SoCal CTO

MARCH 3, 2011

I talk to roughly 2 or 3 new startups every week who need advice from an experienced CTO. Generally I can provide quite a bit of help in that brief time. Of course, I provide part-time CTO services. So, I wanted to use this post to make it official - we are offering free startup CTO consulting sessions.

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SoCal CTO

MARCH 3, 2011

I talk to roughly 2 or 3 new startups every week who need advice from an experienced CTO. Generally I can provide quite a bit of help in that brief time. Of course, I provide part-time CTO services. So, I wanted to use this post to make it official - we are offering free startup CTO consulting sessions.

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Austin Startup

SEPTEMBER 18, 2017

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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TechEmpower

DECEMBER 11, 2023

Ensure that you investigate the designers' past work, samples of their work product, and their process. Quality of Work: The end product should not only look good but function as expected. While the appearance matters, remember you are hiring the development firm primarily for its development skills, not its graphic design skills.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 22, 2021

Every entrepreneur tries to maximize his startup growth by building and selling more product and services for the widest geographic area that he can support. Add basic partner contracts or alliances. Too much reliance on growth via contracts and alliances makes you vulnerable to partners’ actions and conflicts of interest.

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SoCal CTO

NOVEMBER 1, 2010

I had a recent email dialog with the founder of a company looking for a CTO for their startup. Did they really need a Startup CTO or Developer or both? And do I fit as a Part-Time CTO , Technology Advisor , CTO Founder , Acting CTO ? He had a partially built product.

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SoCal CTO

JANUARY 18, 2011

I received an inquiry from a reader of my blog and thought I would provide some thoughts, but would definitely welcome input: I am an unpaid CTO of a small startup. I have been working full time with two founders for about 10 months on full time basis. They both would have lots of thoughts and ideas. What type of shares?

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SoCal CTO

MAY 21, 2012

So, here goes: Dr. Tony Karrer Over the past 15 years, Tony has been a part-time CTO for more than 30 startups. Most notably, he was the original CTO for eHarmony for its first four years making him partly responsible for more than 4% of the marriages every year. Tony has a Ph.D.

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SoCal CTO

APRIL 2, 2012

Using my StartupRoar as a radar, I came across a great post by Gabriel Weinberg Do you really need a full-time hire for that? Hiring seems to be the preferred use of seed funds (by investors and founders), whereas I'd prefer a focus on customer acquisition. In other words, they come in asking for help with sourcing and hiring.

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Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 20, 2010

Because more technology people probably read startup blogs I’m guessing this post will come under more scrutiny. The terms “CTO&# and “VP Engineering&# have such stigmas associated with what they are that I’m sure some people will feel uncomfortable with the definitions I’ve put forward. Experience.

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SoCal CTO

JANUARY 18, 2011

I received an inquiry from a reader of my blog and thought I would provide some thoughts, but would definitely welcome input: I am an unpaid CTO of a small startup. I have been working full time with two founders for about 10 months on full time basis. They both would have lots of thoughts and ideas. What type of shares?

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SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 25, 2010

This is not only sad but incredibly frustrating, because it is so easy to see how a great technology can be developed and commercialized if only - if only the CTO hadn't been impulsive and insecure and brought on a business partner too early in the game. … And it’s not just inexperienced CTOs. Lack of confidence? Camaraderie?

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SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 10, 2012

I did a presentation recently for a graduate class from The Founder Institute around getting online/mobile products out the door. I LOVED it because, the presenting part was over quickly and we got into specific issues that the founders had in terms of getting things built. Third party products are used appropriately.

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Feld Thoughts

SEPTEMBER 2, 2011

This week they set out to create their cap table and hire a CTO. The vesting schedule protects each of the co-founders in case one gets hit by a bus or decides to drop the project after a short period of time. Jane and Dick want to bring in their friend Praveena as CTO, but they don’t know how to structure the compensation.

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SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2007

I generally am working as an acting CTO for about 3-4 start-ups or other companies at any one time. I also found this interesting graphic of the changing needs around the CTO role in different size/type companies that somewhat echoes my experience. During Stabilization, often the focus is transitioning to a full-time CTO.

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mashable.com

MAY 9, 2011

a New York-based sizzle reel production company specializing in promotional videos for PR and marketing professionals, and the Young Entrepreneur Council. Hiring the wrong person for key company positions can cost a business thousands — or tens of thousands — of dollars and man hours. Zach Cutler , The Cutler Group.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

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? Thats an important job, for sure, and Ive been called upon to do it from time to time. So I initially gravitated to the CTO title, and not VP of Engineering.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 1, 2023

Value factors include your related product breadth and depth, relationships with thought leaders, key vendors, and large potential customers. Building the product may be the easy part of your startup challenge. Level of responsibility and time allocated. The CTO of many technical startups was the original founder.

