Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 10, 2018

You need to find the skills or experience you don’t have in business, technology, or money. Even with an agreed initial equity split, it’s smart to have Founder’s stock actually issue or vest over a period of at least two years, on a month-by-month basis. The CTO of many technical startups was the original founder.

Equity 238

Equity Cofounder Technical Cofounder Intellectual Property 238

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 30, 2014

It’s true the some VCs have started writing so many checks that they resemble stock pickers but the majority of us still have less than 10 board seats at any time and tend to go pretty deep so the result is that we care deeply about where we commit our time. Meredith came to see me along with the CTO Marc Berte. Was it safe?

Technical Review 418

Technical Review Software Review Due Diligence CTO Hire 418

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 16, 2010

In the early days of Rocket Science I realized that we needed high-level advice on multiple fronts; technology, game development, video game distribution, etc. At one of our initial board meetings we had agreed on the general principle of an advisory board and put together an overall stock budget to compensate advisors.

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www.informationarbitrage.com

FEBRUARY 24, 2010

Home About Press IA Capital Partners Archives After 17 years in M&A, Derivatives and Trading, Im spending my time with young entrepreneurs in and around financial technology and digital media. Main February 23, 2010 Advice for CTO Founders: Dont Let Business Kill the Business Founding a technology company is an amazing thing.

CTO Hire 40

CTO Hire Founder Cap Table Vesting 40

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 24, 2016

You need to find the skills or experience you don’t have in business, technology, or money. Even with an agreed initial equity split, it’s smart to have Founder’s stock actually issue or vest over a period of at least two years, on a month-by-month basis. The CTO of many technical startups was the original founder.

Equity 120

Equity Cofounder Technical Cofounder Intellectual Property 120

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 14, 2011

In fact, it doesn't fit any of our stock ideological categories very well. They are leveraging the same kinds of new technology, management thinking, and big data to improve lives that we routinely use here in Silicon Valley. (For It's not the usual partisan fights about the budget or the deficit. But some have.

DC 167

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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. He’d wasted a year of his life and had a pile of stock options that weren’t very interesting.

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Fractional CTO Startup Venture Capital Cofounder 248

Feld Thoughts

DECEMBER 28, 2011

If accepted, each company will receive an equity investment of $20,000 in exchange for six percent of the company in common stock, which will be held by TechStars. Eran Egozy, Founder and CTO Harmonix. Some of the mentors, in addition to me, include: Jeff Powers, Founder, Occipital, Andrew Tschesnok, Founder, Organic Motion.

Intellectual Property 134

Intellectual Property Common Stock Seattle Cofounder 134

www.entrepreneur.com

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011

Technology Technology Home Online Business Tools Security Phones & Mobile Gadgets Tech Tips Technology The Future of Facebook -- Streaming Live Now. Or she could argue that the prototype is so critical to the business that she should get 50 percent of the company's stock. Breaking Down the Buffett Tax.

Sweat Equity 55

Sweat Equity Equity Fractional CTO CTO 55

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 10, 2016

The limited partners could put their money in the stock market, but instead, they give it to you, the venture capitalist, which is much more risky, but you’re promising them huge returns. Over the past decade, he has launched multiple businesses, including three technology companies. If you can’t hear the clip, click here.

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Silicon Valley Ohio Columbus Entrepreneur 120

www.inc.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

Technology | Thursdays. TECHNOLOGY. Technology. Science and Technology Technology. We had a rough time early on," says Parker, president and chief technology officer of Roving Software Inc. , Join our community. Login using: Use your Inc.com account: Forgot login ? Forgot login ? Advertising.

Fractional CTO 40

Fractional CTO Equity Iowa Technical Cofounder 40

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 22, 2020

Deputy Chief Technology Officers Cori Zarek and Ryan Panchadsaram to help all levels of government with COVID-19 response and delivery of services. Deputy Chief Technology Officer in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy from 2013–2014, where she founded the United States Digital Service.

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New Jersey Government CTO America 60

Scalable Startup

OCTOBER 9, 2014

Talking to CEO and CTO about role as co-founder/COO. > The cofounder title is much easier to give away then real stock. > If you really want to be in a startup, want to have the COO title, love their strategy and technology, trust them, and aren’t working right now, maybe go for it. Vesting? > Keeping it?

