Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 17, 2022

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 385

Partner Software Review CTO Hire Cofounder 385

View from Seed

JULY 6, 2020

You have 4-6 years of professional experience as a technology operator, founder, or investor in New York. You have a deep desire to learn the venture capital business and are ready to hustle to meet the next great founder. . However, you will serve as a co-pilot on deals with all four partners, across the geographies we cover. .

Technical Review 257

Technical Review Software Review Hiring Seed Stage 257

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 1, 2014

So today I’m excited to announce that Upfront Ventures is leading an $8 million round with some amazing co-investors including Founder’s Fund, OATV, Lowercase, High Peaks, Collaborative Fund and many great angel investors. And for the next several months the founders literally ran the business.

Technical Review 380

Technical Review Software Review Cofounder CTO Hire 380

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 26, 2013

We give abundant advice to founders about how to make startups succeed yet we offer few models about dealing with failure. We hired everyone according to our plan. We established a team of founders who worked collaboratively. “What’s gone and what’s past help. Should be past grief.” So here’s mine.

Redemption 333

Redemption Cofounder Silicon Valley Burn Rate 333

The Startup Magazine

AUGUST 9, 2022

As part of our Founder interview series , The Startup Magazine caught up with Salo Sterental, Co-Founder of the SoStereo, a marketing firm that enables brands and artists alike to unlock the marketing power of music. Salo: Zumba Fitness approached Beto (my co-founder) and I with a unique problem. Quality control?

Cofounder 158

Cofounder Founder Miami Marketing 158

View from Seed

JANUARY 27, 2021

We are proud seed investors of over 100 portfolio companies over the last decade, including TripleLift, Grove Collaborative, Skillz, Attentive, Whoop, Dia&Co, MealPal, Parsec, and Code Climate. . We lead or co-lead most of our investments and we develop our individual conviction vs. trying to hang around the hoop for market signals.

Operations 227

Operations Hiring Seed Stage Software Review 227

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. And the back-end is something that a non-technical founder can manage. It had a passionate group of 50 people attending. It should also give a sense of what I covered to people who were not there.

Technical Cofounder 338

Technical Cofounder Technical Review CTO Hire Fractional CTO 338

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 29, 2019

Of course, it’s no surprise that most entrepreneurs don’t have a background in hiring teams, and don’t have a budget for training or human resource consultants. He comments that in spite of the digital revolution, the hiring process hasn’t changed from its low priority, last minute, subjective roots.

Hiring 184

Hiring Technical Cofounder Cofounder Retention 184

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 17, 2020

Thus, unless the visionary highlights a cofounder who can take the vision and execute, I assume the worst. My bottom-line recommendation and theirs is that every visionary entrepreneur needs to be matched with a cofounder or key team member who has the required execution attributes. Tends to hire helpers and not develop talent.

Founder 329

Founder Cofounder Bandwidth Matching 329

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 16, 2022

Hire and train your own managers for internal and external work projects. You should never hire internal or external staff based solely on what they can do now. Entrepreneurs need to know every component of their business at a management level, or have a cofounder who does. Bored and unmotivated teams are never cost-effective.

Cost 346

Cost Philippines Bandwidth Cofounder 346

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 21, 2014

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. When you’re hiring most reference checkers focus on the person’s former bosses. Our founder, Yves Sisteron, was my mentor and board member at my first startup.

CTO Hire 320

CTO Hire Cofounder San Francisco Silicon Valley 320

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 13, 2013

You’ve got entrepreneurs and founders who are really – a lot of them are in the very early stage of their startup. Technical founder. Because I’m going to say no to you, and the guys you want to hire from Facebook are going to say no to you. Should I hire or not hire this person? You’re 42.

Cofounder 337

Cofounder Technical Cofounder Startup San Diego 337

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? I just had coffee with Anthony, a friend who was just hired as the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of a large company (30,000+ people.) Understand if/how they co-opted/bypassed existing processes and procedures.

