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. And I try my best to point them to resources that can help them longer term. Of course, I provide part-time CTO services. How does the product solve a pain?

CTO Hire 264

CTO Hire Startup Technical Review Development Team Review 264

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. And I try my best to point them to resources that can help them longer term. Of course, I provide part-time CTO services. How does the product solve a pain?

CTO Hire 259

CTO Hire Startup Technical Review Development Team Review 259

socalTECH

MAY 28, 2013

In real life, you can just about bargain a price for anything you want to buy--a car, a house, even that new stereo from your local electronics store. Joe Marrapodi: GreenToe is a name your own price marketplace for products. However, rather than travel services, it''s for products. But, online, that''s not the case.

Pricing 273

Pricing Product Help Sales 273

SoCal CTO

APRIL 2, 2012

The problem is you don't yet have product/market fit, and until you do, you don't really know what to build. When product vision is truly clear, then it makes sense to execute it, and hiring follows. In the mean time, if you need some extra help, get some contractors to test out specific things. Far from it. They are very early.

CTO Hire 205

CTO Hire Outsource Development CTO Coach Develop 205

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 30, 2013

Are you a non-technical startup founder who’s about to go have a conversation with a Chief Technical Officer (CTO) or Technical advisory type person? Maybe you are trying to determine what technologies might apply that you should be evaluating. Helping you with your challenges is fun.

CTO Coach 211

CTO Coach Startup Web Guide 211

TechEmpower

AUGUST 21, 2023

Other common scenarios that we’ve seen: Scaling and new markets: Your company and product are established, and now you’re scaling or going after new markets. A technical review can help your development team adopt new processes and strategies to maximize their speed and efficiency. A technical review can answer that crucial question.

Technical Review 260

Technical Review Development Team Review Software Review TechEmpower 260

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. Of course, that doesn’t help here.

CTO 167

CTO CTO Hire CTO Coach Equity 167

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 20, 2010

Often I’m asked by startup CEO’s about how to best build an engineering team. Because more technology people probably read startup blogs I’m guessing this post will come under more scrutiny. Some CTO’s swear that it is a huge improvement in development timeframes and doesn’t cause performance issues.

CTO Hire 400

CTO Hire Fractional VPE Startup Outsource Development 400

SoCal CTO

MAY 21, 2012

So, here goes: Dr. Tony Karrer Over the past 15 years, Tony has been a part-time CTO for more than 30 startups. Most notably, he was the original CTO for eHarmony for its first four years making him partly responsible for more than 4% of the marriages every year. He ends by looking at how this might help startups in the room.

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CTO Hire Startup Metrics eHarmony 175

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 11, 2016

Gregg Johnson, CEO of Invoca For the first 5 years or so after I became a VC I didn’t talk much about what I thought a VC should be excellent at since frankly I wasn’t sure. It’s easy to think the role of a VC is to have strong opinions about markets, trends, tech dynamics and so forth. I don’t think this is the job.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Capital CTO Coach Startup 150

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. Of course, that doesn’t help here.

CTO 150

CTO CTO Hire CTO Coach Equity 150

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2013

I’m super excited to announce that GRP Partners led the investment in Ethan Anderson’s new company MyTime (link has LA-based merchants but will give you a good feel for the product). ” So Ethan went to work as a product manager at Google Video. When Ethan was considering leaving Google we talked about it.

CTO Coach 359

CTO Coach Google CTO Hire Yammer 359

SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 2, 2010

Based on my posts Startup CTO or Developer and Acting CTO , Chris O’Meara wrote an interesting post Startup CTO: Could It Work? They tend to know where to find good help in terms of employees and consultants. If you think that's person you need, the question becomes "what else do you expect a CTO to contribute?

CTO Hire 150

CTO Hire Startup Guide Examples 150

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. Roger Smith ) This helps explain where I normally play. Great question.

