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Lessons Learned: What does a startup CTO actually do?

Startup Lessons Learned

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, September 30, 2008 What does a startup CTO actually do? Often times, it seems like people are thinking its synonymous with "that guy who gets paid to sit in the corner and think technical deep thoughts" or "that guy who gets to swoop in a rearrange my project at the last minute on a whim."

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The Case for Optimism and Risk at Startups

Both Sides of the Table

I thought I was pretty sell suited to answer that question because having grown up in Northern California but lived and worked in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain & Japan over 11 years I had seen quite a few societies and work environments. We hired outside experts. What about battery charge times? I was not fried.

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Lessons Learned: The three drivers of growth for your business.

Startup Lessons Learned

In this model, you take some fraction of the lifetime value of each customer and plow that back into paid acquisition through SEM, banner ads, PR, affiliates, etc. Beware the new hire who has "extensive experience" in startups or big companies - using a different growth driver. Take a look and let me know what you think.

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What does a CTO do?

www.lanceglasser.com

What does a CTO do? Thank you Japan. What does a CTO do? What does a CTO (Chief Technology Officer) do in a high-tech company? So what is the CTO job? The best description of this was given to me by my friend Greg Papadopolous who was on the faculty at MIT with me many years ago and is now CTO of Sun Microsystems.

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Lessons Learned: About the author

Startup Lessons Learned

Maybe youd like to start with The lean startup , How to listen to customers , or What does a startup CTO actually do? ) Eric, I landed upon your blog when I was searching for the path to CTO a couple of months back and I have been a frequent to the site since then. Your "startup-lessons-learned" are very valuable.

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Lessons Learned: The lean startup

Startup Lessons Learned

Q&A with an actual reader The lean startup comes to Stanford You don't need as many tools as you think The three drivers of growth for your business mode. Take a look and let me know what you think.

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Lessons Learned: The hacker's lament

Startup Lessons Learned

And we cant hire new engineers any faster, because you cant be interviewing and debugging and fixing all at the same time! Even with the highest standards imaginable, theres no way to hire just genius hackers. Hire a CTO or VP Engineering. Worst of all, your teammates are constantly wanting to have meetings.