SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 19, 2011

I've posted quite a few things on the topics associated with being a Startup CTO. I've tried to collect them together here as a starting point for this topic. Here are some resources that come from other sources: Want to Know the Difference Between a CTO and a VP Engineering?

CTO Hire 175

CTO Hire CTO Coach Resource Startup 175

SoCal CTO

MARCH 3, 2011

I talk to roughly 2 or 3 new startups every week who need advice from an experienced CTO. Many of the founders of these companies are surprised to learn that I'm willing to review what they are doing (maybe an hour) and get on the phone for an hour with them and provide free advice. Of course, I provide part-time CTO services.

CTO Hire 264

CTO Hire Startup Technical Review Development Team Review 264

SoCal CTO

MARCH 3, 2011

I talk to roughly 2 or 3 new startups every week who need advice from an experienced CTO. Many of the founders of these companies are surprised to learn that I'm willing to review what they are doing (maybe an hour) and get on the phone for an hour with them and provide free advice. Of course, I provide part-time CTO services.

CTO Hire 259

CTO Hire Startup Technical Review Development Team Review 259

SoCal CTO

APRIL 23, 2010

I’ve come to realize that I have lots of posts around startup software development scattered around in different posts. How to Work With a Contract Web Developer How To Bootstrap Your Startup Thought it would be good to capture them in one spot and also include links to related posts from other sources.

Outsource Development 219

Outsource Development CTO Hire Startup CTO Coach 219

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 27, 2011

I was asked by a reader how much equity he should give out to early employees and to service providers in a very early stage startup. Founders vs. Early Employees To help with this discussion, let me start with a definition of "early employee." of the company for him. of the company for him. and we have 11.1%

Equity 391

Equity CTO Hire Startup Examples 391

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 10, 2012

It was like having a bunch of mini- Free Startup CTO Consulting Sessions all in one room. Structure development contracts appropriately or directing the in-house team appropriately. This is exactly the kind of thing I'm doing as a Part-Time CTO or Technical Advisor for startups.

Technical Advisors 332

Technical Advisors CTO Coach Technical Review CTO Hire 332

SoCal CTO

APRIL 18, 2012

Todd Gitlin of Safire Partners - a go to resource here in LA for recruiting C-level positions at startups - was nice enough to compile some data again this year (see last year's Startup CTO Salary and Equity Data ). Or they are looking at Hiring a CTO and want to see what salary and equity ranges look like.

CTO Hire 294

CTO Hire Equity Demand Resource 294

SoCal CTO

APRIL 2, 2012

Using my StartupRoar as a radar, I came across a great post by Gabriel Weinberg Do you really need a full-time hire for that? Hiring seems to be the preferred use of seed funds (by investors and founders), whereas I'd prefer a focus on customer acquisition. In other words, they come in asking for help with sourcing and hiring.

CTO Hire 205

CTO Hire Outsource Development CTO Coach Development 205

SoCal CTO

NOVEMBER 1, 2010

I had a recent email dialog with the founder of a company looking for a CTO for their startup. Was it a Startup Founder Developer Gap ? Did they really need a Startup CTO or Developer or both? And do I fit as a Part-Time CTO , Technology Advisor , CTO Founder , Acting CTO ?

CTO Hire 241

CTO Hire CTO Coach Equity Development 241

SoCal CTO

MAY 21, 2012

" I realized that I've never captured topics that I've covered (I'm always willing to look at other topics), nor have I put up my speaker bio. So, here goes: Dr. Tony Karrer Over the past 15 years, Tony has been a part-time CTO for more than 30 startups. Tony has a Ph.D.

CTO Hire 175

CTO Hire Startup Metrics eHarmony 175

SoCal CTO

MARCH 12, 2012

I've recently received several emails from people looking for a technical cofounder for their startup. Make sure you go through the 32 Questions Developers May Have Forgot to Ask a Startup Founder. Here are some ideas: In your company or other companies. You should definitely hit up the Startup Weekend events as well.

