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I talk to roughly 2 or 3 new startups every week who need advice from an experienced CTO. Of course, I provide part-time CTO services. But the reality is that I engage with about 5 new startups each year which means that I end up working with less than 5% of the startups where I provide these free consulting sessions.
I talk to roughly 2 or 3 new startups every week who need advice from an experienced CTO. Of course, I provide part-time CTO services. But the reality is that I engage with about 5 new startups each year which means that I end up working with less than 5% of the startups where I provide these free consulting sessions.
What does it mean to be a CTO for a startup? Should a startup CTO spend their time programming? Exploring new technologies? The role of a CTO varies as the company matures. This is a safe choice, of course - but is it the best choice? A CTO can help you find the right answers. What does the role demand?
Because more technology people probably read startup blogs I’m guessing this post will come under more scrutiny. The terms “CTO&# and “VP Engineering&# have such stigmas associated with what they are that I’m sure some people will feel uncomfortable with the definitions I’ve put forward. But barely.
I’ve been having discussions with several people recently about the role of the CTO (ChiefTechnologyOfficer) in very early stage companies. In December 2007, I described how I commonly take on an Acting CTO Role in a Start-up. That’s why Roger Smith puts the focus of the CTO on programming for the earliest stage.
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?"
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. Of course, when you go to have this conversation be prepared.
We had an interesting presentation at the LA CTO Forum by the CTO of a startup who chose Groovy / Grails as the framework for their startup. t prompted a good discussion around how CTOs go about choosing the programming language and framework for their startup. Of course, I'm not sure that anyone chooses Java alone.
When I talk with early-stage companies, often the discussion starts with them asking me about Hiring a CTO for Your Startup , or Finding a Technical Cofounder for Your Startup or How to Find Programmers for Your Startup. In many cases, during my Free Startup CTOConsulting Session with them, we discuss where they are in in the process.
These are often the same things that cause a founder to reach out to me about helping their CTO, VP Engineering, tech team, off-shore development, etc. CTO Knowledge and Skill I personally believe that the best CTOs will have a technical/developer background. Some of the top symptoms are: Frequently missed deadlines.
Calabasas-based BlackLine Systems , the developer of financial close software headed by Therese Tucker, is trumpeting its certification course this week, saying that it recently certified 22 consultants from KPMG as part of its professional services courses. Tucker is the former CTO of SunGard Treasure Systems.
You can’t afford and don’t want to hire a full-time CTO or architect. For me, if I can help you within a couple hours Free Startup CTOConsulting Sessions , I’m happy to do that and I don’t expect compensation or equity for that. Here’s the other aspect that both Tony and I preach: get help.
Good entrepreneurs can admit when their course of action was wrong and learn from it. 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. Beautiful slides by top-tier consultants have hoodwinked large companies for years and I can see why.
they need a developer more than they need a CTO. What happens when you have a really good developer is that a gap exists where you may not ask the right questions to specify the right system, consider appropriate 3rd party technologies, etc. Of course, you probably are going to provide more of a feature list.
Almost every day I'm talking to early stage startup founders (see Free Startup CTOConsulting Sessions ) about what they plan to do. Of course, it's way more complex than just these questions. I tend to ask a lot of questions, challenge aspects, make suggestions. It needs to be a conversation. There's just too much variation.
Almost every day I'm talking to early stage startup founders (see Free Startup CTOConsulting Sessions ) about what they plan to do. Of course, it's way more complex than just these questions. I tend to ask a lot of questions, challenge aspects, make suggestions. It needs to be a conversation. There's just too much variation.
In my post, Technology Roles in Startups , I described some of the different ways I engage with startup companies such as CTO Founder , CTO , Part-Time CTO , Acting CTO , Consultant, Advisor and Advisory Board Member. And don’t confuse having a CTO with getting an Technology Advisor.
I've done four Free CTOConsulting Sessions in the past month with startup founders who all had run into variations of the same problem. Of course, what's really at issue here is: How much time/effort should be spent defining things that are farther away in terms of development? They couldn't plan their business.
” Of course, it’s more complicated than just checking boxes on a question list. Still, if you’re a business leader and your developers haven’t asked you these questions, look for a FractionalCTO to help navigate the critical early stage of development.
They often make great team members such as head of products, CTO, head of sales, CFO, etc. He was from South America but living in Switzerland and had launched a startup while holding down a day job at a consulting firm (McKinsey if memory serves). He and his partner told me about this new idea over the course of nearly a year.
