SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 2, 2010

Based on my posts Startup CTO or Developer and Acting CTO , Chris O’Meara wrote an interesting post Startup CTO: Could It Work? Common sense says you'd do your best to hire or otherwise permanently engage that lead developer. They were hired to build stuff. I love blog conversations. It's about leading by example.

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CTO Hire Fractional CTO Startup Architecture 150

SiliconHills

SEPTEMBER 23, 2020

Austin-based Hypergiant Industries, which is focused on creating new products using artificial intelligence for businesses, has hired a heavy-hitter in the software industry, Mohammed Farooq, as its new Chief Technology Officer and GM Products. Farooq also joining Hypergiant Industries’ board of directors.

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CTO Hire Artificial Inteligence Hiring Product 106

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 19, 2011

I've posted quite a few things on the topics associated with being a Startup CTO. Here are some resources that come from other sources: Want to Know the Difference Between a CTO and a VP Engineering? Lessons Learned: What does a startup CTO actually do? Lessons Learned: What does a startup CTO actually do?

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CTO Hire Fractional CTO Startup Equity 175

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 19, 2011

I've posted quite a few things on the topics associated with being a Startup CTO. Here are some resources that come from other sources: Want to Know the Difference Between a CTO and a VP Engineering? Lessons Learned: What does a startup CTO actually do? Lessons Learned: What does a startup CTO actually do?

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CTO Hire Fractional CTO Startup Equity 175

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 15, 2015

The right advisor can have a greater impact on the success of your small business than any other hire you ever make. Have a CTO Advisor Provide Their Guidance & Due Diligence Suggestions on a Large Upcoming Technology Expenditure. It’s time small businesses started hiring more advisors.

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CTO Hire Fractional CTO Small Business Hiring 100

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 17, 2022

The reason is that good attributes apply equally well to “external” partners, as they do to internal partners, like a co-founder or CTO. A good overall example is the synergy between Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, as well as long-time Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt. Carry minimal historical baggage. Marty Zwilling.

Partner 385

Partner Software Review CTO Hire Cofounder 385

SoCal CTO

MARCH 2, 2015

As the organizer of the LA CTO Forum , I get lots of inquiries by job seekers and people looking for CTO / VP Engineering talent. I’ve written quite a bit about aspects of this topic, especially from the perspective of startup founders looking for talent – you can find these in: Startup CTO.

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Technical Cofounder Los Angeles CTO Hire Part-Time VPE 150

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

TechEmpower

DECEMBER 11, 2023

While the appearance matters, remember you are hiring the development firm primarily for its development skills, not its graphic design skills. cto , product , saas Quality of Work: The end product should not only look good but function as expected. Don't be charmed by an impressive aesthetic at the expense of functional results.

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Software Developers Software Development Software Review Software 295

SoCal CTO

NOVEMBER 14, 2012

I was just asked about a particular startup situation (seed stage, CMO hire, non-founder) and particularly what compensation and equity is appropriate.

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CTO Hire Equity Seed Stage Option Pool 329

Feld Thoughts

SEPTEMBER 2, 2011

This week they set out to create their cap table and hire a CTO. The vesting schedule protects each of the co-founders in case one gets hit by a bus or decides to drop the project after a short period of time. Jane and Dick want to bring in their friend Praveena as CTO, but they don’t know how to structure the compensation.

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Cap Table CTO Hire Technical Cofounder Cofounder 133

SoCal CTO

NOVEMBER 1, 2010

I had a recent email dialog with the founder of a company looking for a CTO for their startup. 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 ? He needed some kind of CTO and as well Developers.

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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.

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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

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

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. Structure development contracts appropriately or directing the in-house team appropriately. Would you create contracts without an attorney?

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Technical Review CTO Hire Fractional CTO Software Review 332

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?&#.

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Fractional CTO CTO Hire Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 400

YFS Magazine

MARCH 22, 2017

As your business grows, so do your technology needs. Here's a look at how to find a good candidate and the qualities you should look for.

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CTO Hire Hiring Technology 99

SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 25, 2010

This is not only sad but incredibly frustrating, because it is so easy to see how a great technology can be developed and commercialized if only - if only the CTO hadn't been impulsive and insecure and brought on a business partner too early in the game. … Mark Suster has similar advice in Hiring at a Startup? Lack of confidence?

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Technical Cofounder Cofounder CTO Hire Founder 150

ReadWriteStart

FEBRUARY 19, 2024

Significant support and potential Monumental was founded in 2021 by Salar al Khafaji (CEO) and Sebastiaan Visser (CTO). The finance will enable further hires, an increase in manufacturing, and progress in the type of bricks that the robots can handle to hone their AI-powered craft further. Image: Rodolfo Quiros/Pexels.

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Security Artificial Inteligence CTO Hire United States 140

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 15, 2019

The reason is that good attributes apply equally well to “external” partners, as they do to internal partners, like a co-founder or CTO. A good overall example is the synergy between Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, as well as long-time Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt. Carry minimal historical baggage. Marty Zwilling.