CTO Hire 211

CTO Hire CTO Coach Startup Equity 211

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

We all like to think of startups as “non hierarchic&# organizations and to some extent that should be true. 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.

Startup 308

Startup CTO Coach Technical Review CTO Hire 308

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. I have been working full time with two founders for about 10 months on full time basis. But they also don’t want to part with cash.

CTO 167

CTO CTO Hire CTO Coach Equity 167

SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 25, 2010

This is not only sad but incredibly frustrating, because it is so easy to see how a great technology can be developed and commercialized if only - if only the CTO hadn't been impulsive and insecure and brought on a business partner too early in the game. … Mark Suster has similar advice in Hiring at a Startup? Camaraderie?

CTO Hire 150

CTO Hire Startup Equity Sales 150

TechEmpower

DECEMBER 11, 2023

Given this diversity, it's important to be selective in the development services company with whom you choose to partner. In the 25 years that TechEmpower has been in business, we’ve seen thousands of companies come and go. This article will primarily focus on locating and evaluating development companies, rather than design firms.

Software Development 297

Software Development Software Review Development Develop 297

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 16, 2014

One of the vivid memories I have from being a startup CEO is the feeling that most people in your company have a look in their eyes that like they can do your job as well as you. But if you level up , raise capital and grow customers, revenue and staff – life changes. You hire great people. Startup life.

Entrepreneur 385

Entrepreneur CTO Hire Startup Sales 385

SoCal CTO

MAY 27, 2010

And I always recommend it to people involved in early stage startups. I received a follow-up question from an early-stage startup about the Founder Developer Gap that I’ve described before and that was part of the interview with Frank. This is somewhat the heart of what a CTO does. This is another potential gap.

CTO Hire 170

CTO Hire Development Develop CTO Coach 170

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. I have been working full time with two founders for about 10 months on full time basis. But they also don’t want to part with cash.

CTO 150

CTO CTO Hire CTO Coach Equity 150

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. Later he posted about his experience in Challenges of Startups.

Technical Review 170

Technical Review Technical Advisors CTO Coach Startup 170

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 17, 2011

I recently wrote a post about why I didn’t think early-stage startups should have COOs. To be clear, I said that most companies I see pitching have COOs & I don’t have a rule against it. I’ve had several COOs at companies in which I’ve invested. I expected it to be controversial and it was.

Startup 292

Startup CTO Hire Sales Email 292

SoCal CTO

MARCH 2, 2015

As the organizer of the LA CTO Forum , I get lots of inquiries by job seekers and people looking for CTO / VP Engineering talent. I’ve written quite a bit about aspects of this topic, especially from the perspective of startup founders looking for talent – you can find these in: Startup CTO.

CTO Hire 150

CTO Hire CTO Coach Los Angeles Angel 150

socalTECH

AUGUST 9, 2012

Cloud-based email delivery startup SendGrid , one of the companies out of the TechStars accelerator, said this week that it is accelerating hiring at the firm, including at the firm's Anaheim location.

CTO Hire 157

CTO Hire Orange County Email Software Engineering 157

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

This is part of my Startup Advice series. Before I started my first company in 1999 I worked for Andersen Consulting (now Accenture). So I’ve always had this in mind with me at startups. Ryan was the most talented technologist we had hired at BuildOnline. The lead architect was blocking new ideas.

CTO Hire 322

CTO Hire Startup Resource Examples 322

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 5, 2010

This is part of my series on what makes an entrepreneur successful. I started the series talking about what I consider the most important attribute of an entrepreneur : Tenacity. They often make great team members such as head of products, CTO, head of sales, CFO, etc. I was recently on TWiST with Jason Calacanis.

Entrepreneur 293

Entrepreneur Startup Venture Capital CTO Hire 293

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 5, 2014

Last week a company we enthusiastically backed, uBeam , led by a very special entrepreneur, 25-year-old Meredith Perry , announced a $10 million round of financing. Working at a big company is honorable and I don’t believe the narrative that all of this tech disruption is to kill off big companies.

