A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 13, 2015

The question is: How do you decide what role is most important to hire for? Founders typically revert to whatever they’re already expert in, and decide they need more of that. So, a technical founder decides she needs another developer, or a sales-oriented founder decides she needs another sales person.

Part-Time VPE 120

Part-Time VPE Hiring Retention Revenue 120

Cracking the Code

MAY 2, 2019

Team building is top of mind for any start-up founder or exec. Recruiting and retaining top talent is even more challenging for software engineers. To get an insight into how successful start-ups approach team building, we spoke to Sylvain Utard, employee number 1 and VP of Engineering at Algolia, an Accel portfolio company.

Part-Time VPE 48

Part-Time VPE Engineer Retention API 48

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 18, 2019

Projecting from the seed stage, there are two types of team-building topics you want to address – key senior hires and org-level team building. As the company progresses through product market fit (PMF), you will want to highlight other key senior hires required to scale and round out the functional expertise of the exec team.

Part-Time VPE 195

Part-Time VPE Seed Stage CTO Hire Forecast 195

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 19, 2009

I would discover that there was a more effective alternative in building a marketing department than hiring traditional marketers with MBA’s. .&# I would discover that there was a more effective alternative in building a marketing department than hiring traditional marketers with MBA’s. Context here.)

Engineer 198

Engineer Silicon Valley Part-Time VPE Advisory Board 198

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 13, 2018

If you’re an early employee at a startup, one day you will wake up to find that what you worked on 24/7 for the last year is no longer the most important thing – you’re no longer the most important employee, and process, meetings, paperwork and managers and bosses have shown up. The company was going to hire a VP of Marketing.

Part-Time VPE 333

Part-Time VPE Employee Cofounder Hiring 333

Austin Startup

DECEMBER 16, 2018

It is all about how you hire the best and the amazing impact doing so will have on your culture. And my answer always is, “Recruiting”. Recruiting has to be a top-three priority for any CEO, for any size organization. Brant and I came up with a process for recruiting that was so obvious in hindsight but yet is so rarely done.

Part-Time VPE 48

Part-Time VPE CTO Hire Hiring Austin 48

Steve Blank

JANUARY 25, 2011

But over time if developers aren’t careful, code written to find early customers can become unwieldy, difficult to maintain and incapable of scaling. I just had lunch (at my favorite Greek restaurant in Palo Alto forgetting it looked like a VC meetup) with a friend who was technical founder of his company and is now its chairman.

Part-Time VPE 318

Part-Time VPE Agile Engineer Startup 318

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 1, 2014

Another way to learn more about who’s speaking is to sort the conference program by category and find people addressing specific topics. For example: Mitch Kapor was a founder of Lotus. He’s a founder of Andreessen Horowitz, which has backed Facebook, Skype, Jawbone, and dozens of other companies whose products you use.

Lean 165

Lean Fractional CTO Part-Time VPE Fractional VPE 165

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 28, 2014

A well-known startup innovator, he’s co-founder of the leading VC firm Andreessen Horowitz and author of a new book, The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building A Business When There Are No Easy Answers , which brims with unusually direct, useful advice for new and seasoned entrepreneurs alike. Herewith, our introductions.

Part-Time VPE 160

Part-Time VPE Sales Lean Cofounder 160

Feld Thoughts

JUNE 16, 2016

Recruits, hires, and retains the very best talent for the company. Let’s focus on “ recruits, hires, and retains the very best talent for the company.” ” This is where the vexing part comes in. However, the CEO is often the same person, especially if it’s a founder.

Part-Time VPE 70

Part-Time VPE Leadership Engineer Hiring 70

ReadWriteStart

SEPTEMBER 20, 2012

And if you’re the founder of a successful startup and you’re not named Mark Zuckerberg, there’s the day when you’re replaced as CEO. He’s learned to see the founder pink slip’s silver lining. “An But other founders are more like, ‘This is my baby and there’s no way you’re taking it away from me,’” Feinleib says. There’s death.

Part-Time VPE 133

Part-Time VPE Founder Silicon Valley Startup 133

YoungUpstarts

DECEMBER 8, 2011

If you’re looking for a space, simply type in an address and find available spaces around it. The founders started working in a basement from May this year, putting together mockups and building the site with an off-shore development team. “For (us), the best part of entrepreneurship is working with a great team.

