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

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 21, 2014

The truth is you really don’t know how your teammates or your bosses will perform in good times and bad. You hire people who look good on paper. ” Who cut you in on their bonus because even though you’re “just an sales engineer” they know you really deserved more credit for this deal.

CTO Hire 320

CTO Hire Cofounder San Francisco Silicon Valley 320

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 28, 2014

The most common ones I see and salute are CEO, CFO, and CTO. A few other credible ones would include Chairman of the Board (COB), Chief Operating Officer (COO) and Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). Chief Sales Officer (VP Sales). See this anecdote by Steve Blank on how a hotshot sales executive can sink your startup.

CTO Hire 252

CTO Hire Fractional CTO Angel Investor Public Relations 252

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 22, 2013

The most common ones I see and salute are CEO, CFO, and CTO. A few other credible ones would include Chairman of the Board (COB), Chief Operating Officer (COO) and Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). Chief Sales Officer (VP Sales). See this anecdote by Steve Blank on how a hotshot sales executive can sink your startup.

CTO Hire 244

CTO Hire Fractional CTO Startup Angel Investor 244

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. An obvious example would be in sales.

CTO Hire 308

CTO Hire Management Technical Review Part-Time VPE 308

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 1, 2010

The most common ones I see and salute are CEO, CFO, and CTO. A few other credible ones would include Chairman of the Board (COB), Chief Operating Officer (COO) and Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). Chief Sales Officer (VP Sales). See this anecdote by Steve Blank on how a hotshot sales executive can sink your startup.

CTO Hire 227

CTO Hire Fractional CTO Startup Angel Investor 227

Gust

APRIL 20, 2014

The most common ones I see and salute are CEO, CFO, and CTO. A few other credible ones would include Chairman of the Board (COB), Chief Operating Officer (COO) and Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). Chief Sales Officer (VP Sales). See this anecdote by Steve Blank on how a hotshot sales executive can sink your startup.

CTO Hire 171

CTO Hire Fractional CTO Angel Investor Public Relations 171

blog.chrisomeara.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

Chris OMeara Main | Probing Code Quality » 01/31/2010 Startup CTO: Could It Work? A CEO friend of mine recently asked my opinion about Tony Karrers Startup CTO or Developer article. I think the part time CTO could work. A few had the title CTO but they all fit the technical rock star and hacker profile.

Fractional CTO 40

Fractional CTO CTO Hire Startup Cofounder 40

YoungUpstarts

APRIL 6, 2015

by Tal Segalov, CTO & co-founder of Mintigo. The message should always be consistent, and that means keeping your colors, visuals and business logos in line with your brick and mortar operations. Hire the right marketing team. This is crucial for businesses to succeed in finding the right customers are the right time.

CTO Hire 100

CTO Hire Cofounder Social Media Mobile 100

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 16, 2015

recently wrote a post talking about how some VCs meddle in operating company decisions or some executive teams are too reliant on VCs to jump in and make hard calls for them. So operating at a higher level, helping to set the framework for decision making and then sitting down and watching the game be played, is certainly the way to go.”

Startup 150

Startup CTO Hire Sales Leadership 150

Hunter Walker

JUNE 7, 2014

Not because they’re all operating in stealth or pre-product – in fact some already are earning $1m+ in revenue per annum. Hiring Has Changed: Before the press was a way of generating interest for hiring. Word of mouth spreads faster and sales cycles are shorter. What’s changed?

Technical Review 118

Technical Review CTO Hire Finance Stealth 118

SoCal CTO

MAY 15, 2009

Companies also use social networking sites in the hiring process, and increasingly, to do innovative advertising (such as the recent Jack in the Box campaign). Paul Ollinger, West Coast Vice President of Sales of Facebook Paul Ollinger is the West Coast Vice President of Sales for Facebook.

Social Network 150

Social Network Networking Los Angeles Fractional CTO 150

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2013

He has grown our US operations from 1 employee (him) to a global organization of 75 employees that will finish the year with 8-digit revenues (90+% recurring) and more than 350% year-over-year growth. In his spare time he raised nearly $30 million. It consists of a highly intelligent and opinionated founder – Nick Halstead.