Of course, I immediately gave him the whole spiel on Visible Networking and Steve was totally game to make our networking visible. I have about 11 years in the technology sector including roles doing market research, sales and product development. Of course, it's probably harder to find these folks. Wow, great questions.
They need someone who does consulting, hand holding, cracks the whip a bit, gets the stuff in place, knows different tricks and techniques. Of course, this normally is a bit more complicated than just the technical aspects. They need some help getting started. What's their specific niche? Who's the audience?
I find myself sending it to startup founders all the time – maybe just slightly less than Free Startup CTOConsulting. Of course, response time is quite a bit more complex than this. Of course we need to combine number of concurrent users with what the users are doing in order to have more of a picture of what this means.
The company provides SAT, ACT, and other similar test preparation courses and related software. The reason we were able to offer our course at that price point, and why we have our scholarship policy, is because our internal systems allow us to run the business very efficiently, and consistently, with a minimum number of internal staff.
Unlike those, however, one of the latest projects, ActiveReplay (www.activereplay.com) has some serious, experienced executives behind it, who have the experience in designing hardware devices--in the form of CEO Dr. Anatole Lokshin, who helped create the consumer GPS market as the CTO of Magellan Navigation. How did that happen?
Cliff Allen is someone I've known for quite a few years and he's a go to person for me when I'm thinking about issues around marketing, sales, technology, startups and networking. A few years ago, my CTO spotted a need that local groups and organizations have in handling RSVPs and registrations for meetings and events. Hey, radio.
This is a novel user interaction that embeds casual entertainment directly into the operating system experience, based on some fairly interesting underlying technology. In addition, I do a few consulting projects on the side, in the areas of product strategy, search engine optimization, and intellectual property. Details coming soon!)
I did a presentation about the use of Social Media to a great group of people who mostly are different kinds of service professionals (attorneys, accountants, consultants, etc.). Of course, those are highly suspect numbers from Feedburner. This is that post. I have more than 10,000 subscribers and roughly 1,000 per day see my posts.
He's the former CTO at Stocktwits, and he did the analysis and found out a lot of stuff. We continued to enhance our software to make it easier for them to follow the steps to cash in on credits, and of course, by following those steps they were able to predictably close more deals. READ MORE>>.
I'm married to Mike Freehling , M&A and financial management consultant. Of course AO many not count because they're in Northern Cal and not cheap, but return-on-time is high. My father ran the first American diplomatic mission in Hiroshima after the end of the occupation (seven years after the atomic bomb). Highly recommend.
Beside the free marriage consultation I sometimes give, I want to mainly focus on business partnerships. If you’re the CEO and you’re looking for a partner CTO (sound familiar) you’re not just checking him out, he is checking you as well. I’m the Secretary of Commerce where my wife is, of course, the Secretary of Treasury.
Beside the free marriage consultation I sometimes give, I want to mainly focus on business partnerships. If you’re the CEO and you’re looking for a partner CTO (sound familiar) you’re not just checking him out, he is checking you as well. I’m the Secretary of Commerce where my wife is, of course, the Secretary of Treasury.
He previously co-founded and served as ChiefTechnologyOfficer of IMVU. Leila first developed the idea behind Samasource while working as a management consultant at Katzenbach Partners (now Booz & Co.), Eric Ries is the author of the blog Startup Lessons Learned and the lean startup methodology.
Beside the free marriage consultation I sometimes give, I want to mainly focus on business partnerships. If you’re the CEO and you’re looking for a partner CTO (sound familiar) you’re not just checking him out, he is checking you as well. I’m the Secretary of Commerce where my wife is, of course, the Secretary of Treasury.
I decided that I was going to consult/advise a few companies and relax for a bit. 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. So much for resting!
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. can feel you now—corporate recruiters at career fairs, sending offer letters to work at banks and consulting firms. But I don’t think so.
’ OP: Of course we had to do a lot of research to figure out if this was a viable solution. He’s a former President of Sony Pictures Technologies and former CTO of Warner Bros. How did you go from Point A being ‘we recognize this as a problem’ to Point B being ‘we’re working towards a solution to solve this problem?’
– Premium Online Advertising Company Age: 21 - 25 Time Period: 1997 - 2001 My Role: ChiefTechnologyOfficer, Technology Founder and Chairman, Advisory Board High Point: $500 million market cap; 3,000+ customers; 8 billion transactions per month; 65% Internet reach Warning, this will be a long posting.
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