SoCal CTO

APRIL 2, 2012

Using my StartupRoar as a radar, I came across a great post by Gabriel Weinberg Do you really need a full-time hire for that? Hiring seems to be the preferred use of seed funds (by investors and founders), whereas I'd prefer a focus on customer acquisition. In other words, they come in asking for help with sourcing and hiring.

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TechEmpower

AUGUST 14, 2023

Startup founders make decisions on a daily basis – significant decisions that will have lasting impact on their business. Would you create contracts without an attorney? Actually, many startups need two kinds of technical advisors. CTO Founder – Do they really still need a technical advisor?

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SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 2, 2010

Based on my posts Startup CTO or Developer and Acting CTO , Chris O’Meara wrote an interesting post Startup CTO: Could It Work? Chris starts with a description of the person that pretty much every startup is looking for: Their primary characteristics are deep technical skills and a hacker mentality.

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SoCal CTO

NOVEMBER 1, 2010

I had a recent email dialog with the founder of a company looking for a CTO for their startup. Was it a Startup Founder Developer Gap ? Did they really need a Startup CTO or Developer or both? And do I fit as a Part-Time CTO , Technology Advisor , CTO Founder , Acting CTO ?

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SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 13, 2013

Investors my tell you that, but what they can look at your product on paper and tell what it does and they will understand if it can be built. The real reason to build an MVP is to do early tests of key Startup Metrics for the business. Third party products are used appropriately. To prove/disprove a hypothesis.

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SoCal CTO

MAY 21, 2012

So, here goes: Dr. Tony Karrer Over the past 15 years, Tony has been a part-time CTO for more than 30 startups. Most notably, he was the original CTO for eHarmony for its first four years making him partly responsible for more than 4% of the marriages every year. Tony has a Ph.D.

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Steve Blank

MAY 27, 2010

Startups need to have a great lawyer, accountant, patent attorney, etc. After some heroics from our CTO in extracting data from SAP, the Visio CFO loved our product, thought we could save them a ton of time and money and wanted it installed ASAP. Then Visio gave us their boilerplate contract.

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Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 9, 2020

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. The default answer, to keep peace in the family, is to split everything equally, but that’s a terrible answer, since now no one is in control, and startups need a clear leader. Now comes the reality check.

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Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

We all like to think of startups as “non hierarchic&# organizations and to some extent that should be true. As your organization grows and you hire senior staff where you are no longer managing every employee directly the issue of how to manage people that are not your “direct&# reports arises.

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SoCal CTO

MARCH 12, 2012

I've recently received several emails from people looking for a technical cofounder for their startup. Make sure you go through the 32 Questions Developers May Have Forgot to Ask a Startup Founder. You should definitely hit up the Startup Weekend events as well. And look at StartupDigest.com for lots of startup oriented events.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

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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SoCal CTO

JANUARY 18, 2011

I received an inquiry from a reader of my blog and thought I would provide some thoughts, but would definitely welcome input: I am an unpaid CTO of a small startup. I have been working full time with two founders for about 10 months on full time basis. They both would have lots of thoughts and ideas. What type of shares?

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SoCal CTO

JUNE 26, 2012

I've done four Free CTO Consulting Sessions in the past month with startup founders who all had run into variations of the same problem. In the fourth case, the founder was getting ready to sign a very large contract, but they didn't feel they had much visibility into what was going to be delivered.

Software Developers 254

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SoCal CTO

MAY 13, 2014

A large part of this conversation is what kinds of advisors startups should be looking for. A little while ago, I suggested that Every Web/Mobile Startup Should Have a Technical Advisor. We both felt that most startups are not taking a very systematic approach to defining with they need in terms of advisors.

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Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 16, 2014

One of the vivid memories I have from being a startup CEO is the feeling that most people in your company have a look in their eyes that like they can do your job as well as you. Eventually you need a VP of Product to handle your product roadmap, a CTO for engineering leadership and VPs of sales, marketing & biz dev.

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SoCal CTO

JANUARY 18, 2011

I received an inquiry from a reader of my blog and thought I would provide some thoughts, but would definitely welcome input: I am an unpaid CTO of a small startup. I have been working full time with two founders for about 10 months on full time basis. They both would have lots of thoughts and ideas. What type of shares?

CTO 150

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Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 5, 2014

We hired outside experts. When we ship product. But would you expect Apple to reveal its product details before launching? Should Elon Musk have responded early to the cynicism of Nasa or the Auto Industry or just delivered his products? Time will tell. What about battery charge times? Startup Lessons'

Technical Review 417

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SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 25, 2010

This is not only sad but incredibly frustrating, because it is so easy to see how a great technology can be developed and commercialized if only - if only the CTO hadn't been impulsive and insecure and brought on a business partner too early in the game. … And it’s not just inexperienced CTOs. Lack of confidence? Camaraderie?

Technical Cofounder 150

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SoCal CTO

MAY 27, 2010

And I always recommend it to people involved in early stage startups. I received a follow-up question from an early-stage startup about the Founder Developer Gap that I’ve described before and that was part of the interview with Frank. This is somewhat the heart of what a CTO does. Do not hire a CTO at this point.

