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?

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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

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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 needed some kind of CTO and as well Developers.

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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.

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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 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.

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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.

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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 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.

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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. Lack of confidence? Camaraderie?

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SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 27, 2011

For your first key hires, three, five, maybe as much as ten, you will probably not be able to use any kind of formula. For example, suppose you're just two founders and you want to hire an additional hacker who's so good you feel he'll increase the average outcome of the whole company by 20%. n = (1.2 - 1)/1.2 =.167. and we have 11.1%

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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.

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CTO Hire Chief Technology Officer Software San Diego 113

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.

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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.

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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? Do you have dollars to pay for development?

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socalTECH

FEBRUARY 2, 2018

Los Angeles-based online car rental service HyreCar has just raised $1.465M in debt funding, as part of an ongoing $2.3M funding round, according to a regulatory filing from the firm on Thursday. Details on the funding--which appears to be a convertible note or bridge round, with warrants--have not yet been announced.

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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. However, I’m always doing this part-time.

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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.

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SoCal CTO

JUNE 26, 2012

I've done four Free CTO Consulting Sessions in the past month with startup founders who all had run into variations of the same problem. And we are not even moving yet on the the next big release that I have to have to get my next round of funding. My belief is that you shouldn't sign that contract.

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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.

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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.

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

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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 ). Onward & upward DataSift. Startup Lessons'

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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.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 1, 2014

It’s the company that evokes fear into more startups and venture capitalists looking to fund eCommerce businesses than any other potential competitor. Every pitch I’ve ever seen has led to the, “Would Amazon eventually do this? And could we then compete?” ” type questions.

Technical Review 380

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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

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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.

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Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 23, 2017

Fund raising is hard for everybody. Very, very few founders have an easy time despite what you read in the press. I’ve seen many founders lose confidence in the earliest parts of the process rather than accept that it’s a numbers game where you’re just not a fit for everybody. It sounds like a lot of work, I know!

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 17, 2011

But you’re not a great candidate to be funded by VCs then. I think people understand this title to mean more somebody who handles operational issues rather than somebody who is more like a “chief of staff&# as a COO often is. One great solution I see is to hire an outstanding CFO who runs both. I find them strange.

Startup 292

Startup CTO Hire Sales Email 292

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 22, 2010

Brad Feld hadn’t written his seminal “ term sheet series &# and The Funded hadn’t yet been created. NOTE: In the video I talked about how VC’s and entrepreneurs decide the total number of shares at the first major funding round and why it’s often a high number. Back then VentureHacks didn’t exist.

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Venture Capital Pricing Startup Funding 405

TechEmpower

JULY 24, 2023

Still, if you’re a business leader and your developers haven’t asked you these questions, look for a Fractional CTO to help navigate the critical early stage of development. How are you funding this? What level of funding do you currently have? The innovator/developer relationship needs to be a conversation.

Develop 520

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TechCrunch LA

JANUARY 26, 2022

The email recounts some of the company’s recent mistakes, including prioritizing strategic projects that “distracted” the company from its core beauty business and that executives “got ahead of ourselves on hiring.”. The tech team layoffs are notable for a beauty retailer that has often described itself as a technology company.

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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

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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.

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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. READ MORE>>.

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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.

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Help Startup CTO Hire Pricing 240

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 26, 2010

Bad VCs funded this madness in the first place and weren’t close enough to the company to see what was going on. When the CEO of an early-stage startup tells me that they plan to hire a COO I’m usually not interested in the next meeting. 12 months later the president and the CEO had moved on. But that’s a digression.

Entrepreneur 286

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socalTECH

MARCH 12, 2013

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. James Segil: There's a couple of things to consider with growth, around what does it take to fund a company's growth. We're in the domain of hiring relatively technical people, gearheads.

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SoCal Tech Calendar

JUNE 13, 2016

in funding. The company said the expansion comes due to the hiring of a new CEO, SoCal startup vet Jay Goss, to lead the company. Exactly's founders are Simantini Chakraborty (Amazon, Microsoft, and Sears Online via BearingPoint) and David Warthen (co-founder and CTO of AskJeeves.com).

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