Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 23, 2012

Expertise can be marketing, technical, financial, or sales. Providing the major funding source for an early-stage startup is a totally different dimension, but it usually trumps all the items above in demanding some equity. Who will be the CEO, CFO, and CTO? Building a product doesn’t get it distributed and sold.

Intellectual Property 252

Intellectual Property Equity Cofounder CTO Hire 252

Steve Blank

JUNE 19, 2014

The key members of the team CEO, CTO, Principal investigator, need to be actively engaged talking to customers, partners, regulators, etc. The class provides real world, hands-on learning on how to reduce commercialization risk in early stage therapeutics, diagnostics and device ventures. Join the I-Corps @ NIH.

Lean 269

Lean SBIR Intellectual Property Customer Development 269

firstround.com

SEPTEMBER 10, 2013

How to Go From Google Engineer to First-Time CTO. How to Go From Google Engineer to First-Time CTO. Today, he’s the co-founder and CTO of Artillery , bringing console-quality gaming to the web browser. Today, as CTO and co-founder of Artillery, I’m split between infinite freedom and infinite responsibility.

CTO Hire 52

CTO Hire Engineer Software Review Part-Time VPE 52

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 11, 2016

The rest of our team included the founding CTO of Maker Studios (Ryan Lissack) and the CEO of DataSift (Tim Barker) so we seemed to all be in good company of ex Salesforce execs looking to make a difference. For some of my more skeptical portfolio companies I simply asked them to run a trial of inbound sales calls and they were shocked.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Fractional CTO Cofounder Early Stage 150

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 8, 2010

Expertise can be marketing, technical, financial, or sales. Providing the major funding source for an early-stage startup is a totally different dimension, but it usually trumps all the items above in demanding some equity. Who will be the CEO, CFO, and CTO? Building a product doesn’t get it distributed and sold.

Equity 228

Equity Intellectual Property Cofounder CTO Hire 228

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 14, 2012

A founding team with a technical lead, a sales lead, a product lead and a marketing lead, for example, will likely be more effective than a team with only two of those four key functional roles. Don’t be fooled by titles. Focus on candidates’ real hands-on experience and accomplishments.

Technical Review 159

Technical Review CTO Hire Software Review Startup 159

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 20, 2011

You’ll refine your sales and investor pitch. He left out capital sources, but it's still a pretty succinct list of the types of people / communication you should be having early stage. Startups that come to me and ask me to sign an NDA in order to get Free Startup CTO Consulting really are missing it. What is Stealth?

NDA 211

NDA Stealth Intellectual Property Non-disclosure Agreement 211

Business Plan Blog

OCTOBER 4, 2013

This is true for early stage funding as well as venture capital funding. If you have a technical background and you are focused on product development, consider a co-founder with a sales and marketing background that can focus on selling your world class product. Early Stage. Seed to Series A.

Part-Time VPE 79

Part-Time VPE Fractional VPE Cofounder CTO Hire 79

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 20, 2011

You’ll refine your sales and investor pitch. He left out capital sources, but it's still a pretty succinct list of the types of people / communication you should be having early stage. Startups that come to me and ask me to sign an NDA in order to get Free Startup CTO Consulting really are missing it. What is Stealth?

NDA 198

NDA Stealth Intellectual Property Non-disclosure Agreement 198

SoCal CTO

MARCH 12, 2007

skip to main | skip to sidebar SoCal CTO Monday, March 12, 2007 MyShape Article - Analyst Misses the Point The NY Times did a piece today on MyShape, a start-up in Pasadena - Log in Your Measurements, and the Clothes May Fit. He has twenty years’ experience as a CTO. Technology Jobs in Southern California – a Rebound.

Technical Cofounder 150

Technical Cofounder Southern California Los Angeles CTO Hire 150

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 24, 2021

It has historically been the case that VCs would rather fund the promise of 100x in a company with almost no revenue than the reality of a company growing at 50% but doing $20+ million in sales. Our goal is to produce a $10 billion+ winner and remain the market leader in this SaaS category of AI in Sales & Marketing.

Venture Capital 363

Venture Capital LP Valuation Later Stage 363

View from Seed

MARCH 29, 2016

Founders need to make sure the quality of the startup’s offerings remains high and provide adequate sales and service support for prospective customers and new users. A founder will likely be leading these outreach efforts during the early stages of a company, and should always be tracking the percentage of people responding to the notes.

Metrics 120

Metrics Founder CTO Hire Technical Review 120

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 26, 2010

One other big tell for me is the CEO’s grasp of the sales pipeline. I can’t tell you how many CEO’s I’ve met with who can’t walk me through the details of their sales pipeline. Who does sales report to? As I said, there are VCs who are fooled by all this but it doesn’t equal success.

