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Advice for CTO Founders: Don't Let Business Kill the Business

www.informationarbitrage.com

Selecting value-added angel investors and advisors can also help with the camaraderie issue, as they can provide advice and counsel during the solitary period of hard-core coding and product development. They might give them too much stock, and even have that stock not subject to vesting provisions. Seek advice from a mentor.

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A Part-Time CTO - In-House or Outsource?

blog.aparttimecto.com

A development partner is an consulting company that works very closely with you, similar to an internal development staff. They are looking at a long term relationship and are more likely to take a craftsman approach your product development.

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Making Decisions in Context

Austin Startup

Set any vesting schedules and expiration dates on roughly similar terms, if for no other reason just so you can track all of them correctly. Your Product Plan must fit into context of your overall business mission. You can print shares all day long even if you have no cash, so I get the need for that from time to time.

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Will Millennials Change Manufacturing?

Duct Tape Marketing

They have a vested interest in how well the company does,” he observes. That job involves not only managing internal resources to ensure that products are developed that meet customers’ expectations but talking to customers throughout the product development process.

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Should You Co-Found Your Company With a Software Development Shop (2 of 2)?

David Teten

Ideally, the economics of a development investment look like those of a cash investment; typically, a seed investor will get no more than about 20% of a company for his capital. Second, the company must eventually own the product development and maintenance functions in-house. 5% vest at clickable prototype.

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Beware The Consultant

infochachkie.com

Such positions include: PR, Sales, Product Development, Lead Generation, Strategic Planning, Fund Raising, etc. Any function within your startup that involves iterative learning, passion and/or close proximity to your customers should not be outsourced.

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What to do when you get screwed

The Startup Toolkit

A friend had an amicable breakup with a cofounder who wanted to leave and gave him a full extra year of vested equity as a token of goodwill for all his hard work. Say you have a 50/50 cofounder on standard 4 year vesting who does an amazing job helping you get v1 of the product out, and then colossally screws you at the end of year 2.