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View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 3, 2015

As a result, Vin has a great framework for deciding if this is a viable path for your product. Or listen on SoundCloud below: The post Why This Startup Teaches Everyone to Code + a Framework to Find a CTO appeared first on NextView Ventures. Exactly how Vin launched Yipit.com and built his list to the initial 20K and 50K users.

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Business Plan Blog

AUGUST 20, 2013

In order to be a successful tech startup, the team must consist of a Chief Technical Officer (CTO) level member to help with the technology plan. This is generally achieved in one of the following ways: CTO Level Co-Founder (Equity). CTO Level Board Member or dedicated Adviser (Free or Equity). Wireframes.

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SoCal CTO

MARCH 12, 2012

I've talked about that in lots of other posts, so you can visit some of these to help determine what you specifically need: Startup CTO or Developer Startup Software Development – Do Your Homework Before You Develop Anything Key ingredients in the equation are: How complex is the system? Do you have dollars to pay for development?

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Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 9, 2020

Value factors include your related product breadth and depth, relationships with thought leaders, key vendors, and large potential customers. Building the product may be the easy part of your startup challenge. Level of responsibility and time allocated. The CTO of many technical startups was the original founder.

Cofounder 435

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www.lanceglasser.com

MAY 13, 2012

Product development. Queuing theory and product development. The Essential Product Investigation Phase Gate. So you want to ship the product early? What does a CTO do? The minimum viable product. What does a CTO do? What does a CTO (Chief Technology Officer) do in a high-tech company?

CTO 40

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www.allthingsdistributed.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

Main July 11, 2007 The Different CTO Roles I was putting together a short panel presentation on the roleof a Chief Technology Officer in corporate innovation and I once again realized that there is quite a bit of confusion around the role of the CTO. I am posting it here as it might be of generalinterest.

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YoungUpstarts

MARCH 24, 2014

by Adam Root, founder and CTO of Hiplogiq. Most of us would want to hire the most experienced, cutthroat lawyer specializing in multimillion-dollar mergers. The same rule applies to product and app development. Do you want the product, or does your target market want the product? A DUI lawyer? Didn’t think so.

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www.bothsidesofthetable.com

MAY 13, 2012

Want to Know Difference Between a CTO and a VP of Engineering? Because more technology people probably read startup blogs I’m guessing this post will come under more scrutiny. 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?”

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Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 8, 2013

Every entrepreneur tries to maximize his startup growth by building and selling more product and services for the widest geographic area that he can support. Add basic partner contracts or alliances. Too much reliance on growth via contracts and alliances makes you vulnerable to partners’ actions and conflicts of interest.

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SoCal CTO

MAY 13, 2014

You can’t afford and don’t want to hire a full-time CTO or architect. For me, if I can help you within a couple hours Free Startup CTO Consulting Sessions , I’m happy to do that and I don’t expect compensation or equity for that. Here’s the other aspect that both Tony and I preach: get help.

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rapidrollout.wordpress.com

JANUARY 15, 2011

Web Startup Lessons Advice from a CTO and Entrepreneur Home About Startup Advice: When to Use a Consulting CTO There are not many to be found. 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.&#

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blog.aparttimecto.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

A Part-Time CTO Technology. One of the main challenges of starting a products based company is how do you build your product? This is especially true of web based companies, whose product consists of mainly a web site and very little more. In Plain English. Archive Jun 20th Sun In-House or Outsource?

CTO Hire 40

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 1, 2012

Every entrepreneur tries to maximize his startup growth by building and selling more product and services for the widest geographic area that he can support. Add basic partner contracts or alliances. Too much reliance on growth via contracts and alliances makes you vulnerable to partners’ actions and conflicts of interest.

CTO Hire 229

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ConversionXL

JUNE 16, 2022

Where your product or service fits into the market. Think about your playbook from the perspective of a new hire. Your products or services, pricing, and details of owners and managers. The goal of including personas in your marketing playbook is to help them relate to realistic prospects who are likely to buy your product.

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Steve Blank

JUNE 20, 2022

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? Good News and Bad. His challenge was to.

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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.

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Version One Ventures

SEPTEMBER 25, 2018

But as the start-up scales and you hire employees, your day-to-day is taken over by more managerial tasks, like hiring and managing people, running company meetings, etc. It’s unusual to hire a non-founder CEO early in a start-up’s life because it will most likely fail. There’s typically little choice for a founder CEO.

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SoCal CTO

MAY 27, 2010

You can follow the link above for more details, but the basic idea is that most startup founders have a pretty good understanding of the basics of what they want to do and a vision for the product. And there are all sorts of different kinds of technical people who might help with getting that product to happen.

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This is going to be BIG.

FEBRUARY 22, 2010

A week or so ago, we launched the Key Hire Wire at First Round. Because people live, shop, and buy in real time, Monetate products enable e-commerce web sites to market in real time. You will initially spend majority of time personally working with individual accounts and coaching sales team.

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