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Startup CTO or Developer

TechEmpower

What does it mean to be a CTO for a startup? Should a startup CTO spend their time programming? Exploring new technologies? Here’s a graphic from Socal CTO that illustrates the roles as they change over time: In its earliest days, a startup’s top need is often to produce a product. What does the role demand?

CTO Hire 260
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Technical Advisors: Every Startup Needs One

TechEmpower

Startup founders make decisions on a daily basis – significant decisions that will have lasting impact on their business. Actually, many startups need two kinds of technical advisors. Early-on then, it’s important to bring on people who can produce volume. We’ve talked about this before in Startup CTO or Developer.

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10 Keys To Surviving Startup Cash Flow Requirements

Startup Professionals Musings

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Join a startup incubator. Use crowd funding to build reserves.

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Early-stage Regional Venture Funds–part 2 of 3 of Bigger in Bend

Steve Blank

Dino Vendetti a VC at Bay Partners, moved up to Bend, Oregon on a mission to engineer Bend into a regional technology cluster. Today with every city, state and country trying to build out a technology cluster, following Dino’s progress can provide others with a roadmap of what’s worked and what has not. Here’s Part 2 of Dino’s story….

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10 Marketing Lessons for Early-Stage Tech Startups

Both Sides of the Table

I made every textbook mistake at my first startup, which is why I believe I was much more effective at my second one. The following are some lessons I learned about early-stage startup marketing. For early-stage consumer companies I would be careful not to market futures at all.

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How To Prevent Gaps in An Innovative Startup Strategy

Startup Professionals Musings

In fact, it’s all about the “focus” required to get early stage technology products across the deadly chasm from early adopters to mainstream customers. Most investors and startup professionals expand this concept of focus to apply to key issues of every aspect of strategic and tactical planning in a startup.

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Grant Applications Often Provide Early-Stage Funding

Startup Professionals Musings

A critical stage for most first-time entrepreneurs is getting their idea developed into at least a prototype to validate their technology. Acquiring seed-stage funding is admittedly tough, but a source that I find often overlooked is government grant funding, accessible in the U.S.