Advisory Board 365

Advisory Board CTO Hire Fractional CTO Los Angeles 365

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 22, 2012

“Why do founders want to take the VCs’ money? The constraint between good ideas and growth operates in both directions. As a person who spends much time thinking about the venture capital & startup community and who has seen good times & bad times across many economic cycles the article is well written.

Silicon Valley 390

Silicon Valley Venture Capital Startup Technical Review 390

ReadWriteStart

MAY 21, 2013

As a one-man founder bootstrapping the business, this allowed me to hire a team for much less money. Then, in the evening – as the team returned from their lunch – I would concentrate on working with them in real time over Skype on building our product. Contract Remote Teams On A Per Project Basis.

CTO Hire 60

CTO Hire Fractional CTO Singapore India 60

Duct Tape Marketing

MAY 4, 2022

Cameron is t he founder of the COO Alliance, the World’s Leading Network for Seconds in Command. Key Takeaway: The Chief Operating Officer is the second in command to the CEO – they’re the go-to person that should be running the business. Marketing Podcast with Cameron Herold. 3:38] How would you define the job title COO?

CTO 79

CTO Cofounder Networking Operations 79

Austin Startup

NOVEMBER 1, 2017

Keep in mind the difference between marketing and sales: to present the product and encourage sales vs. the selling of the product. With any of your initial founders, to build a strong startup, building strong relationships is foremost. Talk to peers at other firms who have recently hired selected positions (CMO, CTO, CFO).

Software Review 54

Software Review Technical Review CTO Hire San Antonio 54

Feld Thoughts

MAY 5, 2011

This approach worked much better, but by this point one of the co-founders was frustrated with the customer dynamics (all business facing) and decided to leave to start a new consumer-facing business (he left on good terms, we are still good friends, and he’s much happier today).

CTO Hire 131

CTO Hire Cofounder Architecture Product Development 131

View from Seed

MARCH 3, 2015

Ellie Mirman was the first marketer hired by the CMO of HubSpot, the Boston-based marketing software startup that IPOed in 2014. Initially, we promoted it to a list that we’d already developed through Website Grader, the free app our CTO Dharmesh Shah had built before we even had a product. We got 300.

Marketing 120

Marketing Sales Cycle Startup CTO Hire 120

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2017

Why do these founders get to stay around? Because the balance of power has dramatically shifted from investors to founders. — Unremarked and unheralded, the balance of power between startup CEOs and their investors has radically changed: IPOs/M&A without a profit (or at times revenue) have become the norm.

Founder 245

Founder Technical Review CTO Hire IPO 245

Rob Go

DECEMBER 11, 2013

Partners are prone to bad behavior too, but because they are the “decision makers”, founders are more likely to just shrug their shoulders and move on (although everyone has their limits). Here’s my 2 cents on what VC associates should do (or not do) to avoid being annoying and unhelpful to founders. But you can help.

CTO Hire 68

CTO Hire Partner Software Developers Software Development 68

Hearpreneur

SEPTEMBER 13, 2019

Whatever the inspiration or relation may be, the naming of your business is one of the most important parts of becoming a CEO. 1- I credit my co-founder. I credit my co-founder Eric Frothingham with coming up with our name. Her picture is my office as an added reminder of the woman I consider our real founder.

Naming 100

Naming Fractional CTO Entrepreneur CTO Hire 100

Sophia Perl of Wisdom

NOVEMBER 9, 2010

What key hires do you need? The business model for residential solar panel company: contract with customer, local rebates, and tax benefits. The business model for residential solar panel company: contract with customer, local rebates, and tax benefits. Presenter: Jennifer Bonnett (Founder & CEO, Nexpense).

CTO Hire 49

CTO Hire Cofounder Fractional CTO San Francisco 49

Mucker Lab

APRIL 6, 2023

Obviously if you target enterprise customers, you usually have a very large ACV (Annual Contract Value) and the product usually is complex. Today, a lot of the PLG SaaS tools require sales motion upfront because nobody understands those tools. Those types of tools actually require work in the initial days of the sales motion.

