Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

You’ll get sales information from your VP of Sales, marketing information from your VP Marketing, tech information from your CTO and so on. An obvious example would be in sales. You’re also learning directly about the skills of your sales staff by observing them in action.

Startup 308

Startup CTO Coach Technical Review CTO Hire 308

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 16, 2015

In practice it can be a fine line between sparring partner / coach and stepping over the line to brute-force persuasion. At times I wanted the engineering team to produce features to support our sales efforts to I occasionally leaned on them a bit. Another area we CEOs often meddle is in sales. I did this.

Startup 150

Startup Sales CTO Coach Course 150

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 19, 2009

Most of them are completely mundane such as choosing which: bank, office space, 1-year lease vs. 2-year lease, logo, URL, pricing structure or which VC. The technology team disagrees on direction and wants resolutions. Your head of sales thinks she should fire somebody. Should she take a chance and potentially ruffle feathers?

Entrepreneur 414

Entrepreneur Technical Review Slides CTO Coach 414

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 11, 2016

We help founders through difficult moments, we help coach, we act as sparring partners, we help them resolve conflicts when they’re fighting with co-founders and we help them deal with adversity as well as successes. That’s why I often say The role of VC is “chief psychologist.”

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Capital CTO Coach Startup 150

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2013

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. So if all I need to do is make some customer calls, interview potential employees or help with his fund-raising decks – hallelujah. And improve.

Tips 365

Tips Email Venture Capital CTO Coach 365

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