Feld Thoughts

JUNE 9, 2021

If you are looking to expand your leadership team or board , are looking for a part-time executive role or board role , or are an investor looking for fractional executives to join your portfolio companies , you should become part of the Bolster network right now. For example, here are the chapters in Part Five: Sales by Anita Absey (p.

Fractional CTO 70

Fractional CTO Cofounder Startup Lead Investor 70

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

Hunter Walker

JUNE 7, 2014

And my sense is the trend carries outside of our portfolio these days. You Don’t Need to Show Off for the Fortune 500 CTO: Funding announcements used to be the credibility you’d need to get a meeting with the CTO or other management with purchasing power and a RFP. What’s changed?

Technical Review 117

Technical Review CTO Hire Finance Stealth 117

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 1, 2022

CEO brought in to replace the founder, 5 - 10% CTO, CFO, VP of Marketing or Sales, 1.5 - 3% Chief Engineer or Architect, 1 - 1.5% Advisory Board Member, 1% Senior Engineer,3 -.7% 7% Product Manager,2 -.3% 3% If you are not on this list, just worry about getting whatever your peers are getting.

Stock Options 343

Stock Options Advisory Board Stock Startup 343

SoCal CTO

JUNE 9, 2010

Continuing my series of posts that I’ve been collecting that live at the intersection of Startups and being a Startup CTO : Startup CTO Top 30 Posts for April 16 Great Startup Posts from March here are the top posts from May 2010. Through advertising or direct sales, these sites harvest intent. Tech support is sales.

Fractional CTO 248

Fractional CTO Startup Venture Capital Cofounder 248

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. One of his investors called him, “the best CFO in our entire portfolio.&# ). Who does sales report to?

Entrepreneur 286

Entrepreneur CTO Hire Cofounder Early Stage 286

BeyondVC

JANUARY 3, 2019

This year was a banner year as boldstart portfolio cos raised over $150mm of follow on capital from some of the top Series A and B investors (highlights below). This means more collaboration with the Fortune 500 and more go-to-market experience as our portfolio companies navigate their path to first customers. New CXO advisors join?—?

Stealth 79

Stealth Advisory Board Cloud Virginia 79

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. VCs crave the ability to help portfolio companies. In his spare time he raised nearly $30 million. Please meet her while she’s there.”

Advisory Board 365

Advisory Board CTO Hire Fractional CTO Los Angeles 365

Cracking the Code

MARCH 24, 2015

We were fortunate to host very talented speakers from our portfolio (Ilya Sukhar from FB/Parse, Steve Marx from Dropbox, Bill Ready from Braintree, Ali Rayl from Slack, Eric Wittman from Atlassian, Sam Mac Donnell from HotelTonight.) gathered at the event. It is not very polished but was designed for a fast read.

API 48

API Fractional CTO CTO Hire San Francisco 48

This is going to be BIG.

MAY 19, 2010

A couple of months ago, we created the Key Hire Wire e-mail newsletter, which highlighted the best opportunities in our portfolio. Our portfolio company Modcloth , for example, just made a great Product Manager hire out of Google. Secondly, and this was the bigger issue, is that most startup hiring is completely opportunistic.

CTO Hire 99

CTO Hire Hiring Portfolio Early Stage 99

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 28, 2010

kaChing launched a virtual portfolio management game on Facebook in January 2008 and a similar version shortly thereafter on kaChing.com. Because kaChing prefers its portfolio managers to have a long track record, the marketplace launch (i.e., A portfolio manager’s entire track record & holdings had to be disclosed.

San Francisco 158

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment SEC 158

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 25, 2019

CEO brought in to replace the founder, 5 - 10% CTO, CFO, VP of Marketing or Sales, 1.5 - 3% Chief Engineer or Architect, 1 - 1.5% Advisory Board Member, 1% Senior Engineer,3 -.7% 7% Product Manager,2 -.3% 3% If you are not on this list, just worry about getting whatever your peers are getting.

Equity 237

Equity Stock Options Advisory Board Stock 237

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 5, 2010

They often make great team members such as head of products, CTO, head of sales, CFO, etc. I want our associate to have empathy for the customers we serve — our portfolio companies. These are often amazingly talented people who are really strong in some of the skill areas and there is no shame in this. Was I too harsh?

