Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 6, 2013

Engineering is critical but it is not everything. Without strong PMs you build crappy products that nobody needs or that real people can’t use. Equally – a great VP Finance can be leveraged well to take on finance, legal, HR and much of the operational tasks. For the wrong reasons. Limit the number of VCs.

Cofounder 388

Cofounder Early Stage Startup Silicon Valley 388

Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2018

Sloan kept the corporate staff small and focused on policymaking, corporate finance, and planning. But in 1904, after his first time seeing a car in Flint, Michigan, he was one of the first to see that the future was going to be in a radically new form of transportation powered by internal combustion engines.

Michigan 275

Michigan Cofounder Stock Forecast 275

YoungUpstarts

APRIL 17, 2018

As an example, the reasons we provide to prospective engineers are 1. For example, if you run a tech startup , you will know how hard it is to find good software engineers. Not sales, product development, or fundraising. cutting edge technology (WebRTC), 2. Do you compromise, or do you keep looking?

Cofounder 164

Cofounder Elevator Pitch Hiring Dividend 164

Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

After 20 years of working in startups, I decided to take a step back and look at the product development model I had been following and see why it usually failed to provide useful guidance in activities outside the building – sales, marketing and business development. So what’s wrong the product development model?

Customer Development 241

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 241

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 12, 2018

The problem is that professional investors (angels and venture capital) want a proven business model before they invest, ready to scale, rather than early projections and product development. Exchanging your services for services is possible with legal counsel, accountants, engineers, and even sales people.

Intellectual Property 134

Intellectual Property Technical Review Startup Incubator 134

Hearpreneur

JANUARY 28, 2022

My wife and I both worked as mechanical engineers, so we wanted a name that paid tribute to our profession. Momentum is a term that is highly related to engineering, as it relates to motion and dynamics. Initially, we brainstormed ideas and keywords linked to our main business topic of personal finance and parenting.

Naming 150

Naming Entrepreneur Jordan Merger 150

Version One Ventures

AUGUST 26, 2016

To dive into more specifics, I’ve found that building out a strong management team should typically follow this progression: 1 st hire: VP Engineering. 2 nd hire: VP of Finance. Brad Feld has a great post on the importance of hiring a VP of Finance sooner rather than later. 3 rd and 4 th hire: VP Sales/VP Marketing.

Part-Time VPE 60

Part-Time VPE Management Finance Vertical 60

YoungUpstarts

MARCH 6, 2017

The research activities must be technological in nature; in other words, they must rely on the sciences such as engineering, physics, chemistry, biology, computer science, etc. Typical indicators of qualified research include: Degreed engineers, scientists, or software developers on staff. Manufacturing products.

Indiana 113

Indiana Software Review Software Developers Software Development 113

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2013

In this period (less than 2 years) he has brought on incredibly talented senior execs is sales, marketing, product management, client services, finance, vp engineering and more. You may know how much to pay in cash or equity for your new VP Engineering. In his spare time he raised nearly $30 million. Always seek input.

Advisory Board 365

Advisory Board CTO Hire Fractional CTO Los Angeles 365

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 19, 2015

That’s why I recommend that they find a co-founder who loves business challenges, including marketing and finance. I usually envision a 50-50 ownership split for their efforts, but every engineer believes the technology side deserves the majority share. Most founders bootstrap product development.

Technical Review 120

Technical Review Intellectual Property Cofounder Bootstrapping 120

This is going to be BIG.

AUGUST 22, 2012

Let’s start out with the basic functions of a tech company: 1) Engineering 2) Marketing 3) Sales 4) Business development 5) PR 6) Design 7) Product Management 8) HR 9) Operations 10) Finance Ok, that's just overwhelming. In a way, you can think of BD as “sales when you don’t know what the product is yet.”

PR 144

PR Technical Review Seed Stage Design 144

View from Seed

MARCH 24, 2021

” Below are our favorite pieces from the past few years, divided in to a few key categories: fundraising, company building, product development, industry trends, and the life of a VC. Finance is about reporting on historical performance and future planning through the lens of financial metrics.” ” (Melody Koh).

Seed Stage 177

Seed Stage Hiring IPO Analytics 177

Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 18, 2013

Here’s the punchline: if you run your company as if you have closed a VC equity financing round even though you actually closed a convertible debt round, you’ll be in much better shape when it comes time to raise your Series A financing. There is no discussion of burn, runway, and more financing yet.

