Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

A good early-stage CEO needs to be accessible, to be accountable for producing results and should be establishing the cultural norms of the company through direct leadership at all levels. But issues do arise as your company grows. I see two common mistakes in companies (not just in startups, in fact).

Startup 308

Startup CTO Coach Technical Review CTO Hire 308

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 16, 2015

recently wrote a post talking about how some VCs meddle in operating company decisions or some executive teams are too reliant on VCs to jump in and make hard calls for them. In practice it can be a fine line between sparring partner / coach and stepping over the line to brute-force persuasion. ” Of course I agree with this.

Startup 150

Startup Sales CTO Coach Course 150

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 19, 2009

This is part of my Startup Advice series. 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. Your head of sales thinks she should fire somebody.

Entrepreneur 414

Entrepreneur Technical Review Slides CTO Coach 414

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2013

Growth like this, this early in a company’s lifecycle rarely happens. In this period (less than 2 years) he has brought on incredibly talented senior execs is sales, marketing, product management, client services, finance, vp engineering and more. In his spare time he raised nearly $30 million.

Tips 365

Tips Email Venture Capital CTO Coach 365

socalTECH

MARCH 10, 2010

We looked around for literally eight to ten months, by having a couple of young people bring us companies, research papers on potential industries, and other information every day. But, what about the supply side, and where do companies go? It looks like you bought an existing property as part of startup up the site?

Startup 223

Startup Content Sites CTO Coach 223

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