The Equity Kicker

SEPTEMBER 24, 2014

We see this all the time at Forward Partners where we invest right from the idea stage and most of the companies get a first version of their product live for less than £30k (that generally includes founder salaries and time spent doing customer research). Forward Partners and Crowdcube are both attacking elements of these problems.

Early Stage 119

Early Stage Development Team Review Technical Review Software Review 119

Mucker Lab

OCTOBER 10, 2023

SDR Strategy & Model Checklist In the intricate world of sales development, finding the balance between art and science is crucial for a startup's success. Drawing from a wealth of experience at Oracle in the late '80s, sales development expert Sally knows the nuances of this field. Sally's wisdom sheds light on this dilemma.

Early Stage 78

Early Stage Sales Developer Development Team Review 78

YoungUpstarts

NOVEMBER 13, 2011

Startup Weekends , which takes place in many cities around the world, are a great place to meet similarly charged but differently-skilled people who can one day be your startup co-founders.

Technical Review 157

Technical Review Development Team Review Startup Cofounder 157

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.

Technical Review 332

Technical Review CTO Hire Fractional CTO Software Review 332

The Next Web

MARCH 6, 2014

Here’s a problem I bet every non-technical founder has experienced: the communication gap between what the biz dev team wants and what the tech team thinks they want, and vice versa. It’s disruptive, and for founders, very frustrating to watch. You need to build trust between these teams. Phil Chen , Givit.

Technical Review 129

Technical Review Development Team Review Developer Agile 129

View from Seed

MARCH 19, 2015

Founders laud their own “end-to-end” thinking. Starting in 2009, Savoia began using an approach as an engineering director at Google that helped the tech giant know whether it was about to build the right product for the market … or a product that would flop. Another success. So I thought, “I am good!”

Product 120

Product Technical Review Marketing Lean 120

YoungUpstarts

MAY 30, 2014

by Sam Bahreini, co-founder and COO of VoloForce. Google is notorious for this, releasing many of its products in beta form — and sometimes even leaving them in that phase for years. But this relatively new trend of testing products publicly has led to some misunderstandings of what it actually means to launch a “beta” product.

Customer 231

Customer Development Team Review Cofounder Agile 231

Up and Running

JULY 6, 2016

I’ll join in the due diligence for my angel group, test for myself, and develop my informed opinion. The detailed look at the technology comes during due diligence, not in the plan or during the pitch. It’s reviewed and revised frequently. Technology in business planning for owners and managers.

Technical Review 72

Technical Review Software Review Business Plan Development Team Review 72

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 3, 2013

[and of course I use "we" loosely as the hard work of course was the entire MyTime team sans me]. Today they announced the mobile version of their product – I’d be grateful if you would download it and give it a spin. It got quite good reviews in the media: TechCrunch , LifeHacker & PandoDaily and many others.

Development Team Review 324

Development Team Review Los Angeles San Francisco Mobile 324

Small Business Force

DECEMBER 12, 2013

Every entrepreneur wishes they were as prescient or creative as Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, or Larry Page and Sergey Brin, founders, respectively of Apple, Amazon and Google. Few entrepreneurs or small business owners involve their customers in the product development process. From the customer themselves! Think about it.

Development Team Review 36

Development Team Review Product Development Developer Customer 36

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 25, 2016

Entrepreneurs need to be effective team leaders, since no one can transform an idea into a product and a business without some help. Unfortunately many founders I work with as a mentor are experts on the technical side, but have no insight into leading a team. Be compulsive about scheduling time for your team.

Technical Review 136

Technical Review Development Team Review Leadership Cofounder 136

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 24, 2015

Entrepreneurs need to be effective team leaders, since no one can transform an idea into a product and a business without some help. Unfortunately many founders I work with as a mentor are experts on the technical side, but have no insight into leading a team. Be compulsive about scheduling time for your team.

Technical Review 120

Technical Review Development Team Review Leadership Cofounder 120

SoCal CTO

MARCH 3, 2011

Many of the founders of these companies are surprised to learn that I'm willing to review what they are doing (maybe an hour) and get on the phone for an hour with them and provide free advice. Maybe you are wondering if you have a Weak Development Team ? Do you have a Startup Founder Developer Gap ?