Burn Rate 152

Burn Rate Equity Software Review Early Stage 152

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 1, 2009

Getting Customers Involved in Product Priorities – Around the time that Salesforce.com acquired my company we also acquired a company called CrispyNews. They had decided to take a Digg style approach to product development. I remember in the early days of Mint when I first played around with the product.

Customer 280

Customer Technical Review Software Review Mexico 280

The Next Web

DECEMBER 2, 2013

Luck, timing and social engineering are bigger components than most entrepreneurs care to imagine,” adds Werdelin. Suddenly, those multi-million dollar financing rounds that startups raise don’t seem so outrageous! Based on its early rounds, a minimum viable product for Uber cost about $1 to $1.5 million to develop.”.

Cost 168

Cost San Francisco New York City Ruby 168

Mucker Lab

MAY 28, 2020

These lost startups land higher valuations, have larger teams, outsource more product development and spend more money on customer acquisition than their peers. Before you indulge in marketing, sales and blinged-out offices, find product-market fit. How do you know you have it? Honestly, we don’t know.”?

Startup 78

Startup Cofounder Burn Rate Technical Review 78

Hearpreneur

SEPTEMBER 22, 2021

Tesla has always put a huge emphasis on product development and technological advancement. From music to finance, airlines and now offering flights to the public into space. Google wasn't the first search engine around. Thanks to Christina Giaquinto, Modular Closets ! Thanks to Darko Ivanoski, ESTAForm.org ! #13-

Technical Review 124

Technical Review Entrepreneur Software Review SEO 124

bizthoughts.mikelee.org

MARCH 8, 2012

BizThoughts Thoughts about business, technology, the web & entrepreneurship About Booklist Contact Nov 15 2011 Finding a Technical Cofounder By Mike Lee Categories: Entrepreneurship , Leadership Since I have a technical background, I get about one offer a month to join some engineering team, or to be a technical cofounder.

Technical Cofounder 40

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Technical Review Software Review 40

ReadWriteStart

JANUARY 27, 2011

And, oh by the way, we also really like the idea of the 1M/1M entrepreneurs building valuation and negotiating leverage through these business development efforts, instead of signing off large chunks of their company in form of equity early on. The business is already profitable with $2.9 million in revenue. Well, I didn't think much of it.

Dilution 114

Dilution Revenue Finance Entrepreneur 114

Up and Running

JUNE 14, 2017

Some believe in the all-in approach to product development: build an advanced app. Furthermore, as I was proving the viability of Recycler Spotter through the free version, I could have pre-sold the paid membership at a discount for another layer of validation that would have also helped finance product development.

Technical Review 96

Technical Review Distribution Redemption Demand 96

www.lanceglasser.com

MAY 13, 2012

Finance and budgeting. A Model for Return on Engineering Expenses. Product development. Queuing theory and product development. A Model for Return on Engineering Expenses. A Model for Return on Engineering Expenses. The Essential Product Investigation Phase Gate. Let the Games Begin!

CTO 40

CTO CTO Hire Technical Review Architecture 40

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 14, 2013

For instance, Brant Cooper will lead you through applying Lean Startup in HR, IT and finance teams. We asked him a few questions to learn about continuous delivery, why it’s useful, and what engineers and management need to do to implement it. If there’s a problem in production, developers need to own it.

Continuous Deployment 162

Continuous Deployment Norway Lean Analytics 162

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Their product definition fluctuates wildly – one month, it’s a dessert topping, the next it’s a floor wax. Their product development team is hard at work on a next-generation product platform, which is designed to offer a new suite of products – but this effort is months behind schedule.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Steve Blank

MAY 28, 2009

Market Risk vs. Invention Risk - Click to Enlarge For companies building web-based products, product development may be difficult, but with enough time and iteration engineering will eventually converge on a solution and ship a functional product - i t’s engineering, not invention.

Vertical 147

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 147

techcocktail.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

be the manager and product developer). Developer – Most likely your product requires some engineering. Make sure you have the right developer(s) on board in whatever capacity you need them, whether it’s a part time HTML or Wordpress developer or a full time PHP wiz.

