SoCal CTO

MARCH 3, 2011

I talk to roughly 2 or 3 new startups every week who need advice from an experienced CTO. Generally I can provide quite a bit of help in that brief time. Of course, I provide part-time CTO services. So, I wanted to use this post to make it official - we are offering free startup CTO consulting sessions.

CTO Hire 259

CTO Hire Startup Technical Review Development Team Review 259

SoCal CTO

APRIL 2, 2012

Using my StartupRoar as a radar, I came across a great post by Gabriel Weinberg Do you really need a full-time hire for that? Hiring seems to be the preferred use of seed funds (by investors and founders), whereas I'd prefer a focus on customer acquisition. The startup founder is definitely not ready to hire a CTO.

CTO Hire 205

CTO Hire Outsource Development CTO Coach Develop 205

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 19, 2011

I've posted quite a few things on the topics associated with being a Startup CTO. Here are some resources that come from other sources: Want to Know the Difference Between a CTO and a VP Engineering? Lessons Learned: What does a startup CTO actually do? Lessons Learned: What does a startup CTO actually do?

CTO Hire 175

CTO Hire CTO Coach Resource Startup 175

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 needed some kind of CTO and as well Developers.

CTO Hire 241

CTO Hire CTO Coach Equity Develop 241

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2007

I generally am working as an acting CTO for about 3-4 start-ups or other companies at any one time. I also found this interesting graphic of the changing needs around the CTO role in different size/type companies that somewhat echoes my experience. During Stabilization, often the focus is transitioning to a full-time CTO.

Startup 231

Startup CTO Hire Technical Advisors Technical Review 231

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 have been working full time with two founders for about 10 months on full time basis. Please let this be a lesson to everyone – founders and CTOs.

CTO 167

CTO CTO Hire CTO Coach Equity 167

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 have been working full time with two founders for about 10 months on full time basis. Please let this be a lesson to everyone – founders and CTOs.

CTO 150

CTO CTO Hire CTO Coach Equity 150

SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 25, 2010

This is not only sad but incredibly frustrating, because it is so easy to see how a great technology can be developed and commercialized if only - if only the CTO hadn't been impulsive and insecure and brought on a business partner too early in the game. … And it’s not just inexperienced CTOs.

CTO Hire 150

CTO Hire Startup Equity Sales 150

SoCal CTO

MARCH 4, 2010

I’ve worked with 30+ early-stage companies in all sorts of capacities (and spoken to many, many more), so I thought it might be worthwhile trying to classify the various ways that I’ve engaged in different technology roles in startups. It depends on the business, people, technologies, etc. Each situation is just a bit different.

Technical Review 170

Technical Review Technical Advisors CTO Coach Startup 170

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? Do you have dollars to pay for development?

CTO Hire 211

CTO Hire CTO Coach Startup Equity 211

socalTECH

JUNE 5, 2019

San Diego-based eSUB Construction Software --fresh off a $12M funding round --says it has hired on a new Chief Technology Officer (CTO), to help it development its platform.

CTO Hire 113

CTO Hire Chief Technology Officer Software San Diego 113

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 30, 2014

As I’ve written about recently, at Upfront Ventures we started talking a couple of years ago about wanting to fund stuff with more meaning. I think this is a combination of being realists as venture capitalists that outsized returns in our funds must come from taking on bigger, more impactful projects that can move markets.

Technical Review 418

Technical Review Software Review CTO Hire IP 418

socalTECH

AUGUST 10, 2016

Los Angeles-based subscription box service Loot Crate said today that it has hired its first CTO, John Williams. Williams was most recently at TrueCar, where LootCrate said he created the unified data platform and technology strategy behind the company. Downey Ventures, M13, and SterlingVC. Downey Ventures, M13, and SterlingVC.

CTO Hire 100

CTO Hire Lootcrate Downey Chief Technology Officer 100

socalTECH

JUNE 7, 2010

Los Angeles-based MySpace Music announced this morning that it has hired Dmitry Shapiro , who founded Veoh, as its new Chief Technology Officer. Shapiro had raised over $70M in funding for Veoh, until legal battles and the economy sunk the online video sharing site. Shapiro also served as founder of Akonix Systems. READ MORE>>.

Veoh 145

Veoh CTO Hire Beverly Hills Chief Technology Officer 145

SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 17, 2011

You may even have as much time left to get it "done" as it took to get it "mostly done" Normally, when I get this call, it's pretty far downstream (as in this situation). The funds have been used up on the existing development. And the person is trying to get it from mostly done to done with little additional cost.

