Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 30, 2013

A CEO who has “been there and done that” is traction, especially if teamed with a financial lead (CFO) and a product lead (CTO). For a business, you must define the absolute minimum features you need to satisfy the customer problem, and test it in the market. Get a real customer and real revenue. Build qualified advisory board.

Intellectual Property 281

Intellectual Property Entrepreneur Sweat Equity CTO Hire 281

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 20, 2011

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. Beyond that, I want lots of conversations with experts, users, customers, VCs, partners, etc. You need all of these people to bake the cake. What is Stealth? " Ummm.

NDA 211

NDA Stealth Intellectual Property Non-disclosure Agreement 211

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 20, 2011

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. Beyond that, I want lots of conversations with experts, users, customers, VCs, partners, etc. You need all of these people to bake the cake. What is Stealth? " Ummm.

NDA 198

NDA Stealth Intellectual Property Non-disclosure Agreement 198

SoCal CTO

AUGUST 4, 2011

Almost every day I'm talking to early stage startup founders (see Free Startup CTO Consulting Sessions ) about what they plan to do. Think of these as the big upfront questions: Who are the customers? Logging/Auditing - do we need to log certain operations in order to help with customer support or for auditing?

Developer 396

Developer Founder Viral Oauth 396

SoCal CTO

AUGUST 4, 2011

Almost every day I'm talking to early stage startup founders (see Free Startup CTO Consulting Sessions ) about what they plan to do. Think of these as the big upfront questions: Who are the customers? Logging/Auditing - do we need to log certain operations in order to help with customer support or for auditing?

Developer 384

Developer Founder Viral Oauth 384

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 31, 2012

A CEO who has “been there and done that” is traction, especially if teamed with a financial lead (CFO) and a product lead (CTO). For a business, you must define the absolute minimum features you need to satisfy the customer problem, and test it in the market. Get a real customer and real revenue. Build qualified advisory board.

Intellectual Property 260

Intellectual Property Sweat Equity CTO Hire Fractional CTO 260

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 11, 2016

Gregg was a graduate of Stanford and a Wharton MBA and had worked at the consulting firm BCG so I knew he was smart and capable. 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.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Fractional CTO Cofounder Early Stage 150

Software By Rob

DECEMBER 20, 2016

The emails I’m highlighting here are easy to set up and pack a punch – ideal for early-stage products. Convert more trials into paying customers with trial extension emails. Ideally, you (/your app) realize on day 15 that Bob is failing in his trial, e.g. by comparing their usage of the app to successful customers.

Early Stage 27

Early Stage Email Fractional CTO Churn Rate 27

Software By Rob

DECEMBER 20, 2016

The emails I’m highlighting here are easy to set up and pack a punch – ideal for early-stage products. Convert more trials into paying customers with trial extension emails. Ideally, you (/your app) realize on day 15 that Bob is failing in his trial, e.g. by comparing their usage of the app to successful customers.

Early Stage 27

Early Stage Email Fractional CTO Churn Rate 27

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 17, 2011

A CEO who has “been there and done that” is traction, especially if teamed with a financial lead (CFO) and a product lead (CTO). For a business, you must define the absolute minimum features you need to satisfy the customer problem, and test it in the market. Get a real customer and real revenue. Build qualified advisory board.

Intellectual Property 253

Intellectual Property Sweat Equity CTO Hire Fractional CTO 253

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2013

But the thing I am most proud of about Rob is that he has taken a company with a uniquely talented founder & CTO – Nick Halstead – and managed to build a very tight working relationship with Nick where we drive world-class product development without having the usual founder / CEO conflicts. Ask for short conference calls.

Advisory Board 365

Advisory Board CTO Hire Fractional CTO Los Angeles 365

ReadWriteStart

JANUARY 16, 2020

Being relatively a new service trend in today’s tech-driven world, CTO-as-a-Service (CaaS) is notably gaining its momentum. Though CTO as a traditional full-time position exists for decades, some companies do not feel they need a technology executive. Ideal scenario assumes there’s a CTO in house. Early-stage startups.

Fractional CTO 85

Fractional CTO CTO CTO Hire Part-Time VPE 85

SoCal CTO

MARCH 5, 2007

Common revenue streams are consulting, training, support, customization, upgraded versions for corporate applications, etc. He has twenty years’ experience as a CTO. He has been the CTO for several start-ups, most notably eHarmony. ► February (2) CTO Founders / Cofounders Part-Time Startup CTO?

Open Source 150

Open Source Business Model Technical Cofounder Southern California 150

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 22, 2010

A CEO who has “been there and done that” is traction, especially if teamed with a financial lead (CIO) and a product lead (CTO). For a business, you must define the absolute minimum features you need to satisfy the customer problem, and test it in the market. Get a real customer and real revenue. Build qualified advisory board.

Intellectual Property 222

Intellectual Property Sweat Equity CTO Hire Fractional CTO 222

SoCal CTO

NOVEMBER 10, 2009

My first job out of school was at one of the early bioinformatics companies in Silicon Valley, working as the head of technical services. That's where I learned I enjoyed interacting with customers and working with development teams to build and launch products. Details coming soon!) How did you do that?

Management 150

Management Product Entrepreneur Silicon Valley 150

ReadWriteStart

SEPTEMBER 16, 2010

Dr. Marcos Athanasoulis, CTO of Harvard Medical School discussed this idea with me recently. Michael Aginsky, CTO of Gibbons P.C. This is an open opportunity for an entrepreneur to build a custom solution. Today, the telecom industry charges customers based on fixed price business models for data services.