Part-Time VPE 223

Part-Time VPE Philadelphia Singapore Engineer 223

Version One Ventures

AUGUST 26, 2016

There’s a lot of debate surrounding the right time to bring executive level hires into your start-up. First, your hiring/team building strategy should follow two key rules. Founders should focus their time and efforts on the areas that create the most value. 2 nd hire: VP of Finance.

Part-Time VPE 60

Part-Time VPE Management Finance Vertical 60

Austin Startup

SEPTEMBER 18, 2017

A CTO will guide your product strategy, market validation, architectural decisions, process optimization, recruiting, and hiring. A CTO’s real value is in finding opportunities with asymmetric payoffs. They seek the 80/20 economical solution, present options, and discuss tradeoffs. “A

Fractional CTO 54

Fractional CTO CTO Hire CTO Technical Review 54

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

AUGUST 9, 2010

If you can't find ten people who say they'll buy it, your company is bullshit. I say "find ten people who say they'll buy." By definition, if you're a startup founder you're explicitly not your customer. founder Blogger & Twitter. "If If there are millions, it's trivial to find ten. Short-sighted, no?

Software Review 312

Software Review Part-Time VPE Houston Cofounder 312

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 16, 2010

One of the first potential advisors I reached out to was someone who 10 years earlier tried to hire me as the VP of Marketing of his new division at Sun Microsystems. For lots of reasons that never worked out, but I liked him so much that the following year I tried to hire him as the VP of Engineering of Ardent. (He

Advisory Board 260

Advisory Board Part-Time VPE CTO Hire Stock 260

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

As your organization grows and you hire senior staff where you are no longer managing every employee directly the issue of how to manage people that are not your “direct&# reports arises. This applies to both founders and to VC’s that work with them. But I work hard not to “skip&# below the CEO or founders.

CTO Hire 308

CTO Hire Management Technical Review Part-Time VPE 308

ReadWriteStart

SEPTEMBER 20, 2012

And if you’re the founder of a successful startup and you’re not named Mark Zuckerberg, there’s the day when you’re replaced as CEO. He’s learned to see the founder pink slip’s silver lining. “An But other founders are more like, ‘This is my baby and there’s no way you’re taking it away from me,’” Feinleib says. There’s death.

Part-Time VPE 70

Part-Time VPE Founder Silicon Valley Startup 70

socialmatchbox.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

The first part is the hardest part: hunting for a programmer. If you have a friend who is a recruiter then ask them to tell you what they recommend that will not cost anything. If they hire an accountant to help prepare and file their taxes that may cost around $500. Be sure to post your opportunity here.

Part-Time VPE 41

Part-Time VPE Sweat Equity DC Washington 41

Austin Startup

AUGUST 19, 2018

You can still get on a panel by finding an existing panel that was submitted and adding yourself to it. It’s not too hard to find the panel organizer on social media and reach out to them. You just raised $10MM from Sequoia, you’re 3 co-founders, and you want to go hire the VP of Engineering from Uber.

CTO Hire 48

CTO Hire Fractional CTO Fractional VPE Austin 48

Seeing Both Sides

AUGUST 21, 2013

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the unsung hero of many start-ups: the other founder. A lot has been written about the founder/CEO and her growth and evolution as a company grows. Larry Page is the other founder. The other founder usually begins with a particular range of responsibilities that comliment the founder.

Cofounder 45

Cofounder Founder Part-Time VPE Portfolio 45

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 5, 2009

I’ve convinced the team you’d be perfect, come join us as the VP of Marketing.” 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. A few days later Gordon became a founder.

North Carolina 125

North Carolina Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 125

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 11, 2023

The story starts with a company you probably never heard of – Engineering Research Associates. While unique for the time, this public-private partnership was in-line with the wartime experiment of Vannevar Bush’s OSRD – using civilians in universities to develop military weapons. Why Minneapolis/St. Parker agreed to invest.

Minnesota 281

Minnesota Engineer Minneapolis Silicon Valley 281

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

Their engineering teams didn’t have the expertise using off-the-shelf microprocessors (back then “real” computer companies designed their own instruction sets and operating systems.) They couldn’t keep up with the fast product development times that were enabled by using standard microprocessors. Their engineers hated us.

Technology 138

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 138

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

So what does CTO mean, besides just "technical founder who really cant manage anyone?" So I initially gravitated to the CTO title, and not VP of Engineering. But since I spent a long time in a hybrid CTO/VP Engineering role, I still have this nagging question. I always assumed I wouldnt manage anybody.

