SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 30, 2013

Are you a non-technical startup founder who’s about to go have a conversation with a Chief Technical Officer (CTO) or Technical advisory type person? Maybe you are trying to determine what technologies might apply that you should be evaluating. Of course, when you go to have this conversation be prepared.

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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 was also responsible to get a top-notch technical architect to build the necessary back-end at very affordable hourly rate to be able to launch the product in a very short time.

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Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 20, 2010

Because more technology people probably read startup blogs I’m guessing this post will come under more scrutiny. The terms “CTO&# and “VP Engineering&# have such stigmas associated with what they are that I’m sure some people will feel uncomfortable with the definitions I’ve put forward. But barely.

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SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 2, 2010

Based on my posts Startup CTO or Developer and Acting CTO , Chris O’Meara wrote an interesting post Startup CTO: Could It Work? They tend to know the operations side of a software business well enough to be the one overseeing deploys, crafting the infrastructure plans, and monitoring the health of the product.

CTO Hire 150

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SoCal CTO

NOVEMBER 1, 2010

I had a recent email dialog with the founder of a company looking for a CTO for their startup. 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 ? He had a partially built product. Was it a case of needing Homework?

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SoCal CTO

MAY 21, 2013

These are often the same things that cause a founder to reach out to me about helping their CTO, VP Engineering, tech team, off-shore development, etc. Delivery of code/product that clearly has not been tested. How strong is product management? Let''s consider a brief description of what a CTO needs to be able to do.

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Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 12, 2010

I recently wrote a post about avoiding the “ Deferred Life Plan &# and some related thoughts about personal productivity that came from Tim Ferriss’s book, The Four Hour Workweek. I would love to say that I’m the productivity guru. Tim Ferriss gave this extra emphasis in his book.

Product 280

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SoCal CTO

MARCH 12, 2012

I've talked about that in lots of other posts, so you can visit some of these to help determine what you specifically need: Startup CTO or Developer Startup Software Development – Do Your Homework Before You Develop Anything Key ingredients in the equation are: How complex is the system? The good news is that likely is not what they want.

CTO Hire 211

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SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 15, 2009

Steve Gilison worked as a market researcher and product manager at a startup where my company, TechEmpower , did the software / web development. Of course, I immediately gave him the whole spiel on Visible Networking and Steve was totally game to make our networking visible. My focus has been marketing strategy and product development.

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SoCal CTO

MAY 13, 2014

You can’t afford and don’t want to hire a full-time CTO or architect. For me, if I can help you within a couple hours Free Startup CTO Consulting Sessions , I’m happy to do that and I don’t expect compensation or equity for that. Here’s the other aspect that both Tony and I preach: get help.

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SoCal CTO

NOVEMBER 10, 2009

He has a really interesting background as a product manager and now an entrepreneur. Like many product managers, my background is fairly eclectic. That's where I learned I enjoyed interacting with customers and working with development teams to build and launch products. Tell me a bit about your background. How did it help you?

Product 150

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SoCal CTO

APRIL 2, 2013

Correct your course quickly. They look at the following high level definition of Lean: and they interpret that as write up an executive summary with your ideas and hand it to developers to build. What's going to go wrong? Don't be fooled by a Common Misunderstanding in Agile Software Development.

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Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 16, 2014

In the early days the CEO is the jack-of-all-trades, doer-of-all, famously the “chief janitor” or coffee maker. Eventually you need a VP of Product to handle your product roadmap, a CTO for engineering leadership and VPs of sales, marketing & biz dev. You course correct. You set direction.

Entrepreneur 385

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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 ). and Microsoft had become.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 1, 2023

Value factors include your related product breadth and depth, relationships with thought leaders, key vendors, and large potential customers. Building the product may be the easy part of your startup challenge. The CTO of many technical startups was the original founder. Experience and connections in your business area.

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 16, 2015

” Of course I agree with this. Here is where I see this really play out: Product Management. Most CEOs fancy their own product skills and like to weigh in on priorities. Of course by the next quarter if I felt ripped off I could advocate for 7% or maybe ops requirements needed to be upped to 20% for one quarter.

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Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 5, 2014

Of course the naysayers are out again. Of course backbencher has also become a slang term for “someone who exaggerates their actual power, influence, or importance, usually for nefarious purposes.” When we ship product. I, of course, am betting on the former and am not 1% swayed by the doubters. Obviously.

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Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 9, 2020

Value factors include your related product breadth and depth, relationships with thought leaders, key vendors, and large potential customers. Building the product may be the easy part of your startup challenge. The CTO of many technical startups was the original founder. Experience and connections in your business area.

Startup 174

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socalTECH

JUNE 1, 2012

Are users willing to check into local businesses with another, mobile check-in product? Michael Wong: I was previously CTO of an agency called Breakthrough Ads. My cofounder, Steven Elliott, was CTO of a company doing artificial intelligence and automated chat technology.