Product 78

Product CTO Hire Startup Fractional CTO 78

Sophia Perl of Wisdom

NOVEMBER 9, 2010

What key hires do you need? The business model for residential solar panel company: contract with customer, local rebates, and tax benefits. The business model for residential solar panel company: contract with customer, local rebates, and tax benefits. Presenter: Jennifer Bonnett (Founder & CEO, Nexpense).

CTO Hire 40

CTO Hire Cofounder Fractional CTO San Francisco 40

www.avc.com

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011

The most common comment in this long and complicated MBA Mondays series on Employee Equity is the question of how much equity should you grant when you make a hire. For your first key hires, three, five, maybe as much as ten, you will probably not be able to use any kind of formula. First, a caveat.

Equity 64

Equity Employee CTO Hire Fractional CTO 64

www.entrepreneur.com

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011

Marketing Sales & Marketing Home Marketing Basics Sales Online Marketing Finding Customers Social Media Branding Social Media Does Your Companys Social Personality Need a Makeover? In the example described above, the $25,000 estimated by your business partner is likely to be based on wages that she could have earned in a full-time job.

Sweat Equity 55

Sweat Equity Equity Fractional CTO CTO 55

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 2, 2020

The no-code movement is one that’s completely revolutionizing the way small- and medium-sized businesses and entrepreneurs take their operations and ideas digital, and it’s only just begun. As a result, entrepreneurs, founders, CEOs, marketers, and anyone in between can take advantage. How no-code tools work.

CTO Hire 264

CTO Hire eCommerce Engineer Software 264

SoCal CTO

MARCH 4, 2010

Background This post partly really came about as a result of a great conversation yesterday with David Croslin a former CTO at HP who recently conducted an interesting experiment. This is actually fairly common and I think it’s a bit challenging in that the technology roles (from technology advisor to CTO) in a startup vary widely.

Technical Review 170

Technical Review Fractional CTO Technology CTO Hire 170

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 8, 2010

August was a slow month in terms of traffic and I was away for a lot of the month, but there were some really great posts at the intersection of startups, technology, product and being a Startup CTO. Before I get into the details for founders, let me talk about options-hungry employees. m the f%*kin’ boss.”. Dying at 70? The Dry Run.

Startup 191

Startup CTO Hire Cofounder Venture Capital 191

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

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

“If you can fix a problem for someone and do it better, quicker, and/or cheaper than your competitor, you’re off to a good start.” – Gabriel Kuperman, founder and CEO of CuePin. We created UpKeep to fill this void—a cloud-based solution that was affordable for any size business.” – Ryan Chan, founder of UpKeep.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Austin Startup

AUGUST 11, 2017

By Kevin Sproles, founder and CEO of Austin’s Volusion “The best companies are deliberate about culture. The co-founder of Hubspot hit it on the head with this quote. First, put in the time Every important aspect of your business needs the appropriate amount of time and dedication. They design it and defend it.”

CTO Hire 48

CTO Hire Austin Cofounder eCommerce 48

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

This is the first post in what’s going to be a series of blogs on how to go from nothing – no connections, no team, no money and no knowledge of how the startup industry really works – to operating a growing business. Nine times out of ten, the meeting ends with them asking me for introductions to VCs. I don’t know any developers.

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 84

VC Cafe

FEBRUARY 15, 2017

Chen Zamir is the company’s CTO and former Intelligence officer in the IDF as well as Paypal risk manager. Orcam was created by the founders of Mobileye (NYSE: MBLY and one of Israel’s largest IPOs ), Prof. Co-founders Ami Daniel and Matan Peled both served as naval officers.

Artificial Inteligence 122

Artificial Inteligence Technical Review Startup 122

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. If you are a startup looking to hire really excellent people, take notice of.NET on a resume, and ask why it’s there. Expensify Blog. Expense Reports That Don't Suck. Checkout [link].net

Java 107

Java PHP Software Review Coder 107

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 26, 2020

Joe Felter , Raj Shah and I designed a class to examine the new military systems, operational concepts and doctrines that will emerge from 21st century technologies – Space, Cyber, AI & Machine Learning and Autonomy. He also said, “The most important hire I made in my time at the JAIC was the chief technology officer, Nand Mulchandani.”

Artificial Inteligence 388

Artificial Inteligence Fractional CTO Technology CTO 388