Cofounder 20

Cofounder Technical Cofounder Equity Vesting 20

ReadWriteStart

DECEMBER 30, 2014

ReadWriteReflect offers a look back at major technology trends, products and companies of the past year. Quip has redesigned office-productivity software for the mobile age. For small-business owners who ship things infrequently and don’t want to hire warehouse help or stock packing supplies, it could make a lot of sense.

API 60

API Software Review Technical Review Startup 60

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 5, 2009

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times Ardent would be my third technology company as a VP of Marketing (Convergent Technologies and MIPS Computers were the other two.) It was my ex boss from Convergent Technologies, “Steve we’ve all just resigned from Convergent and we’re starting a new company.

North Carolina 125

North Carolina Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 125

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2017

Technology cycles have become a treadmill, and for startups to survive they need to be on a continuous innovation cycle. To turn your company’s stock into cash, you engaged a top-notch investment bank (Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs) and/or their Silicon Valley compatriots (Hambrecht & Quist, Montgomery Securities, Robertson Stephens).

Founder 245

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 17, 2019

Just as I was getting the swing of things the world shifted beneath my feet and the stock market went into a free fall and venture capital all but shut down for nearly a year. It proved to be fortuitous because it allowed me the time & space I needed to get to know tons of founders and VCs and to hone my craft.

IP 223

IP Intellectual Property IRR Cofounder 223

SoCal CTO

MAY 7, 2010

I view the point of this blog to provide my thoughts and perspectives as an Acting CTO mostly concerned with Startup Development to entrepreneurs and other CTOs. The conversation around Flash is an important one for startups and CTOs. Short Adobe stock? Do we include Flex or Flash as a delivery technology?

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Flash HTML Stock Mobile 150

ReadWriteStart

MAY 9, 2012

The current technology boom is, on most fronts, quite unlike the dotcom boom of the late 1990s. These are actually the titles that are on employment agreements, stock grants, benefits documents, etc.”. But one aspect that both seem to share is a fascination with titles - both yours and your teams’. Is that really a smart move?

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Founder Cofounder Early Stage Stock 135

The Next Web

JANUARY 24, 2014

So let’s take stock: What do we offer? We have three universities in the top 100 of the Shanghai ranking for engineering and technology. Think of Werner Vogels (CTO of Amazon), Guido van Rossem (founder of Python programming language and senior engineer at Dropbox) or the more senior Gerard Kleisterlee (chairman of Vodafone).

Netherlands 143

Netherlands Technical Review Stock Silicon Valley 143

This is going to be BIG.

FEBRUARY 26, 2010

Correction: Last week's CTO position at Modcloth is actually a San Francisco opportunity, not Pittsburgh. We have a deep technology stack. Tags: First Round Capital Venture Capital & Technology nextNY. Our team includes 12 top-notch engineers from NVidia, Microsoft, Stanford, Berkeley and Cornell.

San Francisco 92

San Francisco CTO Hire Developer EC2 92

The Next Web

AUGUST 12, 2013

This person needs to be incredibly skilled in engineering, and should ideally be an experienced CTO. Also think about your first employees, it’s normal to let employees participate in the companies financial success by giving away virtual stock options (I will talk about that more next in the next part of this series). An engineer.

Cofounder 119

Cofounder CTO Hire Startup Europe 119

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 4, 2009

OK, you would own 0.25% of the stock. Now … these are stock options and not restricted stock so you’ll likely be taxed at a long-term capital gains rate. Stock vests for 4 years. Stock options are the icing on the cake. So a friend recently called to ask for advice on becoming the CTO of a startup.

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Stock Options Stock Liquidation Preference Option Pool 418

SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 5, 2010

Great content again in September that meets at the intersection of startups, technology, product and being a Startup CTO. Coworking Spaces - A VC : Venture Capital and Technology , September 2, 2010 I've never been much of a fan of incubators. CompStudy 2008 Report on Equity and Cash Compensation at Technology Startups.

Technology 191

Technology Product San Francisco CTO Hire 191

Startup Company Lawyer

MAY 4, 2009

Focus on a high tech or innovative sector, such as biotech, cleantech, and information technology. Joe Betts-LaCroix – CTO, OQO. The Founder Institute has developed Class F common stock , which provides founders with a maximum amount of control over the founder’s company. Pass basic background and reference checks.