Startup 231

Startup CTO Hire Technical Advisors Technical Review 231

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 16, 2015

recently wrote a post talking about how some VCs meddle in operating company decisions or some executive teams are too reliant on VCs to jump in and make hard calls for them. So operating at a higher level, helping to set the framework for decision making and then sitting down and watching the game be played, is certainly the way to go.”

Startup 150

Startup Sales CTO Coach Course 150

socalTECH

JANUARY 2, 2014

To shortcut what has been an antiquated way of connecting consumers with attorneys, Los Angeles startup LawKick (www.lawkick.com) has created an online, easy way to match up clients with lawyers, through a set of simple questions and answers about different kinds of legal problems. What''s LawKick about? Thanks, and good luck!

Help 240

Help Startup CTO Hire Pricing 240

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 25, 2014

Kraft, who co-founded Thrively with fellow startup veteran Girish Venkat, sat down to talk to us about Thrively, as it emerges out of beta. Tell me about your new company? Tell me about your new company? Jon Kraft: Our mission is to help kids discover and pursue their passions in life.

Help 252

Help Idealab Activity Startup 252

TechCrunch LA

SEPTEMBER 6, 2018

They dominate the media, have accrued millions of fans on social networks and have branched into retail, fashion, production and more. Their relationship with fans is 24/7 and, regardless of how you feel about the family, their popularity is a clear indicator of this new always-on connection between public figures and their fans.

Help 115

Help Startup Activision Media 115

SoCal CTO

MAY 21, 2013

I thought it would be worth capturing some basic notes about what signals founders commonly are seeing that cause them to call me, what those signals might be indicating, and what might make sense to do as a founder if you are seeing some of these signals. Common Signals I''ve written previously about Symptoms of a Weak Development Team.

CTO Coach 219

CTO Coach Develop Development Startup 219

TechCrunch LA

DECEMBER 5, 2018

Scott McCorkle has spent most of his professional career thinking about business to business software and how to improve it for a company’s customers. If customers are doing the things i want them to be doing through my product. What is it that they want to achieve and why did they buy my product. Midwest rising.

Chief Technology Officer 145

Chief Technology Officer SaaS Metrics Customer 145

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 10, 2012

I did a presentation recently for a graduate class from The Founder Institute around getting online/mobile products out the door. It was like having a bunch of mini- Free Startup CTO Consulting Sessions all in one room. Third party products are used appropriately. CTO Founder - Do they really still need a technical advisor?

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Technical Advisors CTO Coach Technical Review CTO Hire 332

SoCal CTO

MAY 13, 2014

The conversation with Bob was about what the composition of advisors should look like. Here’s the other aspect that both Tony and I preach: get help. You can’t afford and don’t want to hire a full-time CTO or architect. And it’s way more fun when you have other interesting people in the room trying to also help.

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CTO Coach Startup CTO Hire Template 241

SoCal CTO

MARCH 12, 2012

" Typically, this requires quite a bit more information for me to be able to respond and provide real help. Of course, you will want to figure out a bit more about the specifics of what this developer needs to know vs. can learn. Your technical advisor can likely help. Ask them about your concept.

CTO Hire 211

CTO Hire CTO Coach Startup Equity 211

socalTECH

JANUARY 2, 2013

For this year's first article, we share the advice of Tony Karrer , Founder and CTO of TechEmpower , Founder and CTO of Aggregage and organizer of the LA CTO Forum and Startup Specialist Network , two local groups focused on startups. Then we discussed how they could go about finding this startup business advisor.

CTO Coach 180

CTO Coach Mentor Startup TechEmpower 180

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 12, 2010

I recently wrote a post about avoiding the “ Deferred Life Plan &# and some related thoughts about personal productivity that came from Tim Ferriss’s book, The Four Hour Workweek. I would love to say that I’m the productivity guru. Admittedly I also fall into this trap.

Product 280

Product Startup Email Technical Review 280

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 24, 2021

Think about how much more value was created for all these constituencies (and society) by Snap staying independent vs. Instagram selling to Facebook.  —  @jasonlk How the Long Game Has Benefitted Upfront I was thinking about it this morning in particular and thinking about my own personal investment history.