Entrepreneur 293

Entrepreneur CTO Hire South America Salary 293

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 13, 2018

If you presented on your own but have a very talented CTO perhaps your follow up is to bring by your CTO to show why the tech you’ve built is truly unique. Another great strategy is to ask to meet with some of their portfolio companies if you think your tech would be relevant to them as potential customers. Don’t send these?—?go

Portfolio 261

Portfolio IP Later Stage Email 261

This is going to be BIG.

JUNE 14, 2011

Last Thursday night, Amazon CTO Werner Vogels joined a small group of technical folks from cloud and commerce related First Round portfolio companies for dinner at Double Crown. It was hard to keep our dinner small as there were very few companies in our portfolio that couldn't benefit from a relationship with the company in some way.

Lean 108

Lean Portfolio Cloud Startup 108

Rob Go

DECEMBER 11, 2013

Associates can really help portfolio companies. You also are probably not going to be the person that brings on the SVP of sales for a series B company, or their next CTO. It’s a great long-term investment, because the mid-level PMs, sales people, and software developers of today may become great founders down the road.

CTO Hire 68

CTO Hire Partner Software Developers Software Development 68

www.inc.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

500|5000 Conference Honorees Resources Press Apply 2011 ); Topics > Leadership and Managing > Human Resources > Job Descriptions > How to Hire a CTO When its time to add a technologist to your slate of executives, what are the best practices to follow? Some companies have a CTO focused on operations under the CIO.

Fractional CTO 42

Fractional CTO CTO CTO Hire Hiring 42

Duct Tape Marketing

AUGUST 18, 2022

And to your question specifically, once you start to say, okay, well, where am I in my role on the S curve overall, everything that's required of me, but it very much is a portfolio of curves that you are going to have a number of different curves that you're on within your work. So you're putting together that portfolio.

Leadership 76

Leadership Utah Portfolio Technical Review 76

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.” The focus is on creating some awesome technology, which is critical, except that the sales and marketing piece has been an afterthought in many cases.

Boston 279

Boston IPO B2B Cofounder 279

K9 Ventures

JUNE 23, 2011

I’m pleased to announce the developer launch of K9 Ventures’ portfolio company, card.io (pronounced card-I-O). When I met Josh Bleecher Snyder, the co-founder and CTO of card.io, I was blown away by Josh’s ability to learn and code and just make things work. It’s been a busy week folks!

Cofounder 93

Cofounder Mobile API Portfolio 93

Genuine VC

AUGUST 3, 2012

For us, the investment is certainly fresh and newest in our portfolio, but it also feels familiar. Her co-founder and CTO Yee Lee worked with both my partner Lee Hower and myself (at PayPal and Venrock, respectively). And Board Member James Reinhart is already part of the NextView family, as CEO of portfolio company, thredUP.

Seed Stage 199

Seed Stage Cofounder Portfolio Curation 199

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 21, 2017

CEO brought in to replace the founder, 5 - 10% CTO, CFO, VP of Marketing or Sales, 1.5 - 3% Chief Engineer or Architect, 1 - 1.5% Advisory Board Member, 1% Senior Engineer,3 -.7% 7% Product Manager,2 -.3% 3% If you are not on this list, just worry about getting whatever your peers are getting.

Stock 140

Stock Stock Options Advisory Board Startup 140

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 28, 2010

Other players such as Obopay have set out to focus on mobile person-to-person cash transfers, mFoundry (a GRP portfolio company) has focused on mobile banking and a mobile wallet and one of my favorite companies m-via is focusing on mobile remittances (right now between the US and Mexico). 15mm in Series A. Read more: TechCrunch.

Venture Capital 270

Venture Capital Cofounder Spain San Diego 270

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 17, 2013

CEO brought in to replace the founder, 5 - 10% CTO, CFO, VP of Marketing or Sales, 1.5 - 3% Chief Engineer or Architect, 1 - 1.5% Advisory Board Member, 1% Senior Engineer,3 -.7% 7% Product Manager,2 -.3% 3% If you are not on this list, just worry about getting whatever your peers are getting.

Stock Options 224

Stock Options Stock Advisory Board Startup 224

BeyondVC

SEPTEMBER 5, 2007

The first time I heard the term Red Shift was from my portfolio company, Greenplum. Ok-enough of the sales pitch. Those companies, Sun CTO Greg Papadopoulos says, will experience similarly high levels of growth in users, revenue, etc., Red-shift companies tend to be Web 2.0 while blue-shift companies will grow relative to GDP.