Cloud 117

Cloud Fractional CTO Entrepreneur Bandwidth 117

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. Our current focus is Actors and Actresses and we are moving into other verticals.

Los Angeles 225

Los Angeles Revenue Southern California Social Network 225

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? Technology Technology Home Online Business Tools Security Phones & Mobile Gadgets Tech Tips Technology The Future of Facebook -- Streaming Live Now.

Sweat Equity 55

Sweat Equity Equity Fractional CTO CTO 55

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. I'm married to Mike Freehling , M&A and financial management consultant.

Early Stage 150

Early Stage Southern California Los Angeles Marketing 150

Mucker Lab

APRIL 6, 2023

If you go back to thinking about what kind of company is a great fit for PLG, there are two important criteria: The first one is your target segment, your customer size. Obviously if you target enterprise customers, you usually have a very large ACV (Annual Contract Value) and the product usually is complex. Think about Adobe.

Product 78

Product CTO Hire Startup Fractional CTO 78

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 5, 2009

A Phone Call After I left MIPS Computers I was in New York tagging along with a friend (a computer architect whose products at Apple a decade later would change the shape of personal computing) who was consulting for a voice recognition startup. We were sitting in our cheap hotel room when the phone rang. We were going to be guessing.

North Carolina 125

North Carolina Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 125

SoCal CTO

JUNE 26, 2012

I've done four Free CTO Consulting Sessions in the past month with startup founders who all had run into variations of the same problem. Investors and early customers were becoming worried about the ability of the founder to deliver. My belief is that you shouldn't sign that contract.

Software Developers 254

Software Developers Software Development Agile Fractional CTO 254

SoCal CTO

MARCH 4, 2010

I’ve worked with 30+ early-stage companies in all sorts of capacities (and spoken to many, many more), so I thought it might be worthwhile trying to classify the various ways that I’ve engaged in different technology roles in startups. However, I’m always doing this part-time. important planning meetings or partner meetings).

Technical Review 170

Technical Review Fractional CTO Technology CTO Hire 170

Duct Tape Marketing

SEPTEMBER 5, 2019

He is a community and collaboration strategy consultant, advisor and speaker. Do you want them to be answering questions for your other customers and users? Do you want them to be producing technology such as happens in the open source world? Intercom customer, Unity, got 45% more loyal users with Intercom in just 12 months.

Community 55

Community Social Media Africa Kansas City 55

Mike Michalowicz

SEPTEMBER 8, 2015

CSG offers its clients both an outsourced Chief Technology Officer and an entire I.T. department for a fraction of the price of hiring these resources in-house. He is passionate about early stage companies and leading them to a profitable and sustainable growth path. In addition to solving the typical I.T.

Fractional CTO 60

Fractional CTO Cofounder Early Stage Social Network 60

David Teten

OCTOBER 1, 2015

I’ve talked with a number of software development shops who are eager to get into the business of cofounding companies, i.e., getting product revenue and equity instead of just consulting revenue. Vlad and his team at DarwinApps are considering launching DevFund — their attempt at cofounding companies by developing the MVP technology.

Software Developers 60

Software Developers Software Development Software Review Technical Cofounder 60

www.quora.com

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011

They've got a handful of customers, maybe a few thousand users, and some initial traction. Update Link to Questions, Topics and People Add Find Questions, Topics or People Add Answer Follow Question Related Questions How much equity (%) should be in the employee pool at an early stage (angel round) company?

Equity 40

Equity Employee Founder Cofounder 40

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

One of the things I do as a founder of a later stage startup is to meet with early stage entrepreneurs to help them get their companies going. There are only a tiny fraction of people who hit on all the right circumstances to go from prototype to hit in a straight trajectory. An early prototype is always a must though.

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 84

www.metamorphblog.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

Tiny, contracting market. Customers are technophobes. Hiren Co-Founder and CTO @ Point10Solutions.com [link] Hiren Panchasara Thanks for the post ! Hiren Co-Founder and CTO @ Point10Solutions.com [link] Paul Nelligan Really amazingly good post. Huge upfront software licensing fees. FAIL just waiting to happen.

Founder 51

Founder Startup Cofounder Vesting 51

www.quora.com

JANUARY 16, 2011

" => I have not bothered to put up a landing page, survey to test customer demand, or done any customer development whatsoever. Developer, engineer, CTO, or technical co-founder? If you have an idea and either customers waiting for the product to be built, or a startup success under your belt already, skip to step 2.

Developer 42

Developer Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder 42

Austin Startup

MARCH 7, 2018

janryan (@janryan) | Twitter Kerry Rupp Kerry is a Capital Factory Mentor and founding partner of True Wealth Ventures, an early-stage venture capital fund that invests in women-led companies in the sustainable consumer and consumer health verticals. SXSW Panel: Return on Inclusion: Investing in Diverse Startups Arlan ????

Technical Cofounder 48

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Fractional CTO CTO 48

mashable.com

NOVEMBER 3, 2010

Here’s an overview: Mitch Kapor: Kapor is founding partner of Kapor Capital , a firm that invests in seed and early stage startups. Brad Feld: Feld is co-founder and managing director of Foundry Group, a Boulder, Colorado venture capital firm that focuses on early stage investments ranging from $250,000 to $500,000.

Angel Investor 80

Angel Investor Startup San Francisco Social Media 80

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 5, 2010

You attend five customer meetings together over a two-week period and after each meeting you replay the results in the office about what it meant. And that rep doesn’t just send an email to his boss – he has coffee with the head of customer service. He gossips with the office manager who tells 3 software developers.

Distribution 335

Distribution Offshore CTO Hire Bulgaria 335