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 17, 2019

I had just left Salesforce.com where I was VP, Products, after they had acquired my second startup. As I was trying to figure out the role I wanted to play in the VC world I decided I wanted to focus on businesses that were building deeply technical products to solve problems for business users.

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SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 20, 2007

skip to main | skip to sidebar SoCal CTO Tuesday, February 20, 2007 Innovation and Geography I ran across a post in Read/Write Web - Does Location Matter in Web Innovation? eHarmongy) as an acting CTO. Of course, thats probably even more true in Silicon Valley. He has twenty years’ experience as a CTO.

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2013

I’m super excited to announce that GRP Partners led the investment in Ethan Anderson’s new company MyTime (link has LA-based merchants but will give you a good feel for the product). ” So Ethan went to work as a product manager at Google Video. So I asked Ethan to build his product first and then we would fund.

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Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 30, 2014

Of course triangulation is a mathematics term that is used in sailing and other activities to help you better navigate when you don’t have your bearings. On teams I have a framework for tech teams “ CTO vs. VP Eng ” or on sales I have “ Journeymen, Mavericks & Superstars ” 5. Triangulate.

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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.

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SoCal CTO

AUGUST 4, 2011

Almost every day I'm talking to early stage startup founders (see Free Startup CTO Consulting Sessions ) about what they plan to do. Of course, it's way more complex than just these questions. Major Phases / Major Features - What are the major features in the major phases for the product? It needs to be a conversation.

Develop 396

Develop Development Startup SEO 396

SoCal CTO

AUGUST 4, 2011

Almost every day I'm talking to early stage startup founders (see Free Startup CTO Consulting Sessions ) about what they plan to do. Of course, it's way more complex than just these questions. Major Phases / Major Features - What are the major features in the major phases for the product? It needs to be a conversation.

Develop 384

Develop Development Startup SEO 384

socalTECH

AUGUST 5, 2013

Unlike those, however, one of the latest projects, ActiveReplay (www.activereplay.com) has some serious, experienced executives behind it, who have the experience in designing hardware devices--in the form of CEO Dr. Anatole Lokshin, who helped create the consumer GPS market as the CTO of Magellan Navigation. How did that happen?

Startup 166

Startup Examples Design Product 166

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 21, 2014

It also has to be said that bad apples on teams bring down productive even if that person is individually a superstar. So he went on to become the CFO of Fab through their growth years dealing with warehousing, inventory management, facilities, CAC/LTV analyses and of course fund raising. Luckily we had history together.

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SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 9, 2009

The mess really comes from a developer who was willing to get started on a product that was not fully thought out. Of course, we’ll also discuss the details of the product itself. A lot of the product discussion feeds off the answers to this conversation. Of course, that’s the really fun, interesting, challenging work.

Software Development 292

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SoCal CTO

MARCH 1, 2010

Of course, one of the best ideas around this is to have Negative Customer Acquisition Costs. My experiments in lean pricing - Venture Hacks , February 16, 2010 Ash Maurya, a lean entrepreneur who runs a bootstrapped startup called CloudFire, discusses pricing issues for first versions (Minimum Viable Product – MVP). Great stuff.

Pricing 150

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 10, 2018

Value factors include your related product breadth and depth, relationships with thought leaders, key vendors, and large potential customers. Building the product may be the easy part of your startup challenge. The CTO of many technical startups was the original founder. Experience and connections in your business area.

Equity 95

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SoCal CTO

MARCH 16, 2010

When we interview potential developers, it’s amazing to me how many can’t answer questions that every student in a sophomore level computer science course should be able to answer. Delivery of code/product that clearly has not been tested. Also, there are a lot of C players out there. I used to teach this same stuff. Massive overtime.

Develop 179

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Tech Zulu Event

JANUARY 20, 2013

Chris Johnson and his partner Tarek Pertew were once startup guys who founded a software company in New York, but within one year they lost their CTO three times. A full day of exploring career opportunities, discovering new products and interacting with the most influential folks in the L.A technology sector. What makes it fun?

Startup 76

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socalTECH

MARCH 12, 2013

We caught on with the right product, at the right time. The Internet doesn't work right, and is broken, and without a CDN, you can't do what you need to do if you're the CTO of a large website. You have to be able to be disruptive to existing products and services. It's a mission critical IT service that website owners need.

CTO Hire 248

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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. He went out and found a developer and built a product. They move the ball forward every day.

Entrepreneur 414

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Tech Zulu Event

JULY 18, 2012

According to Hill Ferguson, VP Global Product PayPal, card.io will integrate its credit card information capturing technology to PayPal’s mobile wallet. Off course it could cost PayPal more if it were to pay gratuity or just letting them go with all their drive and innovation. technology to develop their own applications.

Mobile 40

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SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 14, 2009

Cliff Allen is someone I've known for quite a few years and he's a go to person for me when I'm thinking about issues around marketing, sales, technology, startups and networking. A few years ago, my CTO spotted a need that local groups and organizations have in handling RSVPs and registrations for meetings and events. Hey, radio.

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