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 was also responsible to get a top-notch technical architect to build the necessary back-end at very affordable hourly rate to be able to launch the product in a very short time.

CTO 150

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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 had a partially built product. Was it a case of needing Homework?

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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. Tim Ferriss gave this extra emphasis in his book.

Product 280

Product Startup Email Technical Review 280

SoCal CTO

MARCH 12, 2012

I promised I would write this post with some thoughts and ideas on the topic. Hire a Product Design Lead First Nailing that elusive technical co-founder I've recently received several emails from people looking for a technical cofounder for their startup. Here's an example of that kind of email.

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SoCal CTO

APRIL 2, 2013

They look at the following high level definition of Lean: and they interpret that as write up an executive summary with your ideas and hand it to developers to build. What's going to go wrong?

CTO Coach 219

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SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 19, 2012

I was talking with an early-stage founder who has a product vision and wants to get it built. He wanted to get input from me on what he's doing, and he wants to begin to ask developers what it would take to build his product. Me : Product definition, use cases, feature list, wireframes, comps, really whatever you have.

Develop 354

Develop Development Technical Review CTO Coach 354

SoCal CTO

MARCH 10, 2010

Steve Blank wrote a great post recently entitled Perfection By Subtraction – The Minimum Feature Set where he explains the real goals around defining a minimum viable product: Founders act like the “minimum” part is the goal. Only a special subset of customers will and what gets them breathing heavy is the long-term vision for your product.

Product 150

Product Startup Custom Customer 150

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.

Venture Capital 223

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Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

You’ll get sales information from your VP of Sales, marketing information from your VP Marketing, tech information from your CTO and so on. But I knew that to be a good decision maker I needed first hand knowledge rather than just a summary from my CTO. But as a CEO you can’t rely solely on this information.

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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? eHarmongy) as an acting CTO. He has twenty years’ experience as a CTO. He has been the CTO for several start-ups, most notably eHarmony.

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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. Last time we met I didn’t have my CTO with me. But the real product being bought or sold is “trust.”

Software Review 381

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 21, 2014

You join teams that got good write-ups on TechCrunch, have great VCs, have star CEO’s, whatever. It also has to be said that bad apples on teams bring down productive even if that person is individually a superstar. Writing a book will be fun. You hire people who look good on paper. After 6 months – you know.

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SoCal CTO

MARCH 11, 2013

Yesterday, I was talking to a startup founder about their MVP and they said something that finally got me to write this post: "I have a few investors interested but they want to see a product." It is almost never the case that you are building an MVP to "show" to an investor the product itself.

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Metrics Venture Capital News Product 264

socalTECH

JULY 22, 2016

What's your product, and what is it used for? Gabe Grifoni: At Rufus Labs, we are focused heavily on building wearables and technology in a wearable platform for the enterprise. We're focused on a product which makes for a more efficient, safer, workplace. So where are you now with your product?

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Tech Zulu Event

MAY 28, 2013

Dave’s industry experience includes tenures as CTO and CEO of several successful software companies, and upper-level management positions in Fortune 100 companies. He keynotes leading technology conferences on cloud computing, SOA, enterprise application integration, and enterprise architecture. CTO at SOA Software.

SaaS 92

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Both Sides of the Table

JULY 15, 2010

I give a sneak peek at a blog post I’m writing on the topic next week. I spoke about the need of the CEO, CTO and head of Products to be in the same location. Heck, stick around and watch me discuss the seed funding debate that is going on right now and what is happening in the VC industry overall. Great exit. -

Venture Capital 210

Venture Capital Seed Funding Pricing Southern California 210

SoCal CTO

MARCH 22, 2007

skip to main | skip to sidebar SoCal CTO Thursday, March 22, 2007 Discussion Creation Among Bloggers - LinkedIn, Blogging and Discussion Groups Ive been participating in a Yahoo Group that are users of LinkedIn and who are Bloggers: [link] Its an interesting group of folks from diverse backgrounds. And, I dont like to copy and paste.

Blogging 150

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Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 5, 2014

There is a battle between entrepreneurs who try to change the world and solve a meaningful problem and those who write take-down pieces with no apparent personal benefit other than attention. When we ship product. But would you expect Apple to reveal its product details before launching? ” **. We will do that.

Technical Review 417

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SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 14, 2009

I moved into writing software to analyze audience data, and wrote a lot of computer graphics software. A few years ago, my CTO spotted a need that local groups and organizations have in handling RSVPs and registrations for meetings and events. Cliff, remind me about your background? for face-to-face general networking events.

Los Angeles 150

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 30, 2013

If you have a product description, that’s necessary, but not sufficient. Forcing yourself to write down a plan is actually the only way to make sure you actually have a plan. A CEO who has “been there and done that” is traction, especially if teamed with a financial lead (CFO) and a product lead (CTO).

Funding 112

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2009

I had seen many cycles and decided that since I was going to do it all over again I should write about it. Another called Parker Harris, the co-founder and CTO. I decided to write about my experience and to be blunt. I don’t plan to write the authoritative venture capital blog, just some anecdotes. And covered we did.

