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. Please let this be a lesson to everyone – founders and CTOs. Of course, that doesn’t help here. So … I have probably more questions than answers.

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CTO CTO Hire CTO Coach Equity 150

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? They tend to know where to find good help in terms of employees and consultants. If you think that's person you need, the question becomes "what else do you expect a CTO to contribute?"

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SoCal CTO

MARCH 12, 2012

" Typically, this requires quite a bit more information for me to be able to respond and provide real help. Of course, you will want to figure out a bit more about the specifics of what this developer needs to know vs. can learn. Your technical advisor can likely help. The good news is that likely is not what they want.

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CTO Hire CTO Coach Startup Equity 211

SoCal CTO

APRIL 2, 2012

In the mean time, if you need some extra help, get some contractors to test out specific things. When I talk with early-stage companies, often the discussion starts with them asking me about Hiring a CTO for Your Startup , or Finding a Technical Cofounder for Your Startup or How to Find Programmers for Your Startup. Far from it.

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CTO Hire Outsource Development CTO Coach Develop 205

SoCal CTO

MAY 21, 2013

These are often the same things that cause a founder to reach out to me about helping their CTO, VP Engineering, tech team, off-shore development, etc. CTO Knowledge and Skill I personally believe that the best CTOs will have a technical/developer background. Some of the top symptoms are: Frequently missed deadlines.

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SoCal CTO

APRIL 25, 2017

We have been reading about the LA CTO Forum and we thought it would be a great place to find him/her. I've written before about having an Initial Conversation with a Potential CTO. The above email is SO BAD that I feel compelled to treat this email as a special case so maybe I can help other founders before they send this email.

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SoCal CTO

MAY 19, 2010

On Friday, at the LA CTO Forum , I heard from a couple of CTOs having trouble finding good developers. And it’s not just me, Ben Kuo just posted - Good news for developers (and jobs) We’ve been talking with a lot (and I mean a LOT) of people who are looking for developers in Southern California (Los Angeles and beyond).

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Develop Development TechEmpower Southern California 175

SoCal CTO

MAY 13, 2014

Here’s the other aspect that both Tony and I preach: get help. You can’t afford and don’t want to hire a full-time CTO or architect. Getting someone who’s fully employed somewhere else to work with you on a limited basis to help close the gap is hugely important for the non-technical founder.

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CTO Coach Startup CTO Hire Template 241

SoCal CTO

JUNE 13, 2011

We had an interesting presentation at the LA CTO Forum by the CTO of a startup who chose Groovy / Grails as the framework for their startup. t prompted a good discussion around how CTOs go about choosing the programming language and framework for their startup. Of course, I'm not sure that anyone chooses Java alone.

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Framework Startup Java PHP 330

Tech Zulu Event

JUNE 16, 2014

We recently sat down with Luc Berlin, co-founder of Miigle, a SoCal startup that has an aggressive global mission to bring entrepreneurs together from around the world. Unless people feel a certain level of appeal towards what you are doing, they are less likely to want to help you. Back then, it was just him following his dream.

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SoCal CTO

JANUARY 28, 2010

But I digress… So the first challenge was weeding out the designers from the long list of Los Angeles Web Developers. So my flip suggestion was actually not all that helpful. There certainly are a lot of Networking Events in Los Angeles and Southern California that you can use. In fact, after a bit he gave up.

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Web Development Los Angeles Web Develop 167

SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 15, 2009

Of course, I immediately gave him the whole spiel on Visible Networking and Steve was totally game to make our networking visible. I have about 11 years in the technology sector including roles doing market research, sales and product development. I’m currently working with several startups, helping them launch new web businesses.

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SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 27, 2011

Founders vs. Early Employees To help with this discussion, let me start with a definition of "early employee." Of course, to be able to use this kind of formula, you will need to be able to determine how much impact the person will have and figure out a valuation. I'll get to service providers in a later post.

