Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 1, 2023

Thus the real discussion must start with who will be doing the work, providing the funding, and delivering results. 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.

Equity 99

Equity Patents CTO Hire Startup 99

socalTECH

AUGUST 8, 2018

We spoke with Dave Fink , CEO and co-founder of Posite, and Jonathan Neddenriep , co-founder and CTO of the company, to learn more. We've taken all of the logistics and headache out of defining a campaign for our customers. Dave Fink: I was one of the original partners at Sciences, and Jonathan was CTO of the e-commerce staff.

CTO Hire 100

CTO Hire Artificial Inteligence Technical Review Marketing 100

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 ). So the next chapter of DataSift is underway.

CTO Hire 309

CTO Hire Organization Google Course 309

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 21, 2014

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. So one of the surest signs you’ve hired a leader is the willingness of his or her former team to re-assemble. After 6 months – you know. You REALLY know.

CTO Hire 320

CTO Hire Startup CTO Coach Venture Capital 320

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 9, 2020

Thus the real discussion must start with who will be doing the work, providing the funding, and delivering results. 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.

Startup 174

Startup Equity Patents CTO Hire 174

socalTECH

MARCH 8, 2013

On the customer side, we have companies like Samsung, GE, Kaiser Permanente, Accenture. We now have seven companies, and have our own venture fund as well, and we'll be doing four or five for the next few years. Let's say we saw an idea coming from a major partner, a customer like Samsung or someone like that. It's been great.

Incubator 208

Incubator Startup CTO Hire Ideas 208

socalTECH

MARCH 12, 2013

The company--which is in the business of operating a content delivery network (CDN) to accelerate the delivery of web graphics, multimedia, applications, and more to end users-- recently disclosed it more than doubled its revenues in 2012, and has grown to over 230 employees--all due to a huge amount of demand for CDN services by its customers.

CTO Hire 248

CTO Hire Content Networking Web 248

socalTECH

APRIL 24, 2019

Anyone who hires anyone, or has ever looked for a jobs knows how important a resume is. The team is myself and my co-founder, Alex Mostafi, our CTO, and we also have a sales director and director of engineering up north in San Francisco. So what's the status of the company, and what kind of funding have you received?

Sites 240

Sites Startup Tool CTO Hire 240

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2013

Because I am true to the hiring practices I preach, I wanted a strong exec who would “ punch above their weightclass ” by taking a job they hadn’t yet done but would hugely aspire to and thus work harder to out perform. So I asked Ethan to build his product first and then we would fund. He was seeking $500k.

CTO Coach 359

CTO Coach Google CTO Hire Yammer 359

SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 17, 2007

skip to main | skip to sidebar SoCal CTO Saturday, February 17, 2007 A Different Kind of Incubator - The Hive I recently met with The Hive a new incubator in Orange County. What I really liked in my conversations with The Hive is that they are willing to work with and fund ventures that would never get VC dollars.

Incubator 150

Incubator CTO Coach Southern California CTO Hire 150

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. If your idea is so amazing that it warrants my hard-earned angel money or the money of my LP investors from our fund then why should I take a risk on you if you won’t take a risk on yourself? Why should I be? That’s hard core. It was May.

Entrepreneur 293

Entrepreneur Startup Venture Capital CTO Hire 293

socalTECH

JANUARY 2, 2014

You fill out the short questionnaire, lawyers submit their price quotes, and they get hired. It occurred to us that a startup company with limited funding is not going to pay $5000 upfront, and that we would have loved to know the prices up front and not have to go through the same eight conversations eight times.

Help 240

Help Startup CTO Hire Pricing 240

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? that talked about a recent NY Times article When It Comes to Innovation, Geography Is Destiny. eHarmongy) as an acting CTO.

CTO Coach 150

CTO Coach Southern California CTO Hire Social Media 150

socalTECH

MARCH 14, 2011

For this morning's interview, we spoke with Scot Richardson , CEO of Los Angeles-based LaughStub (www.laughstub.com), which develops software which helps comedy clubs and others manage ticket sales, online marketing, and customer relationship management. Scot Richardson: Yes, they've hired us, and we hope it's a good sign.

Ticketmaster 140

Ticketmaster CTO Hire Tech Coast Angels Social Media 140

socalTECH

JUNE 30, 2016

He's now hard at work at a new company, Kaleo, which is tackling the enterprise, knowledge sharing market�and already has an impressive list of Fortune 500 customers. Phil Hui-Bon-Hoa: We have 35 customers, all of whome are very large, blue chip customers. We raised our seed money in 2013, and we stayed local.

El Segundo 169

El Segundo Southern California Startup CTO Hire 169

socalTECH

MARCH 26, 2014

We use a recurring revenue model, where a customer pays us a few hundred dollars on average. I founded that with the former CTO of my first company, Kevin Smilak, who now works at Google. We were small, and had about ten engineers, providing customer solutions for businesses in Southern California. doctors in small offices.

Startup 160

Startup El Segundo CTO Hire Outsource Development 160

SoCal Delicious

FEBRUARY 24, 2010

Main February 23, 2010 Advice for CTO Founders: Dont Let Business Kill the Business Founding a technology company is an amazing thing. Too often, however, I have found CTO / Founders paired with business people who not only don't add value, but frequently detract from the value of the business.

CTO Coach 28

CTO Coach CTO Hire Outsource Development Mentor 28

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 16, 2015

So he would allocate say – 20% to sales, 15% to marketing, 20% to eng priorities, 10% to customer support, 10% to ops, 20% to ‘platinum customers’ and maybe 5% directly to me as the CEO. So I would get ANYTHING I wanted within the confines of my budget. ” Those were the rules.

Startup 150

Startup Sales CTO Coach Course 150

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 10, 2018

Thus the real discussion must start with who will be doing the work, providing the funding, and delivering results. 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.

