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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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How I Found a Great CTO

www.huffingtonpost.com

Ive occasionally worked with executive recruiters, for example in hiring a CTO for my first company, Eve.com. This time, I decided to handle the process myself. To sum up, heres what I would do again as a non-technical founder looking for a technical co-founder or CTO. Shes going to have a big impact on Minteds future.

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Cyber Security At The Start

YoungUpstarts

When are we looking for funding, investors, or going IPO? Hire qualified internal resources or outsource as needed for the required IT positions. Bring on a security-conscious CTO at the beginning. Do we deal with foreign companies that create our product? Are we looking at 100% growth within the next X number of months?

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Corporate Acquisitions of Startups: Why Do They Fail?

Steve Blank

In response, venture capital firms like Sequoia and Andreessen/Horowitz are hiring new partners just to work with their portfolio companies and match them to corporations. VCs like acquisitions as much as IPOs because the acquiring companies often can rationalize paying large multiples over the current valuation of the startup.

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Lead Developer to CTO at a Startup

SoCal CTO

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. Who will do that?

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Marketing Your Startup: A Billion-Dollar Company’s First Marketer Reflects Back

View from Seed

Ellie Mirman was the first marketer hired by the CMO of HubSpot, the Boston-based marketing software startup that IPOed in 2014. NextView Ventures: Thinking back to before anyone knew HubSpot or the company was headed towards an IPO, where did you even start to market the company?

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Lessons Learned: The three drivers of growth for your business.

Startup Lessons Learned

In this model, you take some fraction of the lifetime value of each customer and plow that back into paid acquisition through SEM, banner ads, PR, affiliates, etc. Beware the new hire who has "extensive experience" in startups or big companies - using a different growth driver.