SoCal CTO

MARCH 12, 2012

I promised I would write this post with some thoughts and ideas on the topic. Here are some ideas: In your company or other companies. Find the developers in your current company and other companies that you can get inside. Ask around for ideas on where they hang out. Get to know the developers.

CTO Hire 211

CTO Hire CTO Coach Startup Equity 211

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 24, 2016

You need to find the skills or experience you don’t have in business, technology, or money. So the first question I usually get is what percent of the company or equity is that person worth? Just because it was your idea doesn’t mean you “deserve” 90% of the equity. Now comes the reality check.

Equity 62

Equity Startup Patents CTO Hire 62

SoCal CTO

MAY 27, 2010

You can follow the link above for more details, but the basic idea is that most startup founders have a pretty good understanding of the basics of what they want to do and a vision for the product. There are a bunch of questions in Startup Software Development – Do Your Homework Before You Develop Anything and in Startup CTO or Developer.

CTO Hire 170

CTO Hire Develop Development Startup 170

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 4, 2014

You need to find the skills or experience you don’t have in business, technology or money. The first question I usually get is what percent of the company or equity is that person worth? Just because it was your idea doesn’t mean you “deserve” 90 percent of the equity. Key to required patents or trade secrets.

Equity 104

Equity Patents Startup CTO Hire 104

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 14, 2011

" In this case, he had a pretty compelling idea, had very little money, and didn't have the capacity himself to build it. His goal was to find a programmer who would come in as an early partner and work as an Equity-Only Developer. Ask a few CTO type people. Or ask me Free Startup CTO Consulting Sessions.

Guide 349

Guide Startup Mobile Framework 349

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 19, 2009

I had a picture in the office of my first company with the logo above and the capital letters JFDI. (In I spent nearly a decade building software for large companies and then advising companies on the same. So we discussed his ideas several times. They are filled with ideas and they get those ideas onto paper.

Entrepreneur 414

Entrepreneur Technical Review Slides CTO Coach 414

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 14, 2011

" In this case, he had a pretty compelling idea, had very little money, and didn't have the capacity himself to build it. His goal was to find a programmer who would come in as an early partner and work as an Equity-Only Developer. Ask a few CTO type people. Or ask me Free Startup CTO Consulting Sessions.

Guide 296

Guide Startup Mobile Framework 296

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 14, 2009

If you have solid web skills and a few years experience, either with a commercial company or running your own legit projects, there are dozens of companies in L.A. reduced salary, partial equity, good experience, etc. I’ll give you equity in the company.” who would love to talk with you. They haven’t.

Software Development 150

Software Development Develop Development Software 150

socalTECH

MARCH 31, 2014

In today''s electronic world, there is an immense number of data sources creating millions of data points that companies are hoping to make sense of. There are lots of products that might look for any mention of a product name or company name, and yes, we do that--but more importantly, we are also analyzing situations that arise.

Orange County 245

Orange County Startup News IBM 245

socalTECH

MARCH 26, 2014

One of the biggest areas where the cloud is transforming business is in small and medium sized businesses--where suddenly, companies are able to leverage software which wouldn''t be available, or are too costly for them to implement individually, but where the cloud access suddenly makes it affordable and easy.

Startup 160

Startup El Segundo CTO Hire Outsource Development 160

SoCal CTO

NOVEMBER 10, 2009

My first job out of school was at one of the early bioinformatics companies in Silicon Valley, working as the head of technical services. This is not so much because others are going to try to steal the idea, however, there is simply no upside in broadcasting your strategy to any would-be competitors. What’s keeping you up at night?

Product 150

Product Entrepreneur Social Media Google 150

socalTECH

MARCH 10, 2010

Robin Richards: After selling Notification Technology to Blackboard, we kind of sat around and said--where is there a marketplace, that can do some good, really needs to be developed using technology, and where there is no major player involved. But, what about the supply side, and where do companies go? Describe that further?

Startup 223

Startup Content Sites CTO Coach 223

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 30, 2013

I hear a lot of entrepreneurs contemplating their great “idea” for several years with little discernable progress, and looking for money to start. A CEO who has “been there and done that” is traction, especially if teamed with a financial lead (CFO) and a product lead (CTO). Traction means forward progress. Ship a minimum product now.

