SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 6, 2011

" Today I had two conversations with early stage startups (see Free CTO Consulting ). Vision Synching in a Lean Startup The Fallacy of Customer Development Entrepreneurs, Lower Investors’ Risk by Validating your Start-up Company’s Business Proposition Lessons Learned: What is customer development? billion dollar mistake.

Customer 227

Customer Fractional CTO Viral Lean 227

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 28, 2014

VCs and Angel investors like to see a startup that is running lean and mean, with no more than three or four of the conventional C-level or VP titles. The most common ones I see and salute are CEO, CFO, and CTO. Chief Sales Officer (VP Sales). Chief Brand Officer.

CTO Hire 252

CTO Hire Fractional CTO Angel Investor Public Relations 252

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. If you think thats person you need, the question becomes "what else do you expect a CTO to contribute?"

Fractional CTO 40

Fractional CTO CTO Hire Startup Cofounder 40

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 22, 2013

VCs and Angel investors like to see a startup that is running lean and mean, with no more than three or four of the conventional C-level or VP titles. The most common ones I see and salute are CEO, CFO, and CTO. Chief Sales Officer (VP Sales). Chief Brand Officer.

CTO Hire 244

CTO Hire Fractional CTO Startup Angel Investor 244

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 16, 2015

At times I wanted the engineering team to produce features to support our sales efforts to I occasionally leaned on them a bit. So he would allocate say – 20% to sales, 15% to marketing, 20% to eng priorities, 10% to customer support, 10% to ops, 20% to ‘platinum customers’ and maybe 5% directly to me as the CEO.

Startup 150

Startup CTO Hire Sales Leadership 150

Gust

APRIL 20, 2014

VCs and Angel investors like to see a startup that is running lean and mean, with no more than three or four of the conventional C-level or VP titles. The most common ones I see and salute are CEO, CFO, and CTO. Chief Sales Officer (VP Sales). Chief Brand Officer.

CTO Hire 171

CTO Hire Fractional CTO Angel Investor Public Relations 171

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 1, 2010

VCs and angel investors like to see a startup that is running lean and mean, with no more than three or four of the conventional C-level or VP titles. The most common ones I see and salute are CEO, CFO, and CTO. Chief Sales Officer (VP Sales). Chief Brand Officer.

CTO Hire 227

CTO Hire Fractional CTO Startup Angel Investor 227

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 22, 2012

“Lean” is great in the early days but if you discover an attractive market opportunity you need to get “fat” really quickly or somebody else will. I’ve seen this happen before where companies seems to be struggling with traction and one technology change at an industry level suddenly propelled them more rapidly.

Silicon Valley 390

Silicon Valley Venture Capital Startup Technical Review 390

Hunter Walker

JUNE 7, 2014

Party rounds blew up on a number of startups who found it difficult to get ongoing operational support from investors who didn’t have time or inclination to lean in. Now the employees carry your technology into the enterprise via their own phone and cloud services. Word of mouth spreads faster and sales cycles are shorter.

Technical Review 117

Technical Review CTO Hire Finance Stealth 117

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 25, 2013

The Lean Startup methodology has its roots in the tech sector, where companies need to iterate quickly in order to survive. In fact, at last year’s Lean Startup conference we had speakers from a number other sectors, including government, transportation, education and public health.

Lean 167

Lean Ghana Startup Government 167

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 28, 2010

kaChing has been very active in the Lean Startup movement. With case studies like this, we aim to illustrate specific Lean Startup techniques through the stories of current practitioners. “Everybody felt the burden of supporting all those transactions every day,&# says Pascal-Louis Perez, kaChing’s CTO.

San Francisco 158

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment SEC 158

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 5, 2017

Being an outsider, I also wanted to lean heavily on the actual research available on the subject, as well as the voices of women both in the tech space and who have successfully received venture funding. What about “leaning in”? There is an argument that women need to “ lean in ” (thanks, Sheryl Sandburg).

Venture Capital 82

Venture Capital Lean Cofounder Technical Review 82

Hearpreneur

FEBRUARY 3, 2021

He was the CEO and I was in Sales. We were getting contacted more and more from the sales side about building out a better way to fundraise online. David brought 2 of his co-founders, our CTO and Head of Design along with. ” – The Lean Startup by Eric Ries. We have about 200 designers and engineers there.