Equity 95

Equity Patents CTO Hire Startup 95

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2013

By spending more time educating your board on your business you get more valuable advice from them. Understanding where your VC partner sits in their respective fund and where their fund is in the cycle of its investment lifecycle will help you understand your VCs behavior. In his spare time he raised nearly $30 million.

Tips 365

Tips Email Venture Capital CTO Coach 365

socalTECH

JULY 22, 2016

When we talk to customers, we hear about these pain points. It started with the four hour drive home and my imagination, and then I spent five days at home drawing and planning it out, and finally rallied a small group of friends to co-found the company with me, and we raised friends and family funding. That's how we got our start.

Technical Review 100

Technical Review Startup Software Review CTO Hire 100

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 31, 2012

Every investor expects to see some business traction, both before and after a funding event. If you have neither, and choose to approach an investor, you will get no attention, and probably never again get a shot at funding with that investor. Now investors will pay attention, since scale-up funding is less risky and has a time frame.

Startup 104

Startup CTO Hire Press Customer 104

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 20, 2011

I might also be concerned about taking my idea directly to a large, well funded competitor who is know for innovation. Beyond that, I want lots of conversations with experts, users, customers, VCs, partners, etc. Startups that come to me and ask me to sign an NDA in order to get Free Startup CTO Consulting really are missing it.

Startup 211

Startup IP Ideas Patents 211

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 20, 2011

I might also be concerned about taking my idea directly to a large, well funded competitor who is know for innovation. Beyond that, I want lots of conversations with experts, users, customers, VCs, partners, etc. Startups that come to me and ask me to sign an NDA in order to get Free Startup CTO Consulting really are missing it.

Startup 198

Startup IP Ideas Patents 198

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 17, 2011

Every investor expects to see some business traction, both before and after a funding event. If you have neither, and choose to approach an investor, you will get no attention, and probably never again get a shot at funding with that investor. Now investors will pay attention, since scale-up funding is less risky and has a time frame.

Startup 101

Startup CTO Hire Press Customer 101

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 19, 2009

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. But “he didn’t have the budget to hire a developer until he had raised money!&#. Should she take a chance and potentially ruffle feathers? He looked stunned.

Entrepreneur 414

Entrepreneur Technical Review Slides CTO Coach 414

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 4, 2014

Thus the real discussion must start with who will be doing the work, providing the funding and delivering results. 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.

Equity 104

Equity Patents Startup CTO Hire 104

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 22, 2012

LPs (the people who invest in VC funds) want to know what “hot” deals you’re in. There are times where your solution should work but it just doesn’t. It might be for technical reasons or it might be for customer adoption reasons. Ryan Lissack is the CTO of Maker Studios. I built two companies.

Startup 390

Startup Venture Capital Entrepreneur Technical Review 390

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 22, 2010

Every investor expects to see some traction, both before and after a funding event. If you have neither, and choose to approach an investor, you will get no attention, and probably never again get a shot at funding with that investor. It will be wrong, so count on iterating, but you learn something each time, and that is traction.

Tips 88

Tips Startup CTO Hire Press 88

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 24, 2016

Thus the real discussion must start with who will be doing the work, providing the funding, and delivering results. 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.

Equity 62

Equity Startup Patents CTO Hire 62

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 26, 2010

You can always tell during this discussion whether the entrepreneur has logged into their products, talked to their customers, read all the news stories and gotten all of the back channel info on the competition. Bad VCs funded this madness in the first place and weren’t close enough to the company to see what was going on.

Entrepreneur 286

Entrepreneur Startup CTO Hire Sales 286

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. From day one we focused on customers. Since then we’ve iterated on trying to provide our customers what they wanted next.

Cloud Computing 188

Cloud Computing Santa Barbara EC2 Startup 188

InfoChachkie

JULY 14, 2011

Messenger : Rob Duva , Co-Founder, COO RingRevenue, prior Director of Customer Acquisition, CallWave. At CallWave, Colin was CTO, Jason was CFO and I was in charge of product marketing and customer acquisition. Why aren’t there a half-dozen well-funded startups running up your tailpipe? You’re right. It won’t be easy.”.

Marketing 209

Marketing Advertising Paid Search Startup 209

socalTECH

OCTOBER 4, 2010

Last week, Santa Monica-based Revolution Prep announced its first, institutional round of funding, worth $15M, from Kennet Partners. It was us, funding ourselves from credit cards, literally, to a company that is now on par with Kaplan and Princeton Review. How did you manage the growth you have, without outside funding?

Software Review 178

Software Review Technical Review Education Startup 178

socalTECH

DECEMBER 8, 2009

Aaron Crayford: Before Rippol, I was the CEO and CTO of Vusion, a company that provided HD video streaming. Finally, how is the firm funded? We've been running for eleven months now, with me and another eight people working full time, and about ten people part time. Aaron Crayford: We're completely bootstrapped.

UCSD 145

UCSD Social Network Content Sites 145

Tech Zulu Event

OCTOBER 3, 2012

Kaiser joined forces with Bruce Schwartz (Founder and CTO) to write an entirely new code language they called Interactive Television Markup Language (ITVML). is shopping around for Series A funding and they are making the rounds at conferences and panels on the future of television discussing their remarkable new technology.

Screening 109

Screening Content CTO Hire Platform 109

socalTECH

NOVEMBER 25, 2008

The firm is announcing a substantial Series D funding round today, so we spoke with the firm's CEO, Jason Howe, to get the details on the company and what it's doing. Congrats on funding. Jason Howe: What we do at Awarepoint is, at the 10,000 foot level, is RTLS - Real Time Location Services. Explain what your products do?

Startup 113

Startup CTO Hire Resource Venture Capital 113