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I’ve been having discussions with several people recently about the role of the CTO (Chief Technology Officer) in very early stage companies. In December 2007, I described how I commonly take on an Acting CTO Role in a Start-up. I used an image from Roger Smith that describes the varying roles of a CTO as the company matures.
It’s true the some VCs have started writing so many checks that they resemble stock pickers but the majority of us still have less than 10 board seats at any time and tend to go pretty deep so the result is that we care deeply about where we commit our time. Meredith came to see me along with the CTO Marc Berte.
” Bill Gross, who is one of the Godfathers of the Internet, once told me, “ If you don’t design a product that is 10x better than the competition then you’ll never build anything truly big or amazing.” After 9 months it was time to raise seed capital and go test drive our new software and processes.
The reason is that good attributes apply equally well to “external” partners, as they do to internal partners, like a co-founder or CTO. A good overall example is the synergy between Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, as well as long-time Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt. Brings complementary skills and experience.
The company provides SAT, ACT, and other similar test preparation courses and related software. We took the recent round, because Jake and I feel very passionately about our social missions, and, about four years ago, we started developing the software to create software. They can go online, and answer questions.
He listed all of the product releases that were up coming, the customers that were in the pipeline and where he saw his competition moving. Your highest priority right now is hiring the 1 or 2 people that are going to join your company and make a difference. There’s you and your killer CTO co-founder.
We''ll mostly be doing enterprise sales here, but also looking at the technology and design front, hiring better talent, taking design to a new level than maybe what we are in China. It''s also a dog-eat-dog world over there with the competition. Our CTO is mainland Chinese, but was educated here. Getting the talent is an issue.
You’ll learn about competitive products that exist or are being built. Startups that come to me and ask me to sign an NDA in order to get Free Startup CTO Consulting really are missing it. The Top Five Reasons Entrepreneurs Should Learn About IP Law What Can a Well Drafted Contract Do For Your Company?
The reason is that good attributes apply equally well to “external” partners, as they do to internal partners, like a co-founder or CTO. If both of you are experts at software development, even though one loves design and the other loves coding, that still won’t get the marketing done. Passion for what they do. No historical baggage.
You’ll learn about competitive products that exist or are being built. Startups that come to me and ask me to sign an NDA in order to get Free Startup CTO Consulting really are missing it. The Top Five Reasons Entrepreneurs Should Learn About IP Law What Can a Well Drafted Contract Do For Your Company?
The reason is that good attributes apply equally well to “external” partners, as they do to internal partners, like a co-founder or CTO. If both of you are experts at software development, even though one loves design and the other loves coding, that still won’t get the marketing done. Passion for what they do. No historical baggage.
At CallWave, Colin was CTO, Jason was CFO and I was in charge of product marketing and customer acquisition. Who do you view as your biggest competition? Agile development is much more customer driven and focused on getting useful software in the hands of consumers quickly and iterating on that with them to make it better.
It's somewhat unusual in this economy to find companies who are seeing strong growth, so we were intrigued recently in running into BlackLine Systems (www.blackline.com), a firm which develops software for helping in the financial reporting process. First, for our readers who aren't familiar with your software, can you explain what it does?
The reason is that good attributes apply equally well to “external” partners, as they do to internal partners, like a co-founder or CTO. If both of you are experts at software development, even though one loves design and the other loves coding, that still won’t get the marketing done. Passion for what they do. No historical baggage.
We''re looking for lighting bolts in time which are important. Whether that''s for competitive analysis or market analysis, our product is basically able to monitor--on a very large scale--things that are important to your particular company. I was hired to head up strategy, marketing development, and product management.
The reason is that good attributes apply equally well to “external” partners, as they do to internal partners, like a co-founder or CTO. If both of you are experts at software development, even though one loves design and the other loves coding, that still won’t get the marketing done. Passion for what they do. No historical baggage.
The reason is that good attributes apply equally well to “external” partners, as they do to internal partners, like a co-founder or CTO. A good overall example is the synergy between Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, as well as long-time Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt. Brings complementary skills and experience.
We are a minimally invasive install, we don't interfere with any existing products, are interoperable with a whole bunch of systems, and because we're web based you can tie into anyone else's system out there, wither it's an electronic medical records, order entry, preventative maintenance, or other software. We have an almost no-risk model.
The reason is that good attributes apply equally well to “external” partners, as they do to internal partners, like a co-founder or CTO. If both of you are experts at software development, even though one loves design and the other loves coding, that still won’t get the marketing done. Brings complementary skills and experience.
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. Who will do that?
StrongMail Systems (Digital Messsaging Infrastructure Software) Status: VC-backed (Sequoia Capital, Globespan and Evercore) Lesson: Trust your gut. Wireless & Voice Application Software) Exit: technology acquired Lesson: Timing is critical. First-time Sequoia CEO Insecurity 10. As CTO, it was my job to solve this problem.
August was a slow month in terms of traffic and I was away for a lot of the month, but there were some really great posts at the intersection of startups, technology, product and being a Startup CTO. He blogs to 10,000 web entrepreneurs at Software by Rob and co-hosts the podcast Startups for the Rest of Us. m the f%*kin’ boss.”.
aka: An Open Letter to the Next Big Social Network) - 500 Hats , November 1, 2010 I've held off writing this post for a long time, because I couldn't quite get my head around all the issues. Five Reasons You Haven’t Launched - Software By Rob , November 10, 2010 Photo by stevendepolo. It may be that all the doomsayers are right.
He then hired a personal assistant who would read his emails for him, and then sort them by projects, and hand them to him presorted. That saved him hours of time every week, and so our inspiration was to replicate that experience without needing to hire an expensive assistant. What are your backgrounds? What inspired you?
In the era of Skype, web conferencing tools and collaboration software conventional wisdom says that distributed startup teams can be just as effective as those that are in person. The conversations bleed into the sales messages the next time, they wend their way into software designs and form the plan of attach against competition.
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