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Venture Capital Blogging Startup Slides 274

socalTECH

MARCH 22, 2012

The company also made quite an impression with its viral video --which you have to watch to appreciate--of CEO Michael Dubin extolling the virtues of the company's products, and panning overpriced, expensive razor brands. That's the one we'll mass product. We talked with Dubin earlier about the company. It's David vs. Goliath.

Dollar Shave Club 210

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SoCal CTO

MARCH 18, 2010

Vince: In addition to my management writing I’ve interview many CEOs and innovators. I’d love to get your thoughts at some point about writing for these publications vs. on your own blog. What are some of the top things you've published online, e.g., blog posts?

Startup 225

Startup Los Angeles Twiistup Social Network 225

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2013

In this period (less than 2 years) he has brought on incredibly talented senior execs is sales, marketing, product management, client services, finance, vp engineering and more. He did it yesterday, “Mark, I’m going to write a blog post following on from your VC’s aren’t dumb. It is really working. Rob does it.

Tips 365

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Tech Zulu Event

NOVEMBER 26, 2012

One method to negotiate a lower rate or no cost to have a developerwork with you > Pre sell your product. This will prove your product is worth building to you and to the developer. Always have a developer do a test project before hiring them to make sure they deliver quality work. Ask for is code samples.

CTO Hire 81

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socalTECH

FEBRUARY 17, 2017

We want to have startups we can get productive or generating revenue pretty quickly. 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.

Venture Capital 100

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Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 31, 2012

If you have a product description, that’s necessary, but not sufficient. Forcing yourself to write down a plan is actually the only way to make sure you actually have a plan. A CEO who has “been there and done that” is traction, especially if teamed with a financial lead (CFO) and a product lead (CTO).

Startup 104

Startup CTO Hire Press Customer 104

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 21, 2012

If you look at our web site, there is Charles McColgan, who is the CTO; Forrest Hobbs, who is VP of Sales; Terry Somers, who is VP of Network Services; Max Powers, who is VP of Client Services; the list goes on and on. My first big move here, when I came to Telesign, was I felt we needed a high quality CTO. It's been fantastic.

Marina Del Rey 238

Marina Del Rey Startup IP Web 238

Xconomy

JUNE 6, 2016

After operating in the shadows for the past 11 years, a San Diego neural technology company founded by former NASA administrator Dan Goldin is stepping into the light to introduce two commercial products intended to advance the frontier of human-machine interaction.

Artificial Inteligence 62

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 17, 2011

If you have a product description, that’s necessary, but not sufficient. Forcing yourself to write down a plan is actually the only way to make sure you actually have a plan. A CEO who has “been there and done that” is traction, especially if teamed with a financial lead (CFO) and a product lead (CTO).

Startup 101

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Tech Zulu Event

APRIL 23, 2013

Founded in the summer of 2011 and their first product out a few weeks ago amSTATS wants to help users to follow fitness events and programs near them and find a great fitness trainer to help them stay fit. TechZulu caught up with Michael Piermont, amSTATZ Chief Executive Officer and this is what he revealed.

Social Network 92

Social Network Networking Training Summary 92

socalTECH

JULY 23, 2012

As a hiring manager, and as the former CTO of Buy.com, Navid Nobakht , Co-Founder of Recmnd.Me ([link] had a problem--how to really figure out if someone he was hiring could actually execute. Thta kind of determines how valuable the product is that you're building. Plus, it makes it difficult from other recommendations.

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Tech Zulu Event

JULY 22, 2014

While we have become more productive as a society, with the advent of computers aiding our work, physical inactivity has become a high risk factor in contributing to chronic illnesses. AA: Most product and companies in the space today are focused on young, fit people who are already active. It could be a lot worse than just comfort.

USC 104

USC Southern California Activity Study 104

socalTECH

MARCH 12, 2013

We caught on with the right product, at the right time. 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. You have to be able to be disruptive to existing products and services. It's a mission critical IT service that website owners need.

CTO Hire 248

CTO Hire Content Networking Web 248

Tech Zulu Event

NOVEMBER 6, 2013

TechZulu caught up with co-founder Calvin Schemanski chat about their upcoming launch, their product and why Long reviews suck. On myfab5, people rank their favorite places instead of giving them star ratings and write bite-sized reviews instead of writing long reviews. What is myfab5? Don’t like a restaurant? What inspired you?

Software Review 79

Software Review Technical Review Writing Startup 79

Tech Zulu Event

OCTOBER 3, 2012

Hours after the panelists debated the future of content distribution at the Silicon Beach @ USC conference, across campus at the Annenberg Innovation Lab a remarkable product demo was taking place by Coincident.TV. A technology that will surely revolutionize how viewers interact with content and television in the very near future.

Screening 109

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 22, 2010

If you have a product description, that’s necessary, but not sufficient. Forcing yourself to write down a plan is actually the only way to make sure you actually have a plan. A CEO who has “been there and done that” is traction, especially if teamed with a financial lead (CIO) and a product lead (CTO).

Tips 88

Tips Startup CTO Hire Press 88