Funding 112

Funding Entrepreneur Startup CTO Hire 112

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 31, 2012

I hear a lot of entrepreneurs contemplating their great “idea” for several years with little discernable progress, and looking for money to start. A CEO who has “been there and done that” is traction, especially if teamed with a financial lead (CFO) and a product lead (CTO). Traction means forward progress. Ship a minimum product now.

Startup 104

Startup CTO Hire Press Customer 104

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 17, 2011

I hear a lot of entrepreneurs contemplating their great “idea” for several years with little discernable progress, and looking for money to start. A CEO who has “been there and done that” is traction, especially if teamed with a financial lead (CFO) and a product lead (CTO). Traction means forward progress. Ship a minimum product now.

Startup 101

Startup CTO Hire Press Customer 101

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 28, 2010

Other players such as Obopay have set out to focus on mobile person-to-person cash transfers, mFoundry (a GRP portfolio company) has focused on mobile banking and a mobile wallet and one of my favorite companies m-via is focusing on mobile remittances (right now between the US and Mexico). 15mm in Series A. Read more: TechCrunch.

Venture Capital 270

Venture Capital Capital Rustic Canyon Mobile 270

Tech Zulu Event

MAY 20, 2014

myLINGO is the first product of her company Oladas, Inc., Explain to our readers why you started your company, and why you created your app myLINGO. The idea is that the app uses the onboard microphone, reads the movie at any point the movie is playing using acoustic finger printing and audio recognition.

Startup 91

Startup Entertainment CTO Coach Screening 91

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 22, 2010

I hear a lot of entrepreneurs contemplating their great “idea” for several years with little discernable progress, and looking for money to start. A CEO who has “been there and done that” is traction, especially if teamed with a financial lead (CIO) and a product lead (CTO). Traction means forward progress. Ship a minimum product now.

Tips 88

Tips Startup CTO Hire Press 88

Tech Zulu Event

JANUARY 12, 2010

Through Demand Media, Richard is redefining the next generation of new media companies. . He previously co-founded and served as Chief Technology Officer of IMVU. Leila first developed the idea behind Samasource while working as a management consultant at Katzenbach Partners (now Booz & Co.), Alex Quilici.

Twiistup 40

Twiistup Riot Games UCLA Media 40

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. Actually, David’s taking even broader roles than I generally do as he’s CEO for at least one startup.

Technical Review 170

Technical Review Technical Advisors CTO Coach Startup 170

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

Equity-Only CTO and Equity-Only Developers - SoCal CTO , November 1, 2010 I had a recent email dialog with the founder of a company looking for a CTO for their startup. And I tried to evaluate the idea and figure out: What did the founder really need here? It may be that all the doomsayers are right.

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Startup Product Technology 175

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 5, 2011

I’ve always been a big believer that just a couple of key individuals make all of the difference in a company’s success. Your highest priority right now is hiring the 1 or 2 people that are going to join your company and make a difference. There’s you and your killer CTO co-founder.

Venture Capital 317

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Press 317

SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 5, 2010

Great content again in September that meets at the intersection of startups, technology, product and being a Startup CTO. I applied to hundreds of jobs: low-level VC roles, startups jobs, even to big tech companies. Big companies rejected me outright or gave me a courtesy interview before rejecting me. Kanye West.

Startup 191

Startup Product Technology Venture Capital 191

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 5, 2011

500 Hats , January 10, 2010 Developing new startup ideas - Chris Dixon , March 14, 2010 Batch Processing Millions and Millions of Images - Code as Craft , July 9, 2010 jQuery Plugin: Give Your Characters a NobleCount - The Product Guy , March 23, 2010 How do the sample Series Seed financing documents differ from typical Series A financing documents?

Startup 378

Startup Venture Capital Blogging CTO Coach 378

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 8, 2010

One of the first tough decisions that startup founders have to make is how to allocate or split the equity among co-founders. Another common “failure to start” situation I see is one where the “idea person” insists that the idea is 90% of the value (and 90% of the equity). Pre-existing intellectual property.

Equity 91

Equity Startup CTO Hire CTO Coach 91

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 23, 2012

One of the first tough decisions that startup founders have to make is how to allocate or split the equity among co-founders. Another common “failure to start” situation I see is one where the “idea person” insists that the idea is 90% of the value (and 90% of the equity). Pre-existing intellectual property.

Startup 101

Startup Entrepreneur Equity CTO Hire 101