Fractional CTO 264

Fractional CTO CTO Hire NDA Technical Review 264

SoCal CTO

MARCH 3, 2011

Many of the founders of these companies are surprised to learn that I'm willing to review what they are doing (maybe an hour) and get on the phone for an hour with them and provide free advice. Maybe you are wondering if you have a Weak Development Team ? Do you have a Startup Founder Developer Gap ?

Fractional CTO 259

Fractional CTO CTO Hire NDA Technical Review 259

Cracking the Code

MARCH 29, 2022

One of the benefits of the cloud is that it gives development teams more agility and flexibility, but with increased flexibility comes the downside of a loss of control and visibility. The issue is that existing products focus on endpoints and on-premise datastores. Sub-categories include DLP (e.g.

Cloud 62

Cloud Cofounder Architecture Technical Cofounder 62

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 21, 2012

As a rule, you need to review your burn rate every month, and manage it every day. For example, a web-based startup should be able to operate for a year if they raise $500,000 from the founders or angels. This will equate to 2 working founders (taking no salary), hiring a 5-person development team for a year.

Burn Rate 232

Burn Rate Startup Salary Equity 232

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 28, 2011

As a rule, you need to review your burn rate every month, and manage it every day. For example, a web-based startup should be able to operate for a year if they raise $500,000 from the founders or angels. This will equate to 2 working founders (taking no salary), hiring a 5-person development team for a year.

Burn Rate 231

Burn Rate Startup Salary Equity 231

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 5, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, October 5, 2008 The product managers lament Life is not easy when youre working in an old-fashioned waterfall development process, no matter what role you play. The product manager was clearly struggling to get results from the rest of the team. Frustration is mounting.

San Francisco 158

San Francisco Management Software Review Product 158

Up and Running

JULY 11, 2017

Most successful business plans entail launching a new product, service, or distribution outlet that attacks existing market competitors on what military planners would term an exposed flank. Often, executing a flank attack involves developing new technology. Wendy’s attack on McDonalds on a national scale was leading edge at that time.

Technical Review 80

Technical Review Development Team Review Differentiation Leadership 80

SoCal CTO

NOVEMBER 1, 2010

I had a recent email dialog with the founder of a company looking for a CTO for their startup. And I tried to evaluate the idea and figure out: What did the founder really need here? Was it a Startup Founder Developer Gap ? Did they really need a Startup CTO or Developer or both? He had a partially built product.

Technical Cofounder 241

Technical Cofounder CTO Hire Equity Sweat Equity 241

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MAY 31, 2010

Every founder frets about competition from a big company, me included. What if a huge company with a hundred software developers and a million dollars in marketing budget decides to copy my idea? Same message, same product, same pricing, and still taking a dump on Facebook instead of playing by the new rules.

Software Review 243

Software Review Development Team Review Technical Review Software Developers 243

ConversionXL

APRIL 1, 2019

Marketers are intimately familiar with their industry and product. Often, they unknowingly overwhelm or confuse the same visitors they seek to persuade (with long, jargon-filled product pages, for example). It can also come up in face-to-face meetings—sales pitches, conferences talks, account reviews, etc. Image source).

Technical Review 133

Technical Review Marketing Software Review Audience 133

Cracking the Code

OCTOBER 1, 2020

Snyk was founded with the mission to help developers make their code secure, providing a platform to automatically assess and remediate open source vulnerabilities. The company’s success has been largely driven by its developer-led freemium model, going from Series A funding to a valuation of $2.6B in just 30 months.

Early Stage 62

Early Stage Open Source Development Team Review Security 62

YoungUpstarts

MARCH 8, 2016

by Martin Hunter, co-founder of Free Event Finder. Make risk assessments based on potential geographic location. If establishing physical offices in a developing country, split them into at least two physical areas hundreds of miles apart from each other. While many consider “ Who Moved My Cheese?

Philippines 100

Philippines Finder Software Review Asia 100

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 5, 2010

As a rule, you need to review your burn rate every month, and manage it every day. For example, a web-based startup should be able to operate for a year if they raise $500,000 from the founders or angels. This will equate to 2 working founders (taking no salary), hiring a 5-person development team for a year.

