Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 24, 2016

Just because it was your idea doesn’t mean you “deserve” 90% of the equity. The value in a startup is all about tangible results, so I see no equity value in the idea alone. Value factors include your related product breadth and depth, relationships with thought leaders, key vendors, and large potential customers.

Equity 62

Equity Startup Patents CTO Hire 62

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 22, 2013

The most common ones I see and salute are CEO, CFO, and CTO. This person may be an extraordinary communicator, who rallies employees, customers, and colleagues around the vivid future he sees. Or he may be the founder’s brother, idea person, or inventor, who can’t be bothered actually working on the nuts and bolts of the real business.

Startup 97

Startup Invest CTO Hire Cloud Computing 97

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 1, 2010

The most common ones I see and salute are CEO, CFO, and CTO. This person may be an extraordinary communicator, who rallies employees, customers, and colleagues around the vivid future he sees. Or he may be the founder’s brother, idea person, or inventor, who can’t be bothered actually working on the nuts and bolts of the real business.

Startup 90

Startup CTO Hire Cloud Computing CIO 90

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. Talk and time are cheap, but they need to understand that investors judge past results as a good indicator of future expectations. Get a real customer and real revenue.

Funding 112

Funding Entrepreneur Startup CTO Hire 112

socalTECH

MARCH 31, 2014

We''re rolling it out to finance and Wall Street, monitoring thousands of sources of continuously changing information, such as news, social media, internal email systems, and analyzing specific, material conditions that our customers are looking for. I was hired to head up strategy, marketing development, and product management.

Orange County 245

Orange County Startup News IBM 245

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. Talk and time are cheap, but they need to understand that investors judge past results as a good indicator of future expectations. Get a real customer and real revenue.

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. Talk and time are cheap, but they need to understand that investors judge past results as a good indicator of future expectations. Get a real customer and real revenue.

Startup 101

Startup CTO Hire Press Customer 101

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. Talk and time are cheap, but they need to understand that investors judge past results as a good indicator of future expectations. Get a real customer and real revenue.

Tips 88

Tips Startup CTO Hire Press 88

SoCal CTO

MARCH 4, 2010

Background This post partly really came about as a result of a great conversation yesterday with David Croslin a former CTO at HP who recently conducted an interesting experiment. This is actually fairly common and I think it’s a bit challenging in that the technology roles (from technology advisor to CTO) in a startup vary widely.

Technical Review 170

Technical Review Technical Advisors CTO Coach Startup 170

Frank Addante

JUNE 4, 2006

We provide turnkey digital messaging appliances for enterprises, service providers and software developers to send marketing, e-commerce, CRM and customer service email. StrongMail’s software ensures reliable and timely delivery of their critical customer communications. We initially hired him as our in-house recruiter.

Startup 40

Startup Venture Capital Email CTO Hire 40

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 23, 2012

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). In the real world, the "idea" is a very small part of the overall equation. Sacrifice and time commitment. Who will be the CEO, CFO, and CTO?

Startup 101

Startup Entrepreneur Equity CTO Hire 101

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 8, 2010

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). In the real world, the "idea" is a very small part of the overall equation. Sacrifice and time commitment. Who will be the CEO, CFO, and CTO?

Equity 91

Equity Startup CTO Hire CTO Coach 91