CTO 168

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

rapidrollout.wordpress.com

JANUARY 15, 2011

He or she might call himself a “consulting CTO,&# “freelance CTO,&# “on-demand CTO,&# “CTO on call,&# “CTO for hire,&# or just a “technology strategy advisor.&# If you find him, he’s gold, and not only because of his knowledge and experience.

Fractional CTO 40

Fractional CTO CTO CTO Hire Fractional VPE 40

devver.wordpress.com

NOVEMBER 9, 2010

Boulder CTO December Lunch with Tim Wolters with 5 comments The Boulder CTO Lunch meets once a month with a guest speaker and covers topics and questions that startup CTOs should find interesting. Becoming the CTO vs VP of engineering? VP of engineering is a managing role. Are you good at managing or not?

CTO Hire 40

CTO Hire Part-Time VPE Architecture Ruby 40

ReadWriteStart

JANUARY 16, 2020

The same person can be a developer and a technical manager, while a non-technical founder is more likely to be accountable for marketing. The expertise of administrators and senior-level developers suffices to handle routine technical tasks under the guidance of such company members as VP of Engineering, Team Lead, and Project Manager.

Fractional CTO 85

Fractional CTO CTO CTO Hire Part-Time VPE 85

Altgate

OCTOBER 1, 2010

To the right of that are five charts one each for: Current Equity Equity at Hire Base Salary Target Bonus Actual Total Cash Each of these bar charts shows the respective compensation for the management team on a percentile scale (compared to the cohort). For obvious reasons, we compare founders to founders and non-founders to non-founders.

Part-Time VPE 39

Part-Time VPE Startup Salary Equity 39

firstround.com

SEPTEMBER 10, 2013

Product and Engineering. How to Go From Google Engineer to First-Time CTO. Product and Engineering. How to Go From Google Engineer to First-Time CTO. Ian Langworth started his career as an O’Reilly author and software engineer at Google. First Round Capital. The Review. Plusstartup. The Review.

CTO Hire 52

CTO Hire Engineer Software Review Part-Time VPE 52

www.women2.org

MARCH 8, 2012

female founders. founder friday. Lessons learned from female founders and women entrepreneurs. Startup Quote: Wendy Tan White on Building a Successful Startup » FounderDating: How I Found My Co-Founder. Tweet By Elizabeth Knopf (Co-Founder & CEO, Sorced). Scoring Founder “Dates” On My Own.

Cofounder 47

Cofounder Technical Review San Francisco Founder 47

Business Plan Blog

OCTOBER 4, 2013

Don’t hire people with skills and qualifications similar to yours. 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. Hire based on functionality and avoid having too many C’s.

Part-Time VPE 79

Part-Time VPE Fractional VPE Cofounder CTO Hire 79

ConversionXL

AUGUST 18, 2021

From the Flywheel dashboard, you can quickly find any site you’re looking for. And of course, if you have any questions during any of this, our team of Happiness Engineers are always here to help. As for the demo video, it’s delivered by Kajabi’s VP of Engineering, Jeremy Saenz. Even across both plans and a single site.

Product 122

Product Analytics Part-Time VPE Video 122

Seeing Both Sides

AUGUST 16, 2012

I first met Steve when he was VP of Engineering at Centerline software, a software development tools startup, and I was a junior in college. In founding TripAdvisor, Kaufer wanted to take his hard core engineering skills and apply them to vertical search in travel. Scaling Lesson 1: Focus On Finding A Great Business Model.

Part-Time VPE 54

Part-Time VPE Software Review Costa Rica Technical Review 54

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 7, 2008

In a few cases, they are clearly smart people in a bad situation, and Ive written about their pain in The product managers lament and The engineering managers lament. Its common to find a hacker at the heart of almost any successful technology company. Suffice to say, most of the hackers Ive known have been men. Just change it.

Software Review 94

Software Review Technical Review Part-Time VPE San Francisco 94

www.paulgraham.com

AUGUST 1, 2008

In the last batch of startups we funded, we had several founders who said theyd thought of applying before, but werent sure and got jobs instead. We could hire employees, but we want to be forced to figure out how to scale investing. This is a problem for founders, because it makes raising money take longer and cost more in legal fees.

Web 54

Web Startup Silicon Valley Technical Review 54

blog.expensify.com

APRIL 24, 2012

Update: The end is near, Expensify is hiring a.NET programmer! As you might know, we’re hiring the best programmers in the world. But finding such people is more than a full time job. Indeed, I spend about half my time on it, while Lisa spends about all hers. Expensify Blog. Sunday edit : Still going!

Java 107

Java PHP Software Review Coder 107