CTO 368

CTO Technical Cofounder CTO Hire Incubator 368

The Startup Magazine

JUNE 26, 2023

The path to success is far from easy, which is a lesson Quattro Development’s founders, Rob Walters and Mike Liyeos, know all too well. The duo recall their most profound failures as co-founders, as well as the steps they took to overcome misfortune and become a premier national developer.

Cofounder 148

Cofounder Developer United States Founder 148

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 4, 2022

Thus I was happily surprised when I found the classic book, “ The Tech Entrepreneur’s Survival Guide ,” by Bernd Schoner, PhD, and cofounder of ThingMagic, which leans heavily on the people side of the equation. It just means that the cofounders trust one of their own and are willing to follow. The industry veteran. The financial suit.

Technical Cofounder 309

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Advisory Board Startup 309

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 9, 2020

Thus I was happily surprised when I found the classic book, “ The Tech Entrepreneur’s Survival Guide ,” by Bernd Schoner, PhD, and cofounder of ThingMagic, which leans heavily on the people side of the equation. It just means that the cofounders trust one of their own and are willing to follow. The industry veteran. The financial suit.

Technical Cofounder 308

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Advisory Board Stock Options 308

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 16, 2022

Supportive co-founder and executive positions. Every startup needs two or three key advisors who have the domain experience, connections, and complementary skills to guide the founders through those early crises. Member of the Advisory Board. Manage customer service. Personnel Manager.

Advisory Board 368

Advisory Board Dividend Angel Investor Cofounder 368

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 11, 2019

Hire and train your own managers for internal and external work projects. You should never hire internal or external staff based solely on what they can do now. Entrepreneurs need to know every component of their business at a management level, or have a cofounder who does. Bored and unmotivated teams are never cost-effective.

Entrepreneur 303

Entrepreneur Philippines Bandwidth Cofounder 303

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2017

Why do these founders get to stay around? Because the balance of power has dramatically shifted from investors to founders. VCs competing for unicorn investments have given founders control of the board. Hire a CEO to Go Public. A pre-IPO board usually had two founders, two VCs and one “independent” member.

Founder 281

Founder Technical Review CTO Hire IPO 281

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2017

As a startup in this phase you often raise capital, get press, hire staff and everything feels possible. As the idea went from innovating on software & systems to launching a company to rolling it out in the field brought on Rahul Gandhi as his co-founder to physically launch the company.

Operations 286

Operations New York City Technical Review Startup 286

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 26, 2020

Today we’re announcing that my partner Kara Nortman is becoming Co-Managing Partner at Upfront Ventures and I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to welcome her to her new role. and of course a relentless pursuit of helping founders succeed. So mostly we just had to listen to customer feedback from founders, VCs and LPs.

Partner 361

Partner Management Cofounder San Francisco 361

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 18, 2020

Supportive co-founder and executive positions. Every startup needs two or three key advisors who have the domain experience, connections, and complementary skills to guide the founders through those early crises. Member of the Advisory Board. Manage customer service. Personnel Manager.

Advisory Board 312

Advisory Board Startup Dividend Angel Investor 312

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 5, 2023

That means every entrepreneur needs to learn how to attract, hire, and manage technical people for their team. Just like executive recruiters recognize the best executives, a technical expert in your business domain will recognize the right combination of skill, creativity, and experience you need for a cofounder or key team member.

Technical Cofounder 260

Technical Cofounder Technology Management Entrepreneur 260

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 7, 2013

Our industry just took one big step towards legitimacy with the hiring of renowned media exec Ynon Kreiz to run Maker Studios. The founders had been responsible for gaining staggering scale in the past 3 years, having been trail-blazers in building a network of talent and an unrivaled understanding of the YouTube ecosystem.

Video 320

Video Los Angeles Technical Cofounder CTO Hire 320

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 1, 2014

Supportive co-founder and executive positions. Every startup needs two or three key advisors who have the domain experience, connections, and complementary skills to guide the founders through those early crises. Member of the Advisory Board. Manage customer service. Personnel Manager.