Technical Review 417

Technical Review Startup Software Review Course 417

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 21, 2014

Startups are hard. You’ve heard that a million times. Working hard together at a big company just isn’t the same. The truth is you really don’t know how your teammates or your bosses will perform in good times and bad. You hire people who look good on paper. We tell startup stories.

CTO Hire 320

CTO Hire Startup CTO Coach Venture Capital 320

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 26, 2010

I started the series talking about what I consider the most important attribute of an entrepreneur : Tenacity. I’ll start with an obvious one – I talk with the entrepreneur about competitors. I once had a startup team pitch me for an investment where the President of the company led the first call with me on his own.

Entrepreneur 286

Entrepreneur Startup CTO Hire Competition 286

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. I didn’t have to make many serious decisions.

Entrepreneur 414

Entrepreneur Technical Review Slides CTO Coach 414

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 20, 2011

One of the readers asked my opinion around sharing your startup concept: My first question has always been - how do you protect your idea while shopping around for feedback, partners, developers, etc.? Especially if the idea could be whipped-up by a few 24-year olds in a few weeks? This is going to be fairly specific to the company.

Startup 211

Startup IP Ideas Patents 211

socalTECH

MAY 3, 2021

A new, West Covina, California-based startup, Revnue Corp., says it is taking aim at the digital contract management industry, with a new artificial intelligence tool. The company said it has just released a beta of its platform, with global availability planned in Q3.

Artificial Inteligence 113

Artificial Inteligence CTO Hire West Covina Covina 113

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 30, 2014

As I’ve written about recently, at Upfront Ventures we started talking a couple of years ago about wanting to fund stuff with more meaning. The reality is that as VCs we have limited allocations of where we can spend our time so we want to attach ourselves to projects in which we, too, can be passionate.

Technical Review 418

Technical Review Software Review CTO Hire IP 418

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 1, 2014

It’s the company that evokes fear into more startups and venture capitalists looking to fund eCommerce businesses than any other potential competitor. He told me that his girlfriend (at the time) had lost a lot of stuff and they were thinking about storage solutions and the experience was terrible. ” type questions.

Technical Review 380

Technical Review Software Review CTO Hire Startup 380

SoCal CTO

APRIL 9, 2013

What I didn''t discuss was how you should go about selecting the right company. I just got an email asking about exactly this: I''m with a new company that needs some software built, but doesn''t need (or have the resources for) a large staff of software developers. Or are you starting from scratch? Graphic design?

Web Development 204

Web Development Web Development Develop 204

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 15, 2014

Much has been written about when it is time to hire a “professional CEO” to run a startup company and of course that has long been a norm in Silicon Valley when founders find that their inexperience may be a limiting factor in company growth ( know as the Peter Principle ).

CTO Hire 309

CTO Hire Organization Course Google 309

TechCrunch LA

OCTOBER 8, 2019

Just weeks after Canoo took the wraps off of its electric vehicle , the Los Angeles-based startup and co-founder Stefan Krause has been accused of gender and marital discrimination, harassment, breach of contract, and wrongful termination in a lawsuit filed Tuesday. Stefan Krause filed for divorce from Christina Krause in July 2019.

CTO Hire 198

CTO Hire Startup Los Angeles Design 198

socalTECH

OCTOBER 10, 2013

In what is a fairly unusual move, last week, Tradesparq (www.tradesparq.com), a Chinese startup in the area of B2B trade information, said it was planning on setting up its operations here in Southern California, as part of an expansion and scaling of the company. How long has company been around?

Southern California 170

Southern California Startup SoCal CTO Hire 170

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 20, 2011

One of the readers asked my opinion around sharing your startup concept: My first question has always been - how do you protect your idea while shopping around for feedback, partners, developers, etc.? Especially if the idea could be whipped-up by a few 24-year olds in a few weeks? This is going to be fairly specific to the company.

Startup 198

Startup IP Ideas Patents 198