Cofounder 62

Cofounder Founder San Francisco SMS 62

This is going to be BIG.

JUNE 14, 2011

Last Thursday night, Amazon CTO Werner Vogels joined a small group of technical folks from cloud and commerce related First Round portfolio companies for dinner at Double Crown. This focus on customers is one of a number of things that Amazon does that is consistant with lean startup principals.

Lean 108

Lean Portfolio Cloud Startup 108

Steve Blank

JUNE 6, 2016

Prior to his investing and advisory career, Evangelos spent 20+ years in high-technology industries, in executive roles spanning operations, marketing, sales and engineering. I presented them to our chief product officer and our CTO. He was the CEO of two startups. If you can’t hear the clip, click here.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Entrepreneur Fractional CTO Analytics 120

ConversionXL

FEBRUARY 27, 2019

In consumer packaged goods, the benchmark for a “highly successful” product launch is no easy feat: $50 million in first-year sales. Successful demand generation campaigns break down silos between marketing and sales. Seed your launch campaign with advance sales. Definitions of failure also vary.

Product 110

Product Campaign Acquisition Social Media 110

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 15, 2008 The one line split-test, or how to A/B all the time Split-testing is a core lean startup discipline, and its one of those rare topics that comes up just as often in a technical context as in a business-oriented one when Im talking to startups. Expo SF (May. for Harvard Business Revie.

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Continuous Deployment 166

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 5, 2009

I had last been in Chapel Hill on a winter’s day in 1986, traveling with the VP of Sales of our new supercomputer startup, Ardent. My ex-boss was going to be the VP of Engineering and I would report to the CEO whose marketing acumen and sales instincts seemed at the time to be telepathic and sense of theater was legend.

North Carolina 125

North Carolina Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 125

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 12, 2008

In an enterprise sales context, this is called a "repeatable and scalable sales process" - once you know how to do this, your company can graduate from early adopters and make an attempt at the mainstream. The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0. Amazing lean startup resources Is Entrepreneurship a Management Science?

Audience 119

Audience San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean 119

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 13, 2018

If you presented on your own but have a very talented CTO perhaps your follow up is to bring by your CTO to show why the tech you’ve built is truly unique. That way your VC meeting becomes a sales lead AND the VC can get input from a trusted source (a portfolio company) without having to immediately commit more time.

Portfolio 261

Portfolio IP Later Stage Email 261

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 25, 2011

You can monetize via Google Ad Sales before you have enough revenue to build your own sales team. Maker Studios is the ultimate “lean startup.” And I’m excited to say that we’ve poached a major technologist from Silicon Valley who will move down to Los Angeles join as CTO in January.

Silicon Valley 291

Silicon Valley Los Angeles Distribution Internet 291

Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2009

I vividly remember the sales guy saying, “It’s only some kid in field service. Some sales guy who was too busy to take the meeting was probably retired in Maui on the commissions. Your Customers are Not Who You Think For years I thought this “million unit chip sale by accident&# was a “one-off&# funny story.

Silicon Valley 131

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 131

The Startup Toolkit

AUGUST 29, 2012

If the founding team is non-technical and you can’t figure out whether you are being screwed by your developers or whether your potential new CTO is amazing, a tech advisor can help by joining you in interviews and reviewing commits. You’ll need to keep getting into sales meetings.

Technical Review 38

Technical Review CTO Hire Cap Table Software Review 38

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 27, 2015

While I’m sure Ed Catmull doesn’t remember, when Pixar was a startup selling the Image Computer , their VP of Sales and Marketing brought me in to put together their marketing strategy. I found other parallels between Pixar’s method for managing innovation and what we built in the Lean LaunchPad/I-Corps incubators. Say what?

Founder 120

Founder Lean Hawaii Incubator 120

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 17, 2019

An example was that while we were in the seed round at Ring and followed in the A, B, C and D … we were also able to lean into the E round when Jamie really wanted to scale up his funding and the final check was still > 420% IRR! Why does that matter? And my friend and Invoca co-founder Colin Kelley has done both.

IP 223

IP Intellectual Property IRR Cofounder 223

VC Cafe

DECEMBER 12, 2011

Strikingly the vast majority of startup positions advertised are for technical co-founders such as CTO or Developer. I wondered why there were so few people looking for a non-technical co-founder whose experience is primarily in marketing or sales. I think that for most entrepreneurs both of these would be mistakes.