Entrepreneur 286

Entrepreneur CTO Hire Cofounder Early Stage 286

www.entrepreneur.com

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011

Marketing Sales & Marketing Home Marketing Basics Sales Online Marketing Finding Customers Social Media Branding Social Media Does Your Companys Social Personality Need a Makeover? Sweat equity is just one component of early-stage valuation. Financing Some Jobs Act Proposals Make Headway.

Sweat Equity 55

Sweat Equity Equity Fractional CTO CTO 55

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2013

In this period (less than 2 years) he has brought on incredibly talented senior execs is sales, marketing, product management, client services, finance, vp engineering and more. I would say the norm for many early-stage companies is somewhere between 6-10 in-person meetings per year. Ask for short conference calls.

Advisory Board 365

Advisory Board CTO Hire Fractional CTO Los Angeles 365

SoCal CTO

NOVEMBER 11, 2009

She is a go to person for me when I have questions around technology or early stage marketing and branding. We do a lot of B2B and also have an "Early Stage Branding" practice for technology startups. Clients use our templates for things like sales sheets. Maybe ten years. Foreign Service.

Early Stage 150

Early Stage Southern California Los Angeles Marketing 150

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 30, 2013

It wasn’t so much that I wanted to “rise to the next level” as I wanted to be able to lead at a higher-level by having time to spend thinking about how to really propel the business forward rather than always having my nose buried in a spreadsheet or having to lead all of the big sales campaigns. Then my CTO quit.

Founder 372

Founder Early Stage Campaign Leadership 372

View from Seed

MARCH 3, 2015

Initially, we promoted it to a list that we’d already developed through Website Grader, the free app our CTO Dharmesh Shah had built before we even had a product. NVV: Lots of marketers are under pressure to come in and generate demand right away, whether because sales is asking for leads or founders are demanding PR or user growth.

Marketing 120

Marketing Sales Cycle Startup CTO Hire 120

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 22, 2010

The more senior members you have (say you already have a CEO, CTO, VP marketing, VP Biz Dev, VP Products) then the less options you’ll need and vice versa. This states how the proceeds from a sale or dissolution of the company will be distributed. That’s normal. Those options need to come from somewhere. This is a shame.

Valuation 405

Valuation Liquidation Preference Pre-Money Valuation Term Sheet 405

Gust

OCTOBER 20, 2011

Product/Technology 0-15%. Marketing/Sales Channels/Partnerships 0-10%. Looking at the strength of the competition in the market, the target is weaker (75% of norm) but early customer feedback on the product is excellent (Other = 100%). Product/Technology.

Valuation 146

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Intellectual Property Technical Review 146

This is going to be BIG.

MAY 19, 2010

Early stage startups have that task many times over after they receive their first funding. Instead, the CTO there met someone amazing at SXSW who turned out to be a big fan (and customer) of the company. On a weekly basis, we meet great senior level talent looking for early stage opportunities. Why senior level?

CTO Hire 99

CTO Hire Hiring Portfolio Early Stage 99

The Next Web

OCTOBER 7, 2013

However, at the very early stage, they are taking as much risk with their future as the founders. In a CTO Salary and Equity trends report by Safire Partners, it finds non-founder equity compensation to settle out below 2 percent. Engineer #1? is frequently granted ownership significantly less than that of the founders.

Engineer 129

Engineer Dilution Option Pool Vesting 129

BeyondVC

JANUARY 3, 2019

Tony Saldanha (P&G Next Gen Svces, Transformant), Farhan Shah (Allstate, CTO, Head of Platform Eng), Munu Gandhi (VP Infrastructure, AON), Virginia Lyons (CISO, Williams Sonoma) and GTM advisors?—?Natalie Either you’re a mega fund or an early stage fund, being caught in the middle is a place you don’t want to be.

Stealth 79

Stealth Advisory Board Cloud Virginia 79

SoCal CTO

MARCH 18, 2010

Vince: I’m an author, speaker and management consultant with a special expertise in online media sales. I started out as screenwriter, went into local television, ran ad sales in the west for AOL and joined Facebook in the companies very early days. You’ve got a REALLY diverse background. What’s the short version?

Los Angeles 225

Los Angeles Revenue Southern California Social Network 225

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 5, 2009

I had last been in Chapel Hill on a winter’s day in 1986, traveling with the VP of Sales of our new supercomputer startup, Ardent. My ex-boss was going to be the VP of Engineering and I would report to the CEO whose marketing acumen and sales instincts seemed at the time to be telepathic and sense of theater was legend.

