View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 18, 2019

Now it’s time to discuss the “where”. As a seed-stage company, it is understandable to have a nascent (or non-existent) product and a barebone team relative to the great ambition of the company. Once you get to this part of the pitch, investors are trying to get a few things out of this slide: The “people roadmap”.

Part-Time VPE 195

Part-Time VPE Seed Stage CTO Hire Forecast 195

Steve Blank

JULY 11, 2017

The director had complained to his boss, the VP of Engineering, who admitted his hands were tied, as this was a “facilities matter,” and the VP of facilities reported to the CFO. So, this was a meeting of last resort, as the engineering director was making one last appeal to the CFO to keep his team in town.

Part-Time VPE 308

Part-Time VPE Liquidity Event Stock Engineer 308

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 20, 2010

I hope many will read this and have an answer for the question, “what’s the different between a CTO and a VP of Engineering?&#. The CTO / Lead Architect - If you want to build a great technology company, you’ll need a “rockstar&# engineering lead. The VP Engineering aspires to manage teams.

Fractional CTO 400

Fractional CTO CTO Hire Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 400

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

Ben's Blog

OCTOBER 14, 2010

The biggest difference between being a great functional manager and being a great general manager—and particularly a great CEO—is that as a general manager, you must hire and manage people who are far more competent at their jobs than you would be at their jobs. So, with no experience, how do you hire someone good? Probably none.

Part-Time VPE 78

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 28, 2014

We particularly like this post, Hiring Executives: If You’ve Never Done the Job, How Do You Hire Somebody Good? , In order to ensure completeness, I find it useful to include criteria from the following sub-divisions when hiring executives: Will the executive be world class at running the function? Melissa Bell, Vox.com.

Part-Time VPE 160

Part-Time VPE Sales Lean Cofounder 160

Cracking the Code

MAY 2, 2019

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. The second is to demonstrate the reach of the product.

Part-Time VPE 48

Part-Time VPE Engineer Retention API 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. Re-architect and re-write” the product. He hired an operating exec as the CEO a few years ago. Who Wants to Work on The Old Product. The logical solution? “Re-architect

Part-Time VPE 318

Part-Time VPE Agile Engineer Startup 318

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. 5 th hire: VP Product.

Part-Time VPE 60

Part-Time VPE Management Finance Vertical 60

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. He’s a founder of Andreessen Horowitz, which has backed Facebook, Skype, Jawbone, and dozens of other companies whose products you use. For example: Mitch Kapor was a founder of Lotus.

Lean 165

Lean Fractional CTO Part-Time VPE Fractional VPE 165

Austin Startup

SEPTEMBER 18, 2017

A CTO will guide your product strategy, market validation, architectural decisions, process optimization, recruiting, and hiring. The Face of the Product and Technology A CTO is often the face of the technology and product. They will attend conferences and tradeshows to evangelize your product and technology.

Fractional CTO 54

Fractional CTO CTO Hire CTO Technical Review 54

Seeing Both Sides

JANUARY 14, 2013

Today's post is brought to you by my friend, Paul Blumenfeld , a recruiter who is one of the most thoughtful people I know when it comes to hiring processes. Many hiring managers write a job spec that is heavy on wishes and low on real needs. I see two reasons for this discrepancy: Static Specs. that would get the interview.

Part-Time VPE 54

Part-Time VPE CTO Hire Matching Hiring 54

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

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 set up an advisory board as a vehicle to get these industry experts engaged with the company and product. At the time this was a pretty controversial decision.

Engineer 198

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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. In addition to attending board meetings I spent time with the CTO trying to understand the technical challenges he was trying to solve.

CTO Hire 308

CTO Hire Management Technical Review Part-Time VPE 308

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. Don’t worry.

CTO Hire 48

CTO Hire Fractional CTO Fractional VPE Austin 48

ReadWriteStart

SEPTEMBER 20, 2012

Often founders with a genius for product are not so good at managing people. Maybe they don’t hire fast enough or they’re too short-tempered to attract top talent. In one way or another, someone on your board has been indicating to you that it’s time to ramp it up well before the ultimate conversation ever takes place.