Software Development 175

Software Development CTO Hire Develop Development 175

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

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

TechCrunch LA

JANUARY 26, 2022

The cuts, which amount to around one-third of Glossier’s corporate workforce, will primarily impact the company’s technology team. “[W]e W]e are shifting our technology strategy to leverage external partners for parts of our platform that we’re currently maintaining internally,” Weiss wrote in the email announcing the layoffs to staff.

CTO Hire 197

CTO Hire Layoffs Commerce Email 197

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. in Computer Science.

Incubator 150

Incubator CTO Coach Southern California CTO Hire 150

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 19, 2009

The technology team disagrees on direction and wants resolutions. 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. Your head of sales thinks she should fire somebody. He looked stunned.

Entrepreneur 414

Entrepreneur Technical Review Slides CTO Coach 414

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. in Computer Science.

CTO Coach 150

CTO Coach Southern California CTO Hire Social Media 150

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. I usually encourage people to think about titles like, “Founder & CTO&# or “Founder & VP Marketing.&#. Create hassles for post-merger integration of technology or teams.

Startup 292

Startup CTO Hire Sales Email 292

socalTECH

OCTOBER 3, 2019

more in a Series B funding round, the company said Wednesday, in a round led by Palisades Growth Capital. According to X1, the new funding will go to hire aggressively in development and sales. X1 is led by CEO Craig Carpenter and CTO Brent Botta. Pasadena-based e-discovery software developer X1 has raised $5.1M

CTO Hire 124

CTO Hire Idealab Pasadena Software Development 124

socalTECH

JANUARY 3, 2011

in funding from Charles River Ventures, First Round Capital, DFJ Frontier, and angel investors. So, we put something together, and put in some money, and literally the next day I was out to breakfast with Josh Roth, the former CTO of Rent.com and NTI Group, and Josh was also looking for something to do. Jamie, thanks.

Newsletter 216

Newsletter Startup CTO Hire Blogging 216

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

socalTECH

MARCH 8, 2013

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. It's created this perfect storm, where there's all kinds of new technology and challenges, which are slowly being fixed. On the customer side, we have companies like Samsung, GE, Kaiser Permanente, Accenture.

Incubator 208

Incubator Startup CTO Hire Ideas 208

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 5, 2014

The press around the raise & company was fantastic and the promise of their technology – wireless charging that works as easily as WiFi – would positively affect many of our lives. As you may know Google recently restructured so that Larry could spend more time on big innovations – on “moonshots.”

Technical Review 417

Technical Review Startup Software Review Course 417

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 5, 2011

It really wouldn’t take much to turn a great technology ecosystem into a truly electric one. 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. As I gear up to give a keynote at the annual Seattle 2.0

Venture Capital 317

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Press 317

socalTECH

MARCH 14, 2011

Their fees are too high to put on a $15 ticket, and you don't need to pay for the technology to handle 30,000 people simultaneously trying to get assigned seats. Because of that, we saw problems in the industry, because the technology was not there to succeed. How did you get into the technology business?

Ticketmaster 140

Ticketmaster CTO Hire Tech Coast Angels Social Media 140

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 9, 2020

You need to find the skills or experience you don’t have in business, technology, or money. Thus the real discussion must start with who will be doing the work, providing the funding, and delivering results. Level of responsibility and time allocated. Amount of venture funding provided.

Startup 174

Startup Equity Patents CTO Hire 174

socalTECH

MARCH 26, 2014

I founded that with the former CTO of my first company, Kevin Smilak, who now works at Google. We were hired by a company that did outsourced medical billing and consulting for physicial medicine and rehab doctors. As we got out to visit doctor''s offices, and saw the technology, it seemed like they were ten years behind.

Startup 160

Startup El Segundo CTO Hire Outsource Development 160

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

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. Dave Fink: Postie is a building a technology platform with a mission of making direct mail marketing behave as easily and dynamically as your favorite, programmatic channels. What is Postie?

CTO Hire 100

CTO Hire Artificial Inteligence Technical Review Marketing 100

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. That's a big part of it. Ramit Varma: There are two things.

Software Review 178

Software Review Technical Review Education Startup 178

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. I will soon announce a few fundings (not yet closed, sorry) and I’m beginning to help them think about how to ramp up their engineering teams. It came from my weekend activities.

Networking 366

Networking Startup CTO Coach Email 366

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

A technology that will surely revolutionize how viewers interact with content and television in the very near future. The implications of what types of new interactive experiences can be made utilizing this technology are phenomenal. All of this is made possible by Coincident’s ScreenSync TV technology. Cool, right?

Screening 109

Screening Content CTO Hire Platform 109