Venture Capital 363

Venture Capital Capital Funding Startup 363

SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 15, 2009

Steve Gilison worked as a market researcher and product manager at a startup where my company, TechEmpower , did the software / web development. Remind me about your background Steve? I have about 11 years in the technology sector including roles doing market research, sales and product development.

Los Angeles 179

Los Angeles Product Angel Startup 179

SoCal CTO

NOVEMBER 10, 2009

He has a really interesting background as a product manager and now an entrepreneur. Tell me a bit about your background. Like many product managers, my background is fairly eclectic. That's where I learned I enjoyed interacting with customers and working with development teams to build and launch products.

Product 150

Product Entrepreneur Social Media Google 150

TechCrunch LA

SEPTEMBER 24, 2019

Remarkably, Canoo has completed the design and engineering of its first model in just 19 months and is preparing its vehicles for production through a contract manufacturer. When you subscribe, you think differently about a car – now the value is defined by the user benefit. “We will roll out city-by-city,” he says.

Chief Technology Officer 237

Chief Technology Officer Los Angeles Design Outsource Development 237

socalTECH

DECEMBER 21, 2020

Weve started with dark web monitoring, and we are adding credit monitoring to help our users better control their digital identity. With both people search and identity protection functionality, we provide the most comprehensive people intelligence to help our users know more. Otherwise, we will get garbage in, garbage out.

Technical Review 113

Technical Review Startup CIO Southern California 113

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 17, 2013

Ever wish you could get a look at what your neighbor is doing with that expensive home remodeling product? The new startup--which is split between San Diego and Seattle--said it is looking to help organize the information about home improvement projects, plus also help homeowners to find home improvement professionals.

San Diego 185

San Diego Seed Funding Organization Startup 185

SoCal CTO

MAY 27, 2010

I received a follow-up question from an early-stage startup about the Founder Developer Gap that I’ve described before and that was part of the interview with Frank. And there are all sorts of different kinds of technical people who might help with getting that product to happen. This is somewhat the heart of what a CTO does.

CTO Hire 170

CTO Hire Develop Development Startup 170

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 17, 2019

I had just left Salesforce.com where I was VP, Products, after they had acquired my second startup. As I was trying to figure out the role I wanted to play in the VC world I decided I wanted to focus on businesses that were building deeply technical products to solve problems for business users. But here’s the big “aha.”

Venture Capital 223

Venture Capital IP Startup Google 223

Tech Zulu Event

FEBRUARY 27, 2013

Launched in beta July last year in Oakland, San Francisco, Dealflicks is a price line for movie tickets and gives movie tickets and concessions for up to 60% off to help theaters get butts in their seats. They then decided to do something about it. Tell us more about yourself ? UCB Economics 2010 summa cum laude.

Help 91

Help Netflix Research Screening 91

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 16, 2014

In the early days the CEO is the jack-of-all-trades, doer-of-all, famously the “chief janitor” or coffee maker. Eventually you need a VP of Product to handle your product roadmap, a CTO for engineering leadership and VPs of sales, marketing & biz dev. And then there’s product management.

Entrepreneur 385

Entrepreneur CTO Hire Startup Sales 385

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 30, 2014

Of course triangulation is a mathematics term that is used in sailing and other activities to help you better navigate when you don’t have your bearings. When I have well established patterns of thought the heretical views are often the most helpful because they cause me to challenge my own beliefs. Draw from Frameworks.

Startup 407

Startup Framework CTO Coach Sales 407

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 9, 2018

Your product demo crushed. You race back to the office to tell everybody how well it went and you wait for the follow-up call to have a partners’ meeting or talk about term sheets or at least dip into due diligence. You left the meeting dreaming about money and finally having resources to do all of the things you wanted to do.

Software Review 381

Software Review Startup Email Conference 381