Part-Time VPE 133

Part-Time VPE Founder Silicon Valley Startup 133

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

Twenty eight years ago I was the bright, young, eager product marketing manager called out to the field to support sales by explaining the technical details of Convergent Technologies products to potential customers. They couldn’t keep up with the fast product development times that were enabled by using standard microprocessors.

Technology 138

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 138

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. I’ve convinced the team you’d be perfect, come join us as the VP of Marketing.”

North Carolina 125

North Carolina Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 125

ReadWriteStart

SEPTEMBER 20, 2012

Often founders with a genius for product are not so good at managing people. Maybe they don’t hire fast enough or they’re too short-tempered to attract top talent. In one way or another, someone on your board has been indicating to you that it’s time to ramp it up well before the ultimate conversation ever takes place.

Part-Time VPE 70

Part-Time VPE Founder Silicon Valley Startup 70

This is going to be BIG.

AUGUST 25, 2010

The path to our involvement with the company dates back to last December, actually, when I attended a Gilt Groupe “Expert Talk” run by Josh Knowles, formally their VP of Engineering. I wouldn’t negotiate weekend plans via Twitter, or debate a feature with a product team.

Part-Time VPE 109

Part-Time VPE New York City SMS Syndicate 109

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. For one thing, you’ll learn from his mistakes.

Fractional CTO 40

Fractional CTO CTO CTO Hire Fractional VPE 40

Seeing Both Sides

AUGUST 21, 2013

They may run a function, such as product or engineering, or they may have a broader operational role and carry a COO title. For example, at one of my portfolio companies, the other founder looked after administration, finance, operations, product and engineering. But then the company hired a VP of operations.

Cofounder 45

Cofounder Founder Part-Time VPE Portfolio 45

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. The Role As a CTO, you paint a landscape of the product and market. Becoming the CTO vs VP of engineering? Strive for balance.

CTO Hire 40

CTO Hire Part-Time VPE Architecture Ruby 40

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

So I initially gravitated to the CTO title, and not VP of Engineering. Instead, they find options and can communicate them to everyone in the company. Find the 80/20 - this was my favorite part of the job. Whats one thing a brand-new first-time CTO could learn from them? I mean, have you seen other people?

CTO 168

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

ReadWriteStart

JANUARY 16, 2020

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. The “right” time to bring in a CTO varies from company to company. Where to find a skilled CTO? Early-stage startups.

Fractional CTO 85

Fractional CTO CTO CTO Hire Part-Time VPE 85

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

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.

CTO Hire 52

CTO Hire Engineer Software Review Part-Time VPE 52

Seeing Both Sides

AUGUST 16, 2012

Last week, I wrote about Akamai , a company with strong network effects that successfully transitioned from a single product to build a platform that garners over a billion dollars in revenue and is now a core part of the Internet’s fabric. 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. The "just fix it" mentality is counter-productive here.

Software Review 94

Software Review Technical Review Part-Time VPE San Francisco 94

www.women2.org

MARCH 8, 2012

Published on: July 13, 2011 Posted By Angie Tags: Elizabeth Knopf , Finding A Co-Founder , FounderDating , Sorced , Technical Co-Founder , Tips & Tricks. After quitting my job and starting Sorced , I spent a few months validating my business concept by creating the product mockups and doing customer development.

Cofounder 47

Cofounder Technical Review San Francisco Founder 47

This is going to be BIG.

FEBRUARY 16, 2010

With this round, Backupify is going to be able to sharpen its product and business focus, and make some much needed engineering hires. We're looking for a solid VP of engineering and some additional developers. It's also great to have such great folks joining us in our investment.

Cloud 112

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www.paulgraham.com

AUGUST 1, 2008

We could hire employees, but we want to be forced to figure out how to scale investing. In essense, let the market design the product. As the volume of startups increases, big companies will start to develop standardized procedures that make acquisitions little more work than hiring someone. Weve done the same thing ourselves.

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

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