North Carolina 125

North Carolina Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 125

Genuine VC

DECEMBER 3, 2014

As HubSpot co-founder and CTO Dharmesh Shah recently told BostInno , “We’ve wanted to not just build a great company, but also build some great entrepreneurs.” This entrepreneurial HubSpot spirit has — and will continue to have — a ripple effect throughout the Boston early stage startup ecosystem.

Boston 279

Boston IPO B2B Cofounder 279

Mucker Lab

APRIL 6, 2023

Today, a lot of the PLG SaaS tools require sales motion upfront because nobody understands those tools. Those types of tools actually require work in the initial days of the sales motion. What should an early-stage startup founder focus on if they want to implement PLG? You need a lot of education. That’s the success.

Product 78

Product CTO Hire Startup Fractional CTO 78

Duct Tape Marketing

JUNE 29, 2023

He is an author, a research scholar at Toronto Metropolitan University, and CTO of Squint AI Inc. His research interests lie at the intersection of humans and machines, ensuring that we build a future based on the responsible use of technology. His newest book, I s the Algorithm Plotting Against Us? That's right. This is John Jantsch.

Artificial Inteligence 64

Artificial Inteligence ChatGPT Algorithm Networking 64

Steve Blank

JULY 27, 2015

Previously, Steve was CTO at Deluxe Entertainment , the provider of production, post-production and distribution services to the movie and TV industry; and EVP and Chief Strategy and Technology Officer at Rovi , where he led the media company’s transition from physical technologies to e-commerce, connected home and subscription services.

Channel 120

Channel India Technical Cofounder Silicon Valley 120

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 28, 2010

Investors: Matrix (Dana Stadler, who was the CTO of PayPal). Jeremy Liew, a respected VC from LightSpeed, obviously saw the change to ramp up sales. I knew that OATV had invested in the company and I typically like to look harder at stuff that they do since I consider them to be very savvy with early stage trends.

Venture Capital 270

Venture Capital Cofounder Spain San Diego 270

The Next Web

DECEMBER 4, 2013

Mature teams differ from early-stage teams, larger teams differ from smaller teams etc. Entire conversations would take place when the CTO and I were in China whilst the CMO/designer was left to catch up hours later through chat or a rehashed conversation. when to meet face to face. building intimacy, culture and loyalty.

Management 152

Management SCRUM CTO Hire Distribution 152

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 17, 2019

Of course everything could be replicated if a massive juggernaut like Amazon or Google wanted to pour all of their resources into it but I’m talking about technology that is hard to replicate, takes years of know-how and once adopted is significantly valuable. Why does that matter? Some start, some scale, some can do both.

IP 223

IP Intellectual Property IRR Cofounder 223

Babbling VC

NOVEMBER 15, 2009

It's not about technology or innovation. It's all about customers and sales. It's always sales that kill most early-stage businesses. I can't remember ever saying "shit, we're going to fail with this one because of the CTO!" This has been said many times before but I'll say it again.

Early Stage 61

Early Stage Venture Capital Business Model Technology 61

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 8, 2009

Motioning to our VP of Sales, he ordered: “Go with him and get him in front of customers, and both of you don’t come back until you can tell us something we don’t know.” We know Ben W was the CTO. Sale Guys, Account Reps, Project Manager – they all need to be able to deal with this without even blinking.

Silicon Valley 271

Silicon Valley RSS Customer Development California 271

Scalable Startup

FEBRUARY 1, 2011

I had dinner recently with a former colleague and good friend, let’s call him Al, who has recently transitioned from CTO to CEO of an early stage company he founded; he’s struggling with every aspect of his new job. I’ve been the incoming CEO several times in early stage startups, taking over for the founder.

Early Stage 20

Early Stage Technical Review Software Review Founder 20

SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 2, 2011

A lot of my time is spent helping early-stage companies get to proof points so that they can raise capital. They might have some seed money and are thinking or raising a Series A based on success of an early release (MVP). Bill Payne is an expert on how early-stage investors should look at valuation. Not sure why.

Valuation 198

Valuation Revenue Pre-Money Valuation Early Stage 198

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 5, 2017

examined over 20,000 VC-backed companies and found that women’s positions have primarily been in sales and marketing, rather than more “heavy-hitting” roles like chief technology officer and so on. A study via Dow Jones entitled “ Women at the Wheel: Do Female Executives Drive Startup Success?

Venture Capital 82

Venture Capital Lean Cofounder Technical Review 82