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 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. ” Who cut you in on their bonus because even though you’re “just an sales engineer” they know you really deserved more credit for this deal.

CTO Hire 320

CTO Hire Startup CTO Coach Venture Capital 320

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 17, 2011

But you’re not a great candidate to be funded by VCs then. One great solution I see is to hire an outstanding CFO who runs both. Still, I’ll bet that functionally you divide areas of competence like sales & marketing, product, engineering, biz dev, etc. I find them strange. But they aren’t the COO.

Startup 292

Startup CTO Hire Sales Email 292

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 16, 2015

At times I wanted the engineering team to produce features to support our sales efforts to I occasionally leaned on them a bit. 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.

Startup 150

Startup Sales CTO Coach Course 150

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 5, 2010

Being tenacious without the mental flexibility to pivot based on market feedback is a disaster. They often make great team members such as head of products, CTO, head of sales, CFO, etc. Partners in VC funds only wanted to fund entrepreneurs who had a certain percentage of their net worth tied up in their venture.

Entrepreneur 293

Entrepreneur Startup Venture Capital CTO Hire 293

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 26, 2010

One other big tell for me is the CEO’s grasp of the sales pipeline. I can’t tell you how many CEO’s I’ve met with who can’t walk me through the details of their sales pipeline. I want the names of the key buyers, the last time you met them, who the competition is and what are the criteria for a decision.

Entrepreneur 286

Entrepreneur Startup CTO Hire Sales 286

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. That can be a subject matter expert, product head, a sales head, any category in the enterprise, and they can use our lightweight platform for answers.

El Segundo 169

El Segundo Southern California Startup CTO Hire 169

socalTECH

OCTOBER 10, 2013

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. Michael Kleist: We''re seed funded, and have already raised money from twelve investors. Our CTO is mainland Chinese, but was educated here.

Southern California 170

Southern California Startup SoCal CTO Hire 170

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 17, 2017

Ryan Blair: The theme around the fund is pretty simple. So, how is it you ended up going from a technology infrastructure entrepreneur at SkyPipeline, to the consumer market with Visalus? I had a sales force when I was at SkyPipeline, selling telecom, networking, and broadband wireless products. So where is the fund now?

Venture Capital 100

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Technical Review Software Review 100

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 22, 2012

Growth will slow, partly due to internal limits and partly because the company is starting to bump up against the limits of the markets it serves.” ” There’s an allowance for a period of time where there’s “slow or no growth” while you’re figuring things out. I talked about some of that here.

Startup 390

Startup Venture Capital Entrepreneur Technical Review 390

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 22, 2010

Due to competitive markets we ended up with a pretty good term sheet until we needed to raise money in April 2001 and then we got completely screwed. Brad Feld hadn’t written his seminal “ term sheet series &# and The Funded hadn’t yet been created. You’ll need to hire and retain talen to grow your company.

Venture Capital 405

Venture Capital Pricing Startup Funding 405

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

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 20, 2011

You’ll refine your sales and investor pitch. I might also be concerned about taking my idea directly to a large, well funded competitor who is know for innovation. Startups that come to me and ask me to sign an NDA in order to get Free Startup CTO Consulting really are missing it. " Ummm. "Good luck with that."

Startup 211

Startup IP Ideas Patents 211

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 20, 2011

You’ll refine your sales and investor pitch. I might also be concerned about taking my idea directly to a large, well funded competitor who is know for innovation. Startups that come to me and ask me to sign an NDA in order to get Free Startup CTO Consulting really are missing it. " Ummm. "Good luck with that."

Startup 198

Startup IP Ideas Patents 198

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

Tech Zulu Event

AUGUST 31, 2011

When tickets went on sale over a month ago, we expected the regular ticket sales cycle, however we were more than surprised when Startup Weekend LA sold out in 6 hours! That’s right… just about the same amount of time it takes to sell out a Radiohead show at the Forum. is also hiring.

Los Angeles 73

Los Angeles Startup Angel Tech Coast Angels 73

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 28, 2011

Some investors are team focused, others market focused, others seems to look for product / market fit. Only then can I even care about product, market or their nebulous “fit.&#. It’s my belief that through exceptional leadership you attract great teams that do more than the sum of the parts.

CTO Hire 363

CTO Hire Technical Review Startup Demand 363

Frank Addante

JUNE 4, 2006

Wireless & Voice Application Software) Exit: technology acquired Lesson: Timing is critical. Web Development & Marketing Technology) Exit: evolved into L90 (next company) Lesson: What you dont know cant stop you. Go-to-Market 5. Venture Capital Funding 7. First-time Sequoia CEO Insecurity 10. Startup 3.0:

Startup 40

Startup Venture Capital Email CTO Hire 40

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 8, 2010

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. They are: Fred Wilson: Lead Investors, Dipshit Companies, and Funding Every Entrepreneur. m the f%*kin’ boss.”. twenty in your wallet?

Startup 191

Startup Venture Capital Blogging CTO Hire 191

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 23, 2012

Running a new business starts with building a solid and credible business plan, working the investor funding process, and building an organization from nothing, with minimal resources. Expertise can be marketing, technical, financial, or sales. 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

Running a new business starts with building a solid and credible business plan, working the investor funding process, and building an organization from nothing, with minimal resources. Expertise can be marketing, technical, financial, or sales. Sacrifice and time commitment. Who will be the CEO, CFO, and CTO?

Equity 91

Equity Startup CTO Hire CTO Coach 91

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 5, 2010

The CEO weighs in with his perspectives, the head of product management disputes his conclusions and the marketing VP has a different take. We spend hours of seemingly “wasted&# time just in these informal chats simply shooting the shit. CEO, VP Products and CTO must all be in the physical location.

Technical Advisors 335

Technical Advisors Outsource Development Offshore Startup 335