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Finding and Growing the Islands of Innovation inside a large company – Action Plan for A New CTO

Steve Blank

How does a newly hired Chief Technology Officer (CTO) find and grow the islands of innovation inside a large company? How not to waste your first six months as a new CTO thinking you’re making progress when the status quo is working to keep you at bay? Instrument the process with metrics and diagnostics.

CTO 362
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Five Recruiting Metrics Every Founder Should Track

View from Seed

Ask a founder of a growing startup what they need most, and you’ll often get an answer along the lines of, “We need great people, and we need them fast.”. Founders need to make sure the quality of the startup’s offerings remains high and provide adequate sales and service support for prospective customers and new users.

Metrics 120
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What is a CTO?

Austin Startup

As a CTO, I can definitely say without a doubt that few people understand what a CTO does. When I tell someone I’m a CTO, I’m often met with a blank stare. Even when someone is aware of what a CTO does, they often have limited context due to the wide variety of CTO roles.

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Building Your MVP as a Non-Technical Founder

SoCal CTO

I did a presentation this week at Coloft that looked at how Non-Technical Founders can go about getting their MVP built. Once you build it, they will now ask you about the key metrics that they need proven in order to see if you really are a good investment. " Once you have the metrics defined, it focuses your effort.

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See More than 120 Speakers and Mentors at The Lean Startup Conference

Startup Lessons Learned

For example: Mitch Kapor was a founder of Lotus. As the emeritus Chief Technology Officer of the United States, he still connects government and Silicon Valley. He’s a founder of Andreessen Horowitz, which has backed Facebook, Skype, Jawbone, and dozens of other companies whose products you use.

Lean 165
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Lessons Learned: What does a startup CTO actually do?

Startup Lessons Learned

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, September 30, 2008 What does a startup CTO actually do? What does your Chief Technology Officer do all day? 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.

CTO 168
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Why Uber is The Revenge of the Founders

Steve Blank

Why do these founders get to stay around? Because the balance of power has dramatically shifted from investors to founders. Technology cycles have become a treadmill, and for startups to survive they need to be on a continuous innovation cycle. VCs competing for unicorn investments have given founders control of the board.

Founder 256