Burn Rate 120

Burn Rate Startup Salary Equity 120

SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 13, 2013

I did a presentation this week at Coloft that looked at how Non-Technical Founders can go about getting their MVP built. Investors my tell you that, but what they can look at your product on paper and tell what it does and they will understand if it can be built. And the back-end is something that a non-technical founder can manage.

Technical Cofounder 338

Technical Cofounder Technical Review CTO Hire Fractional CTO 338

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 20, 2009

I owe it originally to lean manufacturing books like Lean Thinking and Toyota Production System. The batch size is the unit at which work-products move between stages in a development process. Similar results apply in product management, design, testing, and even operations. For software, the easiest batch to see is code.

San Francisco 161

San Francisco Software Review Continuous Deployment Development Team Review 161

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 26, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, April 26, 2009 Product development leverage Leverage has once again become a dirty word in the world of finance, and rightly so. But I want to talk about a different kind of leverage, the kind that you can get in product development. We didnt think wed able to compete with that.

Product Development 88

Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 88

rapidrollout.wordpress.com

JANUARY 15, 2011

Who Uses a Consulting CTO I’m going to focus on the needs of the founders of startup companies: Founders of startups use a consulting CTO when they have business vision but limited knowledge of the technology needed to launch their company. Investors use a consulting CTO for technical due diligence.

Fractional CTO 40

Fractional CTO CTO CTO Hire Fractional VPE 40

The Next Web

JULY 20, 2013

Editor’s note: Jonathan Saragossi is the founder of IM Creator , a free website builder, and AppSite , an editor and website collection for promoting mobile applications. So you’ve developed your dream app and uploaded it to the market, eagerly waiting for a flood of downloads to propel your product to stardom. and Playscape.

PR 157

PR Development Team Review Viral Mobile 157

Reid Hoffman

JULY 15, 2021

Its three co-founders already had deep experience in the nascent AV space, with each of them playing key roles at early leaders in the field. In addition, assimilating ATG’s world-class safety team has allowed Aurora to launch a Safety Advisory Board, an updated Voluntary Safety Self-Assessment (VSSA) report , and a Safety Management System.

Technical Review 28

Technical Review Advisory Board Cofounder Acquisition 28

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. I asked a panel of successful young entrepreneurs what fledging tech startups should be looking for in a CTO hire to ensure founders get the right person for the job.

CTO Hire 73

CTO Hire Fractional CTO CTO Technical Review 73

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, November 8, 2008 What is customer development? When we build products, we use a methodology. We know some products succeed and others fail, but the reasons are complex and the unpredictable. a roadmap for how to get to Product/Market Fit." Whats wrong with this picture?

Customer Development 168

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 168

SoCal CTO

MARCH 22, 2007

We have been using LinkedIn for both sourcing recruits and reviewing backgrounds for recruits. ► February (2) CTO Founders / Cofounders Part-Time Startup CTO? ► January (5) Los Angeles Web Developer Startup CTO or Developer When to Use Facebook Connect – Twitter Oauth – Goo.

Technical Cofounder 150

Technical Cofounder Southern California Los Angeles CTO Hire 150

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 8, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, June 8, 2009 Datablindness Most of us are swimming in a sea of data about our products, companies, and teams. You constantly assess the situation, looking for hazards and timing your movements carefully to get across safely. Too much of this data is non- actionable. We can learn to see.

San Francisco 84

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 84

Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak

OCTOBER 14, 2010

I spent an entire hour watching the sales video for a new product you probably have heard of, it’s called… Kajabi You can watch the video for yourself right here – What Is Kajabi? Kajabi is a hosted platform for marketing, selling and delivering information products online. This can reduce refunds.

Affiliate 87

Affiliate Bandwidth Hosting Video 87

ReadWriteStart

OCTOBER 20, 2023

With such daunting statistics, it’s clear that maintaining a startup becomes an uphill battle for founders without the right foundations. Yet, navigating this landscape requires more than just a unique product or service. From custom app development to effective mobile marketing strategies, they embody the spirit of innovation.

Technical Review 137

Technical Review Startup Silicon Valley Agile 137