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Equity CTO Hire Startup Examples 391

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2013

” But I went back to the office and talked with Stuart Lander & David Lapter and said, “no prizes for guessing which job Ethan’s going to take.” ” So Ethan went to work as a product manager at Google Video. In industry this is known as “yield management” and of course it needs to exist.

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CTO Coach Google CTO Hire GRP Partners 359

SoCal CTO

MARCH 9, 2010

In my post, Technology Roles in Startups , I described some of the different ways I engage with startup companies such as CTO Founder , CTO , Part-Time CTO , Acting CTO , Consultant, Advisor and Advisory Board Member. And don’t confuse having a CTO with getting an Technology Advisor.

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SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 14, 2009

Cliff Allen is someone I've known for quite a few years and he's a go to person for me when I'm thinking about issues around marketing, sales, technology, startups and networking. Along the way, I co-authored three books on one-to-one marketing ( [link] ) to help marketers learn how to built and nature relationships with their customers.

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SoCal CTO

AUGUST 4, 2011

Almost every day I'm talking to early stage startup founders (see Free Startup CTO Consulting Sessions ) about what they plan to do. Of course, it's way more complex than just these questions. Still, if you've not heard these questions from a developer, they are not helping you as much as they should. Tracking URLs?

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Develop Development Startup SEO 396

SoCal CTO

AUGUST 4, 2011

Almost every day I'm talking to early stage startup founders (see Free Startup CTO Consulting Sessions ) about what they plan to do. Of course, it's way more complex than just these questions. Still, if you've not heard these questions from a developer, they are not helping you as much as they should. Tracking URLs?

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Develop Development Startup SEO 384

SoCal CTO

NOVEMBER 10, 2009

However, on the other hand, some ideas are more sensitive than others especially in the development phase, and an entrepreneur should be careful to disclose the idea only to those in whom he/she has a reasonable level of trust and who are genuinely in a position to help the company. How did it help you? It sounds interesting.

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Product Entrepreneur Social Media Google 150

SoCal CTO

JULY 23, 2012

I seem to encounter a lot of people who want to attach a CTO label to me as I'm the only programmer on the founding team of three. While I do fill that role at the moment, I'm a little hesitant to refer to myself as a CTO as we still haven't launched a product, acquired a single user, or turned or a penny in profit.

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SoCal CTO

JUNE 15, 2011

The purpose of Branchout is helping people to network their way to jobs. Instead, I want to look at how they've integrated themselves with Facebook and particularly how they engage users to help viral spread. and as part of completing your profile, it helps you spread the message around Branchout.

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Eric Greenspan

NOVEMBER 8, 2009

I was surprised to learn that the reason she asked me to come see her was to help the school with a problem with sexting, Facebook/Myspace and cyber-bullying. Of course she asked me, I’m the CEO of a leading computer services company. I then sent an email to my CTO Jeremy Anticouni asking him if www.poogling.com was available.

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SoCal CTO

JUNE 15, 2011

The purpose of Branchout is helping people to network their way to jobs. Instead, I want to look at how they've integrated themselves with Facebook and particularly how they engage users to help viral spread. and as part of completing your profile, it helps you spread the message around Branchout.

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Examples Startup Course Networking 323

SoCal CTO

MARCH 16, 2010

I thought it might be helpful to capture these symptoms so that in the future I can point people to this. When we interview potential developers, it’s amazing to me how many can’t answer questions that every student in a sophomore level computer science course should be able to answer. I used to teach this same stuff.

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Develop Development Course Software Development 179

SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 11, 2010

Goal Setting and Making Plans There’s a lot of content that already exists around the basics of goal setting, i.e., SMART goals: Specific Measurable Attainable Realistic Timely However, it’s far easier to teach someone about these than it is to help them create the goals themselves. Yes, I’m yelling – it’s really that bad.

