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? How not to waste your first six months as a new CTO thinking you’re making progress when the status quo is working to keep you at bay? But this is the first time he was the CTO of a company this size.

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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. You need to have a technical genius on the team to get your startup product off the ground. The trusted leader.

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YoungUpstarts

NOVEMBER 21, 2018

by Saeju Jeong, CEO and Co-founder of Noom Coach. Over the years, we’ve been able to understand some of the reasons that co-founderships fail — and more importantly, why a few, like ours, succeed. Here, I outline five principles all co-founders must agree on before working together. Bottom line.

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The Next Web

OCTOBER 10, 2013

Two more entrepreneurial ventures later, Gleb cofounded online backup provider Backblaze to help consumers affordably, automatically, and safely back up their data. What are the pros and cons of starting a business alone versus with cofounders? How many founders are too many? One” – You have to have a cofounder.

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SoCal CTO

APRIL 28, 2014

I guess it should not be a surprise that Founders have lots of challenges working with developers. Challenges I started by asking the founders in the room to tell me some of the challenges they have working with developers. Developers (and Founders) are challenged to know how much is okay in terms of bugs. Changing Your Mind.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 11, 2014

Thus I was happy to see a new 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. You need to have a technical genius on the team to get your startup product off the ground. Outsourcing your core competency does not work.

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SoCal CTO

APRIL 2, 2012

Hiring seems to be the preferred use of seed funds (by investors and founders), whereas I'd prefer a focus on customer acquisition. And that should be the focus of the founders -- to find the special fit that will make your company take off. The startup founder is definitely not ready to hire a CTO. Far from it.

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SoCal CTO

APRIL 2, 2013

What's Going to Go Wrong A lot of founders don't really understand Lean Startup principles. Do you have a Technical Advisors: Every Web/Mobile Startup Must Have One ? What's going to go wrong? Have you conducted Problem, Solution and Feature Interviews with customers? Have you Documented Your MVP for Your Developer s?

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Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2014

I was driving home from the BIO conference in San Diego last month and had lots of time for a phone call with Dave, an ex student and now a founder who wanted to update me on his Customer Discovery progress. neither you nor your cofounder can code and you’re building a mobile app? It takes weeks to make even a simple change.”.

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SoCal CTO

MARCH 2, 2015

As the organizer of the LA CTO Forum , I get lots of inquiries by job seekers and people looking for CTO / VP Engineering talent. I’ve written quite a bit about aspects of this topic, especially from the perspective of startup founders looking for talent – you can find these in: Startup CTO.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 1, 2023

I always tell entrepreneurs that two heads are better than one, so the first task in many startups is finding a cofounder or two. Giving a cofounder a salary won’t get you the “fire in the belly” you want. Each cofounder should get equity for value, based on these key variables: Lived a key role in a previous startup.

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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. You need to have a technical genius on the team to get your startup product off the ground. The trusted leader.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 10, 2018

I always tell entrepreneurs that two heads are better than one, so the first task in many startups is finding a co-founder or two. Giving a co-founder a salary won’t get you the “fire in the belly” you want. Each co-founder should get equity for value, based on these key variables: Lived a key role in a previous startup.

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Feld Thoughts

SEPTEMBER 2, 2011

Jane and Dick, our fearless cofounders of SayAhh, have set up an accounting system and created their first set of financial statements. This week they set out to create their cap table and hire a CTO. The founders each have common shares that will vest over four years. Time to update the cap table.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 6, 2021

New entrepreneurs, especially technical ones, are excited by early adopters, and tend to focus on their feedback, which will always suggest more product features and options. In reality, too many choices actually dilutes customer interest in your existing market, and makes your job of production, marketing, and support much more complex.

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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.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 5, 2023

Even if they realize that they need real technical strength at the top, they are not sure how to attract and select the talent and expertise they really need. That means every entrepreneur needs to learn how to attract, hire, and manage technical people for their team. Don’t fall for a technical pitch you can’t fathom.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 19, 2023

Unfortunately many founders I work with as a mentor are experts on the technical side, but have no insight into leading a team. The only real alternative is to find a cofounder who can build and lead the team, while you focus on the product. Make sure you’re treating all team members as you would want to be treated.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 7, 2013

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. Another major hire was Ryan Lissack who joined as CTO. ” Dana & I took a chance on the founders early on.

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Steve Blank

DECEMBER 9, 2013

I used to be in startups where I was dealing with engineers designing our microprocessors or selling supercomputers to research scientists solving really interesting technical problems. Founders don’t do startups because they’re searching for a huge financial windfall. My customers were 14-year old boys.