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YoungUpstarts

MARCH 24, 2014

by Adam Root, founder and CTO of Hiplogiq. Most of us would want to hire the most experienced, cutthroat lawyer specializing in multimillion-dollar mergers. The same rule applies to product and app development. Do you want the product, or does your target market want the product? A DUI lawyer? Didn’t think so.

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SoCal CTO

MARCH 4, 2010

I’ve worked with 30+ early-stage companies in all sorts of capacities (and spoken to many, many more), so I thought it might be worthwhile trying to classify the various ways that I’ve engaged in different technology roles in startups. Later he posted about his experience in Challenges of Startups.

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SoCal CTO

APRIL 28, 2014

they need a developer more than they need a CTO. As a founder, you do need to be telling the developers what the business and product goals are. I just had a fellow CTO ask me about a particular technical design problem and several directions they could go and ask for my thoughts on the tradeoffs for those different choices.

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Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 19, 2009

This is part of my Startup Advice series. So I was surprised at the sheer volumes of decisions that had to be made when I became a startup CEO. You’re sales person is getting blocked by the CTO who says she shouldn’t go above him but the CTO isn’t approving the deal. He looked stunned.

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SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 5, 2010

Great content again in September that meets at the intersection of startups, technology, product and being a Startup CTO. Chris Dixon , September 12, 2010 My most useful career experience was about eight years ago when I was trying to break into the world of VC-backed startups. Why You Should Write. and chartbeat.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 21, 2014

Startups are hard. You’ve heard that a million times. The truth is you really don’t know how your teammates or your bosses will perform in good times and bad. 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.

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Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 31, 2012

If you have a product description, that’s necessary, but not sufficient. A CEO who has “been there and done that” is traction, especially if teamed with a financial lead (CFO) and a product lead (CTO). Ship a minimum product now. For a true scientist, the product is never good enough, so it’s never done.

Intellectual Property 260

Intellectual Property Sweat Equity CTO Hire Fractional CTO 260

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 17, 2011

If you have a product description, that’s necessary, but not sufficient. A CEO who has “been there and done that” is traction, especially if teamed with a financial lead (CFO) and a product lead (CTO). Ship a minimum product now. For a true scientist, the product is never good enough, so it’s never done.

Intellectual Property 253

Intellectual Property Sweat Equity CTO Hire Fractional CTO 253

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

NOVEMBER 5, 2013

That’s great of course, because in a new startup everyone needs to be either making stuff or selling stuff — there’s no room for managers and executives and strategists. The trouble is, this is almost certainly not the activity that would most benefit your startup. You make stuff. Here are two: 1.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 1, 2014

It’s the company that evokes fear into more startups and venture capitalists looking to fund eCommerce businesses than any other potential competitor. Every pitch I’ve ever seen has led to the, “Would Amazon eventually do this? And could we then compete?” ” type questions. 10x the experience.

Technical Review 380

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TechEmpower

DECEMBER 11, 2023

Ensure that you investigate the designers' past work, samples of their work product, and their process. Although noteworthy, working with large corporations differs remarkably from working with startups. Quality of Work: The end product should not only look good but function as expected. cto , product , saas

Software Developers 297

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2013

I’m super excited to announce that GRP Partners led the investment in Ethan Anderson’s new company MyTime (link has LA-based merchants but will give you a good feel for the product). ” So Ethan went to work as a product manager at Google Video. In the same year they won Business Insider’s Startup competition.

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TechEmpower

JULY 24, 2023

At TechEmpower, we frequently talk to startup founders, CEOs, product leaders, and other innovators about their next big tech initiative. It’s part of our job to ask questions about their plans, challenge their assumptions, and suggest paths to success. What are your key Startup Metrics ? Ads, Viral/Social, SEO)?

Developer 520

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 17, 2011

I recently wrote a post about why I didn’t think early-stage startups should have COOs. What a luxury in a startup to have the number one person in the business get to focus on just strategy? One great solution I see is to hire an outstanding CFO who runs both. I expected it to be controversial and it was.

Operations 292

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SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 17, 2007

skip to main | skip to sidebar SoCal CTO Saturday, February 17, 2007 Finding Good Developers in Los Angeles? Im part of a CTO group that meets once a month to discuss various topics. He has twenty years’ experience as a CTO. He has been the CTO for several start-ups, most notably eHarmony.

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Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2017

. — Unremarked and unheralded, the balance of power between startup CEOs and their investors has radically changed: IPOs/M&A without a profit (or at times revenue) have become the norm. The startup process has become demystified – information is everywhere. People had to actually pay you for your product.

Founder 281

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mashable.com

MAY 9, 2011

a New York-based sizzle reel production company specializing in promotional videos for PR and marketing professionals, and the Young Entrepreneur Council. Hiring the wrong person for key company positions can cost a business thousands — or tens of thousands — of dollars and man hours. Zach Cutler , The Cutler Group.

CTO Hire 73

CTO Hire Fractional CTO CTO Technical Review 73

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 30, 2013

If you have a product description, that’s necessary, but not sufficient. A CEO who has “been there and done that” is traction, especially if teamed with a financial lead (CFO) and a product lead (CTO). Ship a minimum product now. For a true scientist, the product is never good enough, so it’s never done.

Intellectual Property 281

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