Startup = Growth ” three or four times now. “The growth of a successful startup usually has three phases: There’s an initial period of slow or no growth while the startup tries to figure out what it’s doing. So I like that bit, too.

Silicon Valley 390

Silicon Valley Venture Capital Startup Technical Review 390

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. When I began developing the customer search engine SocialCentiv using Twitter, I envisioned the project as an add-on to our already popular SocialCompass. A DUI lawyer?

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Fractional CTO Product CTO Hire Merger 228

View from Seed

DECEMBER 3, 2015

This post on how to retain tech talent was written by Dan DeMeyere, director of engineering at thredUP. NextView is an investor in thredUP, and this post originally appeared on their engineering team blog. Retaining engineering talent has become an increasingly challenging task for any engineering manager in the Bay Area.

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CTO Hire Retention Marketing Engineer 120

blog.alinelerner.com

JUNE 21, 2013

Lessons from a year’s worth of hiring data. Because I used to be an engineer, one part of my job was conducting first-round technical interviews, and between January 2012 and January 2013, I interviewed roughly 300 people for our back-end/full-stack engineer position. Jun 21, 2013. Enter recruiters or HR people.

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CTO Hire Hiring Software Review Technical Review 98

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 11, 2017

Guest post by Jennifer Maerz, Program Chair of Lean Startup Co. For eight years, our flagship conference has focused on sharing stories and lessons of putting Lean Startup’s entrepreneurial methodology into practice. Lean Startup Week (Oct. 31 ( limited to the first 200 Gold Passholders.) Sign up for free here.

Lean 108

Lean Programming San Francisco Cofounder 108

Austin Startup

DECEMBER 16, 2018

As I mentioned at the beginning of this series/ebook, over the years I’ve noticed that I tend to frequently share certain Lucky7 posts with entrepreneurs we’ve backed , team members at data.world, or other startup investors I know. It is all about how you hire the best and the amazing impact doing so will have on your culture.

Part-Time VPE 48

Part-Time VPE CTO Hire Hiring Austin 48

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 7, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, September 7, 2008 Customer Development Engineering Yesterday, I had the opportunity to guest lecture again in Steve Blank s entrepreneurship class at the Berkeley-Columbia executive MBA program. Can this methodology be used for startups that are not exclusively about software? Talk about waste.

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Customer Development Engineer San Francisco Developer 131

SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 17, 2007

skip to main | skip to sidebar SoCal CTO Saturday, February 17, 2007 Finding Good Developers in Los Angeles? Im part of a CTO group that meets once a month to discuss various topics. He has twenty years’ experience as a CTO. He has been the CTO for several start-ups, most notably eHarmony.

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Los Angeles Technical Cofounder Southern California CTO Hire 150