Founder 28

Founder Warrant San Francisco Intellectual Property 28

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 24, 2021

And the third founder, Colin Kelley , remains an important contributor & CTO of the company. All have been able to take some secondary stock sales along the way, all remain shareholders of the company and all benefit from late-stage capital provided by Accel, Morgan Stanley, HIG Capital ( Scott Hilleboe ) and others.

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Venture Capital LP Valuation Later Stage 363

The Next Web

OCTOBER 7, 2013

They were referring to non-founder engineers, most commonly the first hire for technology businesses. In a CTO Salary and Equity trends report by Safire Partners, it finds non-founder equity compensation to settle out below 2 percent. Stock is naturally more speculative as to value, public or private.

Engineer 129

Engineer Dilution Option Pool Vesting 129

David Teten

OCTOBER 1, 2015

You’ve got a great idea and domain expertise, but limited money and insufficient technology resources. They’re well aware of the conventional VC bias against funding companies which externally develop their technology, but they do have relevant skills. Should you co-found your company with a software development shop?

Software Developers 60

Software Developers Software Development Software Review Technical Cofounder 60

SVPG

SEPTEMBER 30, 2016

Hate mail started streaming in from everywhere - including emails directly to Bill Gates who would forward them on to the team with messages like "this is depressing MSFT's stock price. Those were the technology-powered innovations that enabled the new, much more desirable business model. So the team got to work.

Product 60

Product Technical Review Software Review Engineer 60

VC Cafe

OCTOBER 12, 2010

Seculert (=Security Alert) is a subscription service based on proprietary patent-pending technology that detects and alerts companies of cyber threats affecting their networks, and accurately identifies the affected network domains. The exact sum was not disclosed.

Cloud 74

Cloud Intellectual Property Software Review 74

The Next Web

SEPTEMBER 24, 2013

That not only signifies the missed opportunity that BlackBerry is desperately trying to make up for now — following its botched weekend launch of BBM for iOS and Android — but it sees Livingston’s own startup over take the company that gave him his start in the technology world. “I I went to university in Waterloo in 2005 for engineering.

Entrepreneur 167

Entrepreneur CTO Hire Startup Mobile 167

The Next Web

OCTOBER 25, 2013

The teams gather together to find out the latest news from across the business so great video conferencing technology is now vital for us.”. Viktoras Jucikas, co-founder and CTO of Yplan , says allowing employees to personalize the space can be inspiring to others with similar mindsets. Fully stocked options at the HotelTonight Bar.

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San Francisco Design Product Startup 167

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

You can read more about setting up a C-Corp in Delaware here; it’s a particular favorite for technology startups, and there are plenty of reasons why: The ability to incorporate without needing to reside in the U.S., Delaware law gives preferred stock investors of a corporation certain voting rights and control over the corporation.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

YoungUpstarts

AUGUST 18, 2020

by Joseph Heller, CEO & Founder of The/Studio Technologies. Part of the reason is that technology has totally increased the velocity at which everything changes in the world. New groundbreaking advances occur every year and it’s incredibly hard for new companies to adapt to that technology. We are more focused on design.”.

Fractional CTO 147

Fractional CTO CTO Hire China Silicon Valley 147

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

link] tenthings most business-grads are too arrogant to realize that they are selling technology, not hot air, so they need a tech team to build upon, not a product. Your technology is really cool and working great but no one knows you exist. The business guys only started coming in after the core technology had been built out.

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 84

blog.expensify.com

APRIL 24, 2012

Guess which technology we have the least trouble with. You have a CEO that clearly hasn’t taken the time to understand a technology platform. who forms technology biases based on old Visual Basic stereotypes or shallow interpretations of. ability based on one of many technologies. March 25, 2011 at 1:36 pm.

Java 107

Java PHP Software Review Coder 107

Startup Company Lawyer

MAY 1, 2009

CompStudy publishes an annual report of equity and cash compensation that provides compensation data on top management positions and Boards of Directors at private companies in technology and life sciences. Head of Technology/CTO 1.19%. 2008 CompStudy Report in Technology. Tags: Stock options. President/COO 2.58%.

Stock Options 31

Stock Options CTO Hire Equity 31