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How to Configure Your Startup Team

Both Sides of the Table

Early-stage companies shouldn’t: outsource core product development, have consulting firms build it for them to speed up time-to-market, shouldn’t hire too many business people until product is complete and early product/market fit tested. Ok, well not that pretty since I do my own slides and often at 1am.

Startup 388
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Want to Know the Difference Between a CTO and a VP Engineering?

Both Sides of the Table

Because more technology people probably read startup blogs I’m guessing this post will come under more scrutiny. Still, I believe I’m offering an accurate representation of the ideal configuration of the main technology leaders. Your deepest thinkers on technology architecture are seldom good team leaders.

CTO Hire 400
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5 Tips to Becoming a More Customer Centric Organization

Both Sides of the Table

I know that this all seems obvious now with the movements started by Steven Blank ( Four Steps of Epiphany ) with the whole Customer Development processes / Lean Startup movements also popularized by people like Eric Ries. I used to always tell my development team, “you need to design a product that my dad could use.

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Top 57 Online Startups Meets Technology Meets Product Posts for November 2010

SoCal CTO

I continue to collect great content that is the intersection of startups, products, online and technology. Equity-Only CTO and Equity-Only Developers - SoCal CTO , November 1, 2010 I had a recent email dialog with the founder of a company looking for a CTO for their startup. Was it a Startup Founder Developer Gap ?

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10 Key Business Plan Elements Not In A Product Spec

Startup Professionals Musings

To be clear, I define a product specification as the technical definition of your product, to be used for development and testing purposes, with a quick business summary for context. For example, “We just patented a new battery technology that will cut your smartphone charge time and cost in half.” You need both to survive.

Product 169
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This Week in VC Episode 6 with @Jason Calacanis: Best One Yet

Both Sides of the Table

We spoke about employment contracts for entrepreneurs – We talked about “change of control&# provisions in your contract and how to negotiate them. Arnie Gullov-Singh (ex-EVP of product, technology and operations for MySpace) also joined as CEO, as Sean Rad will assume the role of President. Rumored to be appox.

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Top 120 Startup Posts for 2010

SoCal CTO

Some really great stuff in 2010 that aims to help startups around product, technology, business models, etc. First Principles. Steve Blank , January 25, 2010 10 Tips for Adding Game Mechanics to a Non-Gaming Service - ReadWriteStart , September 21, 2010 Startups & VCs: Learn How to Design, Market, & Eat Your Own. -

Startup 378