Entrepreneur 266

Entrepreneur Advisory Board Dividend Angel Investor 266

YoungUpstarts

AUGUST 31, 2020

by Roland Polzin , MBA and Co-founder of Wing AI. Personal assistants are often hired to prepare decisions and information for managers and take care of miscellaneous tasks for busy executives and CEOs — who all earn higher incomes. Computers are not yet actually smart.

Artificial Inteligence 214

Artificial Inteligence Mali Management Technical Review 214

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 29, 2013

” From the hyperbolic Jason Calacanis weighing in that “The petty VC’s did everything to deride [Naval, the co-founder of AngelList]” as though the industry was collectively s g its pants that AngelList was going to put us out of business. founder fighting. strategic direction. and much more.

Syndicate 356

Syndicate Syndication Cofounder Early Stage 356

Steve Blank

MARCH 19, 2018

With the reckless and naïve abandon of founders who had no clue what they were about to tackle, we had just started Ardent , a supercomputer company. Ben Wegbreit, the VP of Engineering (one of my mentors and then co-founder of Epiphany), broke his foot skiing just as the company started. Here was the day I got that lesson.

Part-Time VPE 354

Part-Time VPE Leadership Silicon Valley Los Angeles 354

YoungUpstarts

DECEMBER 29, 2020

by Hema Crockett and Jamie Jacobs, co-founders of Gig Talent . Since employees have been working remotely, organizations have seen a significant increase in productivity and communication, making employers more open toward hiring or partnering with people that are located throughout the US and all over the world.

Technical Review 275

Technical Review Cofounder Leadership Employee 275

Steve Blank

JANUARY 17, 2023

But these look for founders who have a technical or business model insight and a team. Accelerators provide these teams with technical and business expertise and connect them to a network of other founders and advisors. Firms asking for greater than 60% are actually hiring an employee rather than a founder.

Technical Cofounder 368

Technical Cofounder Intellectual Property Technical Review Incubator 368

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 24, 2021

If you are a young startup founder, how do you find that CEO or other executive for your “dream team” to close on funding or complement your skills to kick start your company? The CEO must focus on key management team hires and assume a few mistakes which need to get fixed. Most founders are product guys.

Exit Strategy 407

Exit Strategy Leadership Founder Networking 407

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 18, 2023

Thus, unless the visionary highlights a cofounder who can take the vision and execute, I assume the worst. My bottom-line recommendation and theirs is that every visionary entrepreneur needs to be matched with a cofounder or key team member who has the required execution attributes. Tends to hire helpers and not develop talent.

Partner 206

Partner Cofounder Startup Bandwidth 206

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 13, 2018

The company was going to hire a VP of Marketing. This sentence is worth reading multiple times as no one – not the person who hired you, the VC’s or your peers -is going to tell you when you’re hired that the company will likely outgrow you. Your original hires embody the company culture. I was devastated.

Part-Time VPE 334

Part-Time VPE Employee Cofounder Hiring 334

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 2, 2019

You may have a strong product development background, but typically have minimal experience in hiring and leading team members and groups, or managing financials. Here I often find that you need to seek and work with a co-founder who can complement your technical skills with financial and marketing to start the business.

Leadership 248

Leadership Technical Review Cofounder Social Media 248

YoungUpstarts

MAY 11, 2017

by Ana Grasic , cofounder of WeGrowth. Hire Freelancers. However, if you don’t want to deal with accounting yourself — even with the help of an automated software—you can always hire a freelance accountant. Naturally, hiring freelancers does not apply only to accounting.

Small Business 196

Small Business Product Cofounder Email 196

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 12, 2014

If you’re not a strong software developer, for example, hire someone or bring on a co-founder who is. Requesting help can be hard, but it makes you more efficient and increases your business’ chances of success. Talk to other entrepreneurs for real advice.

Angel Investor 275

Angel Investor Security Cofounder Salary 275

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 22, 2018

Hire and train your own managers for internal and external work projects. You should never hire internal or external staff based solely on what they can do now. Entrepreneurs need to know every component of their business at a management level, or have a cofounder who does. Bored and unmotivated teams are never cost-effective.

Philippines 181

Philippines Bandwidth Cofounder Affiliate 181