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Cofounder Software Review CTO Hire Founder 221

SoCal CTO

MARCH 12, 2012

I've talked about that in lots of other posts, so you can visit some of these to help determine what you specifically need: Startup CTO or Developer Startup Software Development – Do Your Homework Before You Develop Anything Key ingredients in the equation are: How complex is the system? Do you have dollars to pay for development?

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Technical Cofounder Cofounder CTO Hire Los Angeles 211

This is going to be BIG.

AUGUST 31, 2011

At a board meeting yesterday, a management team was talking about their hiring needs and some of the challenges they're having hiring great people. Here's a simple tip: track hiring analytics and assign them to someone. If you're not interviewing enough people, you're not going to be able to hire someone--simple as that.

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CTO Hire Hiring Bandwidth Metrics 113

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 10, 2023

Unless you can translate how your skills provide commercial value, you won’t get hired. Meanwhile, three years before I left the Agency I had done a cold outreach on LinkedIn to the person I suspected was the hiring manager for a job advertisement for a company that I liked. You will get asked a question like this.

Government 174

Government CTO Hire Technical Review Advisory Board 174

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 27, 2011

For your first key hires, three, five, maybe as much as ten, you will probably not be able to use any kind of formula. For example, suppose you're just two founders and you want to hire an additional hacker who's so good you feel he'll increase the average outcome of the whole company by 20%. n = (1.2 - 1)/1.2 =.167. and we have 11.1%

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Early Stage Equity CTO Hire Sweat Equity 391

Austin Startup

DECEMBER 16, 2018

It is all about how you hire the best and the amazing impact doing so will have on your culture. You must test those that you want to hire. I didn’t know better at the time and they were much older and “experienced” than I was, so I let them run with that plan. But they were wrong 50% of the time, six months later.

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Part-Time VPE CTO Hire Hiring Austin 48

Version One Ventures

SEPTEMBER 25, 2018

But as the start-up scales and you hire employees, your day-to-day is taken over by more managerial tasks, like hiring and managing people, running company meetings, etc. It’s unusual to hire a non-founder CEO early in a start-up’s life because it will most likely fail. There’s typically little choice for a founder CEO.

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Part-Time VPE Management CTO Hire San Francisco 258

blog.aparttimecto.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

A Part-Time CTO Technology. Depending on the level of complexity and difficulty, it might not be the most efficient use of your time. Communication - Hiring a technical employee early on can sometimes result in a founder developer gap. In Plain English. Archive Jun 20th Sun In-House or Outsource?

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CTO Hire Fractional CTO Equity Vesting 40

Business Plan Blog

AUGUST 20, 2013

In order to be a successful tech startup, the team must consist of a Chief Technical Officer (CTO) level member to help with the technology plan. This is generally achieved in one of the following ways: CTO Level Co-Founder (Equity). CTO Level Board Member or dedicated Adviser (Free or Equity). CTO Employee (Salary).

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CTO Hire Fractional CTO Architecture Cofounder 55

David Teten

OCTOBER 23, 2012

25, in the Enterprise Tech Meetup, where we’ll discuss best practices in B2B startup hiring. Besides me, the other panelists are: Sean Maclsaac, CTO, Yext. I’m participating this Thursday, Oct. We’ll also cover how can a candidate make themselves more attractive for a quickly growing enterprise company.

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CTO Hire Hiring B2B Cofounder 114

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. Aline Lerner's Blog. Jun 21, 2013.

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CTO Hire Hiring Software Review Technical Review 98

This is going to be BIG.

FEBRUARY 22, 2010

A week or so ago, we launched the Key Hire Wire at First Round. You will initially spend majority of time personally working with individual accounts and coaching sales team. CTO, Modcloth – San Francisco, CA (corrected from e-mail version) Remember that girl from back home? How do you like them apples?

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Part-Time VPE CTO Hire Engineer Sales 92

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 16, 2014

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. You motivate, cajole, reassign tasks, hire, fire and push the organization forward. Do you hire more sales people? You set direction. You course correct.

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CTO Hire Entrepreneur Technical Review Leadership 385

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 22, 2014

The reason is that good attributes apply equally well to “external” partners, as they do to internal partners, like a co-founder or CTO. Partner decisions are more important than hiring decisions. Then, as I suggested before, it’s time to establish a formal agreement or contract to cement the partnership. Marty Zwilling.

Partner 269

Partner Software Review CTO Hire Fractional CTO 269

SoCal CTO

MAY 13, 2014

You can’t afford and don’t want to hire a full-time CTO or architect. For me, if I can help you within a couple hours Free Startup CTO Consulting Sessions , I’m happy to do that and I don’t expect compensation or equity for that. Here’s the other aspect that both Tony and I preach: get help.

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Advisory Board Fractional CTO CTO Hire Startup 241

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. There’s a reason the position comes with that “up in the air” feeling.

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Early Stage CTO Hire Hiring Startup 118

Feld Thoughts

OCTOBER 21, 2013

Hire Harper Reed as CTO of Healthcare.gov, give him the ball and 100% of the budget, and let him run with it. But put one person – a CTO – in charge. And let them hire a team – using all the budget for individual hires, not government contractors or consulting firms. Fire all of the contractors.

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CTO Hire Fractional CTO Software Engineering Government 134