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Satisfaction Examples Course Technical Review 167

socalTECH

MARCH 8, 2013

DatAllegro was one of the first companies in what is now the "big data" industry, and helped to pioneer the entire segment. We have our own small seed fund, which we trigger to fund that company and hire a team, a CEO and a CTO. I'm not a detailed micromanager, and never was, so it's working.

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Incubator Startup CTO Hire Ideas 208

SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 13, 2009

I'm hoping you can help me figure out who I should be connecting with on this. How can I get more help setting up my blog? And while I always tell people to just dive in and do it (and mention that if they get stuck, just ask a 25 year old to help you), there are definitely a lot of people in the audience that need more hand holding.

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Social Media Los Angeles Media Angel 167

SoCal CTO

MAY 19, 2008

Of course, it's sometimes hard to find advisors. I've recently begun a round table that I'm hoping will help in a small way, but even there it's going to barely scratch the surface. Andrew Warner from Mixergy posted - Before Looking for Funding, Get an Advisor. That's great advice. eHarmony for start-up / advisor relationships?

Startup 150

Startup Mixergy eHarmony Course 150

SoCal CTO

NOVEMBER 11, 2009

We help clients deal with new marketing realities like constant change (which often requires repositioning) and the "online/offline marketing grid" (which lets you extend reach essentially for free using social media). I need to get you into both the Southern California Tech Central and the B2B Marketing Zone.

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Marketing Social Media Blogging Media 150

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 17, 2017

We've made some investments here and there, and are now building a team, and making a lot of investments in SoCal tech companies. So, now, as a VC, I swore I'd never treat entrepreneurs like those VCs treated me. Of course, not all VCs are like that, and I've started some good relationships with them, but others are complete a**holes.

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Venture Capital Entrepreneur Technical Review Software Review 100

SoCal CTO

MARCH 30, 2010

I would agree that the primary goal for most social networking sites today is to help produce deeper relationships and build new online communities. Of course, the BIG change is that it’s 10x to 100x times easier to connect with people who fall outside of that immediate close network. BUT that’s not where the real value is.

Social Media 179

Social Media Media Social Network Networking 179

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 7, 2009

SEO for Startups and Negative Customer Acquisition Costs ) and, of course, the product itself. How will the other user interface possibly help us with acquisition, retention and referral? Limited Budgets Of course, I’ve yet to meet a startup that had enough money and time. Normally the product is defined as a web site.

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Web Sites Email HTML 150

SoCal CTO

APRIL 28, 2014

I just need you for a few hours to help me move this weekend.” If your developers have a better machine, screen, internet connection, or chair at home than they do in the office, then there’s a problem. I.e., they need a developer more than they need a CTO. Of course, you probably are going to provide more of a feature list.

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Develop Development CTO Coach CTO Hire 280

SoCal CTO

NOVEMBER 9, 2009

Off Page SEO The other aspect of SEO is at its most basic, how many pages with decent Google Page Rank point to you using anchor text that helps you with optimization. This can help juice your SEO. So, if you miraculously get the number 2 position on Google for the term farming, you will get 7,400 clicks per month.

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SEO Startup Search Engine Optimization Google 150

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. Of course, what's really at issue here is: How much time/effort should be spent defining things that are farther away in terms of development? They couldn't plan their business.

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Outsource Development Software Development Develop Development 254

SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 19, 2009

Of course, those are highly suspect numbers from Feedburner. I'll be doing a keynote presentation in a week or so where there might be 1,000 people in the room. I'm hoping that others will help point me to other resources around this topic. I looked at a couple of specific examples, where I ask for help from my followers.

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Social Media Services Media Blogging 222

SoCal CTO

JULY 13, 2010

Some great content around the intersection of startups and being a Startup CTO in June this year. This continues my series of posts: Top 29 Startup Posts May 2010 Startup CTO Top 30 Posts for April 16 Great Startup Posts from March There was some really great content in June. Running a business is not an easy job. And be generous.

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