Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 5, 2014

Who in the auto industry believed Tesla, a totally electric car, was a good idea? of Elon’s ideas to come to fruition and let him fail on the rest. If there is something holding these big ideas back, it is not a shortage of money or even the barrier of insurmountable technical hurdles. We hired outside experts.

Technical Review 417

Technical Review Startup Software Review Course 417

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. Building the product may be the easy part of your startup challenge. Key to required patents or trade secrets. Now comes the reality check.

Equity 62

Equity Startup Patents CTO Hire 62

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 28, 2014

The most common ones I see and salute are CEO, CFO, and CTO. Or he may be the founder’s brother, idea person, or inventor, who can’t be bothered actually working on the nuts and bolts of the real business. If your business is managing contracts and patents, it makes sense, but the CLO for most startups is LegalZoom on the Internet.

CTO Hire 100

CTO Hire Funding Cloud Computing CIO 100

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 22, 2013

The most common ones I see and salute are CEO, CFO, and CTO. Or he may be the founder’s brother, idea person, or inventor, who can’t be bothered actually working on the nuts and bolts of the real business. If your business is managing contracts and patents, it makes sense, but the CLO for most startups is LegalZoom on the Internet.

Startup 97

Startup Invest CTO Hire Cloud Computing 97

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 1, 2010

The most common ones I see and salute are CEO, CFO, and CTO. Or he may be the founder’s brother, idea person, or inventor, who can’t be bothered actually working on the nuts and bolts of the real business. If your business is managing contracts and patents, it makes sense, but the CLO for most startups is LegalZoom on the Internet.

Startup 90

Startup CTO Hire Cloud Computing CIO 90

socalTECH

MARCH 31, 2014

I was hired to head up strategy, marketing development, and product management. That''s really where the genesis of this comes from, and we have patents around the idea of continually analyzing both structure and semistructured data from a wide variety of sources, simultaneously. That''s the unique nature of this technology.

Orange County 245

Orange County Startup News IBM 245

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

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

MARCH 4, 2010

Background This post partly really came about as a result of a great conversation yesterday with David Croslin a former CTO at HP who recently conducted an interesting experiment. This is actually fairly common and I think it’s a bit challenging in that the technology roles (from technology advisor to CTO) in a startup vary widely.

Technical Review 170

Technical Review Technical Advisors CTO Coach Startup 170

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

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