Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 5, 2014

Who in the auto industry believed Tesla, a totally electric car, was a good idea? Of course the naysayers are out again. Of course the naysayers are out again. of Elon’s ideas to come to fruition and let him fail on the rest. Who amongst us originally thought “driverless cars” was a great idea?

Technical Review 417

Technical Review Startup Software Review Course 417

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 5, 2010

They often make great team members such as head of products, CTO, head of sales, CFO, etc. But to me if you’re not willing to quit and take a risk on yourself, then you’re not confident enough in your own idea and skills. He had built and sold his first company and had good ideas for his second company. Why should I be?

Entrepreneur 293

Entrepreneur Startup Venture Capital CTO Hire 293

socalTECH

MARCH 8, 2013

What's the idea behind the incubator? I enjoyed my time there, and it was part of the deal, but it wasn't a long term career for me. So, I set out a little bit in an ad-hoc way starting companies as ideas came to me. We are the founders of these companies, and the ideas come from our own team. It's been great.

Incubator 208

Incubator Startup CTO Hire Ideas 208

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 10, 2018

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. Your idea is not intellectual property yet, so it has no inherent value. Level of responsibility and time allocated. Now comes the reality check.

Equity 95

Equity Patents CTO Hire Startup 95

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2013

He had an idea for a startup that would help consumers better book service jobs and would take on Service Magic, which he believed had a business model that could be disrupted. Because I knew that Ethan was on to a powerful idea and one in which he had developed huge competence and domain knowledge in. He was seeking $500k.

CTO Coach 359

CTO Coach Google CTO Hire Yammer 359

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 19, 2009

Good entrepreneurs can admit when their course of action was wrong and learn from it. You’re sales person is getting blocked by the CTO who says she shouldn’t go above him but the CTO isn’t approving the deal. So we discussed his ideas several times. They move the ball forward every day.

Entrepreneur 414

Entrepreneur Technical Review Slides CTO Coach 414

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 4, 2014

Just because it was your idea doesn’t mean you “deserve” 90 percent of the equity. The value in a startup is all about tangible results, so there is no equity value in the idea alone. Your idea is not intellectual property yet, so it has no inherent value. Level of responsibility and time allocated.

Equity 104

Equity Patents Startup CTO Hire 104

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 22, 2012

I think I’ve read Paul Graham’s post on “ Startup = Growth ” three or four times now. And of course on Twitter I’ve seen the Tweets, ReTweets and superlatives on what a great post it is. The constraint between good ideas and growth operates in both directions. Growth, again.

Startup 390

Startup Venture Capital Entrepreneur Technical Review 390

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. Your idea is not intellectual property yet, so it has no inherent value. Level of responsibility and time allocated. Now comes the reality check.

Equity 62

Equity Startup Patents CTO Hire 62

SoCal CTO

JULY 23, 2012

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?

CTO Coach 231

CTO Coach CTO Hire Outsource Development Develop 231

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 23, 2014

I spent an hour on the phone working with Sam Rosen, the CEO of MakeSpace on a senior exec he is considering hiring. And I spoke with the CTO of another great company I used to be on the board of and enlisted his support in potentially being an advisor to one company. Of course I could go on and on. Roger Ehrenberg. Fred Wilson.

Networking 366

Networking Startup CTO Coach Email 366

InfoChachkie

FEBRUARY 17, 2011

Messenger : Thorsten von Eicken , RightScale’s Co-Founder and CTO, Chief Architect at Citrix Online (formerly Expertcity) and Professor of Computer Science at Cornell University and UC Santa Barbara. I taught a somewhat crazy course about writing and deploying a scalable website in Ruby on Rails and deploying it in EC2.

Cloud Computing 188

Cloud Computing Santa Barbara EC2 Startup 188

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. Traction means forward progress.

Funding 112

Funding Entrepreneur Startup CTO Hire 112

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. Traction means forward progress.

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. Traction means forward progress.

Startup 101

Startup CTO Hire Press Customer 101

Tech Zulu Event

AUGUST 31, 2011

We also had awesome group of mentors that included: David Waxman (Co-founder of PeoplePC, Spot Runner and Firefly Network), Paige Craig (CEO of BetterWorks ), Josh MacAdam (Co-founder/CTO at Ming.ly We had over 30 pitches and classic SUW team voting that followed, resulting in the final 12 most popular ideas. is also hiring.

Los Angeles 73

Los Angeles Startup Angel Tech Coast Angels 73

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. Traction means forward progress.

Tips 88

Tips Startup CTO Hire Press 88

SoCal CTO

APRIL 28, 2014

It’s generally a good idea to go through each of these line items to try to better understand what’s involved, especially for the ones that are bigger or that don’t seem to line up with your understanding of complexity. I.e., they need a developer more than they need a CTO. Maybe even something like small, medium, large, Xlarge.

Develop 280

Develop Development CTO Coach CTO Hire 280

Tech Zulu Event

JUNE 16, 2014

We thought we had a great idea and we wanted to see how people responded to it. I’ve spent time building a team and now we have absolutely a great cast of people. How did you identify what you needed, and how did you come to hire the right people? We know that Miigle is a platform for entrepreneurs to share ideas.

SoCal 104

SoCal Southern California Startup Platform 104

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

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. And I tried to evaluate the idea and figure out: What did the founder really need here? Your First Iteration of an Idea Will Be Wrong.

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Startup Product Technology 175

Frank Addante

JUNE 4, 2006

I setup a nice little home office for myself and started dabbling with a few ideas. I started an incubator/holdings company called Addante and Associates to be the umbrella company for my ideas and consulting projects. I started dabbling with a few ideas around online advertising, search engines and other random projects.

Startup 40

Startup Venture Capital Email CTO Hire 40

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 28, 2011

So yes, I want to hire somebody with really high IQ and EQ but not somebody who is more knowledgeable at your specific skill set than you are. Nah, of course not. or; “I don’t have enough money to hire my team yet. Founder: “That they love my idea but they just need to see us get a little bit more traction.

CTO Hire 363

CTO Hire Technical Review Startup Demand 363

SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 5, 2010

Great content again in September that meets at the intersection of startups, technology, product and being a Startup CTO. 8220; His three things (worth reading his whole post anyway) are set vision/strategy and communicate broadly, recruit/hire/retain top talent, and make sure there’s enough cash in the bank. It’s great advice.

Startup 191

Startup Product Technology Venture Capital 191

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 5, 2011

Of course I have. 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. The business leaders need to do their parts. And of course you need a mature venture capital industry. That’s one model.

Venture Capital 317

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Press 317

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