CTO Hire 60

CTO Hire Fractional CTO EC2 Database 60

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 22, 2012

CEO brought in to replace the founder, 5 - 10% CTO, CFO, VP of Marketing or Sales, 1.5 - 3% Chief Engineer or Architect, 1 - 1.5% Advisory Board Member, 1% Senior Engineer,3 -.7% 7% Product Manager,2 -.3% 3% If you are not on this list, just worry about getting whatever your peers are getting.

Stock Options 230

Stock Options Stock Advisory Board Startup 230

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 24, 2011

CEO brought in to replace the founder, 5 - 10% CTO, CFO, VP of Marketing or Sales, 1.5 - 3% Chief Engineer or Architect, 1 - 1.5% Advisory Board Member, 1% Senior Engineer,3 -.7% 7% Product Manager,2 -.3% 3% If you are not on this list, just worry about getting whatever your peers are getting.

Equity 234

Equity Advisory Board Stock Options Stock 234

K9 Ventures

SEPTEMBER 8, 2018

Yesterday, K9 Ventures portfolio company, Forethought AI , was declared the winner of the TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco 2018 Startup Battlefield competition. Sami Ghoche , a co-founder and CTO of Forethought is originally from Lebanon. He interned at Facebook , Palantir , Dropbox , and then worked at Pure Storage.

Lebanon 104

Lebanon Cofounder United States San Francisco 104

www.avc.com

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011

The first bracket is the senior management team; the CFO, Chief Revenue Officer/VP Sales, Chief Marketing Officer/VP Marketing, Chief Product Officer/VP Product, CTO, VP Eng, Chief People Officer/VP HR, General Counsel, and anyone else on the senior team.

Equity 64

Equity Employee CTO Hire Fractional CTO 64

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 29, 2015

CEO brought in to replace the founder, 5 - 10% CTO, CFO, VP of Marketing or Sales, 1.5 - 3% Chief Engineer or Architect, 1 - 1.5% Advisory Board Member, 1% Senior Engineer,3 -.7% 7% Product Manager,2 -.3% 3% If you are not on this list, just worry about getting whatever your peers are getting.

Stock Options 120

Stock Options Stock Advisory Board Startup 120

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

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 20, 2010

CEO brought in to replace the founder, 5 - 10% CTO, CFO, VP of Marketing or Sales, 1.5 - 3% Chief Engineer or Architect, 1 - 1.5% Advisory Board Member, 1% Senior Engineer,3 -.7% 7% Product Manager,2 -.3% 3% If you are not on this list, just worry about getting whatever your peers are getting.

Stock 144

Stock Stock Options Advisory Board Startup 144

David Teten

JUNE 6, 2011

My rough notes follow: Mike Dubno , CIO, Global Markets and Research Technology & Operations, Bank of America. Previously CTO, Goldman Sachs. Panel: Cary Davis , Managing Director, Warburg Pincus, Moderator: Ben Fried, Chief Information Officer, Google, runs in-house technology. 2-18 month sales cycle.

Fractional CTO 122

Fractional CTO CTO CTO Hire Azure 122

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

Gust

OCTOBER 20, 2011

Active angels invest in a diversified portfolio of 10 or more companies, usually spreading their investments over a few years. In the end, such a portfolio might yield the angel investor a total return on investment of 25% per year or more. A local network of angels is critical to achieving a diversified portfolio.

Valuation 146

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Intellectual Property Technical Review 146

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 8, 2010

August was a slow month in terms of traffic and I was away for a lot of the month, but there were some really great posts at the intersection of startups, technology, product and being a Startup CTO. Last night at the NY Tech Meetup, John Britton of our portfolio company Twilio showed how it is done. m the f%*kin’ boss.”.

Startup 191

Startup CTO Hire Cofounder Venture Capital 191

Austin Startup

MARCH 15, 2017

Over the past several weeks, I have been rolling out a series of Spotlights on the Lontra Ventures portfolio. Three years ago brothers Rodrigo Aramburu (CEO) and Felipe (CTO), from Houston were working on a consulting project for the Peruvian government involving 14 legacy systems. By now, a few trends are emerging.

Peru 58

Peru Fractional CTO Artificial Inteligence Database 58