San Francisco 44

San Francisco Startup PHP San Diego 44

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 29, 2020

Your data will be ordered and structured into information based on specific niches like engineering and construction, finance, technology, and business. Thus, you must manage your available finances wisely. Product development also occurs in small iterations or changes. Implement the “lean startup” philosophy.

Bootstrapping 85

Bootstrapping Global Startup Hungary 85

Austin Startup

AUGUST 20, 2017

Messy cap tables can come back to haunt you when you do a financing or sell the company. I’m never surprised when I see product development driven by engineers proceeding at top speed developing the next cool thing. As a founder, you need to install a feedback mechanism that keeps development inside the fences.

Technical Review 48

Technical Review Software Review Cap Table Securities and Exchange Commission 48

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 30, 2017

In the opening paragraphs of Eric Ries’s upcoming book The Startup Way , Eric sets the scene: He arrived at GE in the summer of 2012 amidst a multi-hundred-million-dollar, five-year plan to develop a new diesel and natural gas engine. And the plan did succeed. Start with, “What can we do.” When things get hard, eat chocolate.

Lean 123

Lean Startup Engineer Conversion 123

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 23, 2009

If all the engineers work on the same thing at the same time, and all the marketers do the same, and QA, and ops, all the way down the line, then each department develops its own team-based private reality. If you never have, you can create your own using Google Finance. Go ahead and try it, then come back.

Metrics 167

Metrics San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 167

Duct Tape Marketing

NOVEMBER 9, 2022

But when you work with a small business, and you've alluded to some of these, I mean, you get into operations, what is traditionally seen as operations, maybe you get into what is traditionally seen as finance. Clare Price (07:24): And that's why one of the things that I'm doing with is developing what I call a ecosystem of right partners.

Marketing 76

Marketing Differentiation Sacramento Small Business 76

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 28, 2010

VC Financings: 1. It’s true that the carrier then gets their huge slice for being the billing and payment engine but the idea is that you as a website more than make up for this in terms of customer conversion. The investment will be used for product development initiatives.

Venture Capital 270

Venture Capital Cofounder Spain San Diego 270

ConversionXL

NOVEMBER 17, 2020

Price and plan-mix are complex areas to test because they impact several areas of your business and product, so any changes need to be made carefully. In addition, you need to coordinate with other teams that touch pricing, such as marketing, finance, customer support, and sales. But back in 2016, we had no trial model at all.

Revenue 121

Revenue Conversion Programming eCommerce 121

The Equity Kicker

MARCH 6, 2014

This is a quote from Leander Kahney’s recently published book on Apple design chief Jony Ive: “In the world according to Steve Jobs, the ANPP would rapidly evolve into a well-defined process for bringing new products to market by laying out in extreme detail every stage of product development.

Product 84

Product Venture Capital Lean Finance 84

www.informationarbitrage.com

FEBRUARY 24, 2010

It is generally a soft touch at the beginning of the development process, perhaps identifying 1-2 early alpha/beta customers to help flesh out use cases to be built upon over time. And if this business partnership doesn't work out, the CTO / Founder, the engine of value for the company, is stuck in a bad, bad place.

CTO Hire 40

CTO Hire Founder Cap Table Vesting 40

The Startup Magazine

FEBRUARY 12, 2024

Rising client demand for e-financing, a surge in FinTech implementation in banks and other institutions, and increased internet usage in everyday life are all factors driving the global rise of the FinTech industry. Assurance of Quality The testing stage of the software product development process is vital. billion by 2030.

Artificial Inteligence 88

Artificial Inteligence Software Review Web API 88

K9 Ventures

OCTOBER 10, 2017

This post is intended to be a dynamic document, and I will attempt to update it from time to time with new questions that may arise or as financing trends evolve. Q: What amount of financing is considered Pre-Seed? It’s a legitimate stage of financing in the venture eco-system as of this writing (October 2017).

Seed Stage 82

Seed Stage Finance Later Stage Equity 82

YoungUpstarts

FEBRUARY 22, 2016

Many finance and strategy leaders are now being asked to lead and support innovation too, he adds. In fact, 67 percent of senior finance and accounting professionals now support innovation in some fashion versus only 35 percent 10 years ago. When you talk about innovation, many people struggle with how to measure it.

Government 100

Government Channel Metrics Portfolio 100