Cofounder 119

Cofounder Founder Lean Engineer 119

SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 2, 2011

There's a lot out there around Customer Development - read Steve Blank : Entrepreneurship as a Science – The Business Model/Customer Development Stack - Steve Blank , October 25, 2010 Checklists for Chaos, The Path to Success - Steve Blank , October 28, 2010 and reading about Lean, MVPs, etc. is a requirement. Not sure why.

Valuation 198

Valuation Revenue Pre-Money Valuation Early Stage 198

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

Step 1: Start with a lean plan. It’s the fastest way to get your idea onto paper, and it’s the very first step in the lean planning process, which is much easier and more iterative than traditional business planning methods. In the tactics section, list your sales channels and describe how you will be selling your products.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 7, 2008

This is one of the bedrock practices of any lean startup , and so its a common piece of advice I give out. Hire a CTO or VP Engineering. A really good technology executive can notice problems like the ones Im talking about today and address them proactively. However, its particularly helpful in this situation. Guess what?

Software Review 94

Software Review Technical Review Part-Time VPE San Francisco 94

rob.by

MARCH 8, 2012

Whilst the average tech entrepreneur may lack some of the more business relationship, networking, and sales/marketing skills – they still need to have an entrepreneurial mindset, understand financial models, market factors, and how the business ultimately makes money. Business & Technology (18). Music Gear for Sale/Trade.

Technical Cofounder 42

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Engineering Fractional CTO 42

The Next Web

OCTOBER 10, 2013

Shoulder – not to cry on, but to lean on. Since we bootstrapped Backblaze, early on we would have months when the company did not have enough cash from sales to buy the additional servers it needed. After launching our Windows online backup service five years ago, our CTO pitched that we should focus on launching our Mac version next.

Cofounder 143

Cofounder Technical Cofounder Kenya Dilution 143

The Next Web

JANUARY 27, 2013

Four books helped me out a lot over the last few years: Four Steps to the Epiphany by Steve Blank, Running Lean by Ash Maurya, The Four Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferris and Rework by Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson. Please note that you don’t need to become the CTO of your own company as a non-technical founder.

Netherlands 159

Netherlands Technical Review Software Review Cofounder 159

Austin Startup

AUGUST 11, 2017

Like thinking on strategy for sales, or committing to deliver on good customer service, or putting in long hours to complete the next version of your product, creating a solid culture code that speaks to your company is just as important. Core values vs. culture code — what’s the difference? And like writing technical code, each word counts.

CTO Hire 48

CTO Hire Austin Cofounder eCommerce 48

The Next Web

DECEMBER 4, 2013

Entire conversations would take place when the CTO and I were in China whilst the CMO/designer was left to catch up hours later through chat or a rehashed conversation. The marketing and sales strategies to come would also be highly impacted on what direction the culture took.

Management 152

Management SCRUM CTO Hire Distribution 152

crowdSPRING Blog

FEBRUARY 22, 2013

Lean vs. Mean – Small Business and Responsibility | crowdSPRING Blog – [link]. Obama CTO Harper Reed on Keeping Sane in a High-Pressure Environment – [link]. Apple accounts for 20% of all 2012 US consumer technology sales revenue – [link]. Can Money Buy Happiness? crowdSPRING Writer Interview.

Social Media 105

Social Media Small Business CTO Hire Design 105

crowdSPRING Blog

NOVEMBER 11, 2011

Zynga Leans On Some Workers to Surrender Pre-IPO Shares – [link]. Buy it now, for real: eBay to refer sales to nearby stores – [link]. Pandora CTO Reveals Half of The U.S. SaaS CEOs: Measure Customer Engagement – [link]. 26 Promising Social Media Stats for Small Businesses – [link]. Very shady, if true.

Social Media 94

Social Media Small Business Design CTO Hire 94

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 5, 2011

500 Hats , February 1, 2010 When to Use Facebook Connect – Twitter Oauth – Google Friend Connect for Authentication? 500 Hats , February 1, 2010 When to Use Facebook Connect – Twitter Oauth – Google Friend Connect for Authentication? First Principles.

Silicon Valley 378

Silicon Valley Startup Term Sheet Venture Capital 378