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Both Sides of the Table

JULY 13, 2013

It was all technical. You know, the weird thing, Derek, and I should probably let you speak some time, but I was deeply technical when I went into Andersen consulting, and I got paid much less than engineers who graduated, because I had a degree in economics. Technical founder. And my specialty was computer networks.

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NZ Entrepreneur

MAY 27, 2019

Wondering how to find the right cofounder but don’t know where to start? If you are a solo founder, you may be able to do it all on your own initially but you’re making it very difficult for yourself. In my opinion, founders or early stage companies should only have a team of two or three people. This will never work.

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venturehacks.com

FEBRUARY 24, 2010

SUPPORTED BY Products Archives @venturehacks Books AngelList About RSS How to pick a co-founder by Naval Ravikant on November 12th, 2009 Update : Also see our 40-minute interview on this topic. Picking a co-founder is your most important decision. One founder companies can work, against the odds (hello, Mark Zuckerberg).

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Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 3, 2022

In my role as a business advisor, I see successful businesses most often emerging from great teams rather than great products. Startup investors tell me they invest in a new venture with a higher caliber of people, rather than the product or service, and I agree.

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YoungUpstarts

MAY 29, 2011

The report was co-authored by Berkeley and Stanford faculty members along with other contributors including Steve Blank , the Sandbox Network and blackbox teams. Founders that learn are more successful. Solo founders take 3.6x Technical-heavy founding teams are 3.3x Technical-heavy founding teams are 3.3x

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 28, 2023

In my role as an advisor to entrepreneurs, I often find founders who have such conviction and passion for their new idea, that they can’t believe anyone could challenge it. Bacharach, Cornell Professor and cofounder of the Bacharach Leadership Group. It’s been done before.

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A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JULY 4, 2011

This guest-post is from Joannes Vermorel, founder of Lokad which produces sales forecasts for off-line companies. A client with a technical question our billing, unsure of the proper contact, decided to separately email sales@ , support@ and billing@. He has a personal blog about cloud computing. is here to stay.

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Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 19, 2019

In my experience as a business advisor, that’s probably the biggest hurdle to success encountered by every new business owner. I often recommend to technical entrepreneurs (logical) that they team with a cofounder who has a business perspective (emotional customer appeal). One of these without the other is a recipe for disaster.

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Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2009

And I remind them that they should be bringing some type of domain expertise (technical or business) to the table. This is the minimum feature set for founders. Other Roles in a Startup Generic advice given to entrepreneurs assumes that everyone is going to be the founder/co-founder. The Adventure of a Lifetime.

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The Next Web

JANUARY 30, 2014

In many cases, these entrepreneurs are on the hunt for co-founders to help them build their businesses. I previously wrote about various roles and responsibilities within a startup’s management team , so figure out what role your desired co-founder can fill. The problem? What skills are you lacking? How to go about it?

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YoungUpstarts

APRIL 24, 2012

“iWoz: Computer Geek to Cult Icon: How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-Founded Apple, and Had Fun Doing It” by Steve Wozniak and Gina Smith. This is the only authorized biography of the iconic Apple co-founder, written by gifted biographer Walter Isaacson. “Steve Jobs” by Walter Isaacson. .”

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 5, 2020

In my role as an advisor to entrepreneurs, I often find founders who have such conviction and passion for their new idea, that they can’t believe anyone could challenge it. Bacharach, Cornell Professor and cofounder of the Bacharach Leadership Group. It’s been done before.

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rob.by

MARCH 8, 2012

Finding Technical Cofounders Is Hard. Yesterday, Michael Pope posted an article titled Technical Cofounders Are a Myth. He argued that software engineers don’t finish what they start, and that you’re better off paying a technical person than partnering with one. Tuesday, August 17, 2010.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 6, 2013

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? Also, trusted advisors and experienced investors should be polled for good candidates. Most founders are product guys. Everybody wins. Marty Zwilling.

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YoungUpstarts

JANUARY 29, 2020

This start-up is headed by industry-leading professionals including its CEO and co-founder, Ido Susan, and Hillel Kobrinsky the CSO and co-founder. Intezer.com is headed by Itai Tevet, the CEO, Roy Halevi the CTO, and Alon Cohen Executive Chairman and Founding Investor. Namogoo.com. oz-code.com.

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Steve Blank

MAY 29, 2011

The email continued, &# The problem I’m working on is that many founders are either making uninformed decisions or inefficiently learning the new skills they need. The solution I’m exploring is a just in time learning methodology that accelerates founders’ learning curve by aggregating relevant content, peers and mentors.&#.

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Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 18, 2018

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. You need to have a technical genius on the team to get your startup product off the ground. The trusted leader.

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