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. So one of the surest signs you’ve hired a leader is the willingness of his or her former team to re-assemble. After 6 months – you know. You REALLY know.

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Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

I’ll talk in a separate post about dealing with B or C players, the rest of this post focuses on your star performers. Ryan was the most talented technologist we had hired at BuildOnline. We hired Ryan at a really young age and without a tremendous amount of prior experience. One example was Ryan Lissack.

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San Francisco South Africa CTO Hire Fractional CTO 322

Gust

APRIL 13, 2014

A while back I talked about how and where to find a co-founder in “ For a Startup, Two Heads are Always Better Than One ”. In this context, I’m broadening the definition of partner from co-founder to “business partner.” Partner decisions are more important than hiring decisions.

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Partner Software Review CTO Hire Fractional CTO 179

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 16, 2017

In fact, I would broaden the definition of partner from co-founder to “business partner.” The reason is that good attributes apply equally well to “external” partners, as they do to internal partners, like a co-founder or CTO. Partner decisions are more important than team member hiring decisions.

Partner 140

Partner Software Review CTO Hire Cofounder 140

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

APRIL 15, 2014

My daily life consists of (a) setting the strategy and rationale of the Engineering & Innovation department, based on a mixture of vision, data, and the needs of the rest of the company, (b) participate in doing the same for the whole company, (c) hire, (d) manage the managers whose teams execute the real work.

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View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 18, 2019

*This post is part of our “pitch deck” series where we dissect the seed stage pitch deck and discuss the ideal flow for a pitch. You can read the rest of the posts in the series by clicking here *. Now it’s time to discuss the “where”. So you’ve covered the “who”, “what”, “why”, & “when”.

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Part-Time VPE Seed Stage CTO Hire Forecast 195

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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Fractional CTO CTO Hire CTO Technical Review 54

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2008

So if youre new, consider not paying any attention to the rest of this post, and just diving into the archives, if you havent already. Maybe youd like to start with The lean startup , How to listen to customers , or What does a startup CTO actually do? ) He previously co-founded and served as Chief Technology Officer of IMVU.

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San Francisco Technical Cofounder Fractional CTO CTO 155

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 4, 2018

Most of these rhyme with what we’ve said in the past, but some have also evolved to fit the changing landscape and our own convictions about what really matters for founders and their investors at the seed stage. Belief #1: The best time to invest is early. The rest have been companies with some early market validation.

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YoungUpstarts

JANUARY 21, 2016

by Andrew Ostashen, co-founder of Vulsec. Hire qualified internal resources or outsource as needed for the required IT positions. Bring on a security-conscious CTO at the beginning. Be conscious of the flow of data within your organization to make sure data is encrypted at rest and in transit.

Security 100

Security Intellectual Property CTO Hire Offshore 100

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 7, 2009

Starting instead from a position where feedback cycle time is the priority and allowing quality to ratchet up as the product matures provides a more natural lead in to continuous deployment. The rest of the post, which you can read here , discusses the application of these principles to other contexts. I recommend you take a look.

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San Francisco Continuous Deployment Software Review Lean 131

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

Heres my favorite part: If youve got a team, part of the team should obsess about the backlist, honing it, editing it and promoting it, while the rest work to generate (as opposed to promote) the frontlist. I’ve been in the software industry for a long time. That’s all fine and dandy.

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San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 76

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. When we were left to our own devices in that conference room, our CTO and I wrote down our goals, our aspirations, our fears, and everything in between.

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CTO Hire Austin Cofounder eCommerce 48

Rob Go

SEPTEMBER 4, 2018

Most of these rhyme with what we’ve said in the past, but some have also evolved to fit the changing landscape and our own convictions about what really matters for founders and their investors at the seed stage. Belief #1: The best time to invest is early. The rest have been companies with some early market validation.

North America 36

North America Seed Stage Early Stage Lead Investor 36

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 28, 2011

Collectively (the founders & investors) agreed that it would be sensible to recruit a CEO to lead the next phase of the company so that the main founder could stay focused on the product where he excels and is passionate. or; “I don’t have enough money to hire my team yet. Founder: “Yes. Dig deeper.

Leadership 363

Leadership CTO Hire Technical Review Cofounder 363

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. He blogs to 10,000 web entrepreneurs at Software by Rob and co-hosts the podcast Startups for the Rest of Us. Dying at 70?

Startup 191

Startup CTO Hire Cofounder Venture Capital 191

The Next Web

SEPTEMBER 24, 2013

A fortnight ago, Boris interviewed Reed Hastings on his business lessons and experience, but now I’m shaking it up with a look at a 26-year-old founder who is disrupting the mobile and social networking spaces: Kik CEO and founder Ted Livingston. The Web-based platform. What’s the secret?

Entrepreneur 167

Entrepreneur CTO Hire Startup Mobile 167

www.metamorphblog.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

Home About Contact Home About Contact The Metamorphosis Becoming an Entrepreneur, by Matt Mireles Startup Lessons for the Proto-Founder I started SpeakerText in October 2008 during the financial apocalypse. You need a Co-Founder, not an Engineering Bitch. We hired three guys from that batch and paid them in iPhones.

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Founder Startup Cofounder Vesting 51

Hearpreneur

JUNE 21, 2017

My Mama, the founder of Yuca’s Hut in Los Feliz, CA, didn’t allow a lack of college degrees or a business plan to deter her from launching her dream. Larry Page, Google co-founder.I 8 – You cant change the world working part time. You can’t change the world working part time.

Entrepreneur 75

Entrepreneur Africa Cofounder CTO Hire 75

Up and Running

MARCH 11, 2015

As the former co-founder and CEO of two technology companies, Caroline has experienced both start-up failures and successes, and has raised close to $1 million in investment capital. I wanted to make sure we got it out there, the idea of how does one find a good co-founder? Where do you look?

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Technical Review Software Review Due Diligence Exit Strategy 60

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

One of the things I do as a founder of a later stage startup is to meet with early stage entrepreneurs to help them get their companies going. Nine times out of ten, the meeting ends with them asking me for introductions to VCs. Inevitably, the excuses begin: I need to hire people to build the product. No phone system.

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 84

www.quora.com

JANUARY 16, 2011

Find Questions, Topics and People Add Question Add Question Non-Technical Co-Founders Co-Founders Technical Co-founders Finding Co-Founders Startups & "How Important Are Ideas?" " Web Development Startups Solo Founders I am a creative guy with a startup idea.

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Developer Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder 42

sivers.org

JUNE 25, 2010

Derek Sivers about me blog books email list contact How to hire a programmer to make your ideas happen 2010-06-19 Do you have an idea for a website, online business, or application, but need a programmer to turn that idea into reality? Save the rest for later. Hire one from each. Then carry on with the rest.

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CTO Hire Hiring Software Review Technical Review 84