SoCal CTO

JANUARY 26, 2010

I’ve been having discussions with several people recently about the role of the CTO (Chief Technology Officer) in very early stage companies. In December 2007, I described how I commonly take on an Acting CTO Role in a Start-up. I used an image from Roger Smith that describes the varying roles of a CTO as the company matures.

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SoCal CTO

MARCH 3, 2011

I talk to roughly 2 or 3 new startups every week who need advice from an experienced CTO. Many of the founders of these companies are surprised to learn that I'm willing to review what they are doing (maybe an hour) and get on the phone for an hour with them and provide free advice. Of course, I provide part-time CTO services.

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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. Who’s helping you with fundraising? Marketing Support What does your application need to do to help with marketing?

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SoCal CTO

JULY 23, 2012

I seem to encounter a lot of people who want to attach a CTO label to me as I'm the only programmer on the founding team of three. While I do fill that role at the moment, I'm a little hesitant to refer to myself as a CTO as we still haven't launched a product, acquired a single user, or turned or a penny in profit. Accounting?

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SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 13, 2013

If you do not break it down into small pieces, its hard to make progress with part-time resources, freelancers, etc. Equity-Only CTO and Equity-Only Developers Technology Roles in Startups Want to Know the Difference Between a CTO and a VP Engineering? Review the code being built.

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 30, 2014

It’s true the some VCs have started writing so many checks that they resemble stock pickers but the majority of us still have less than 10 board seats at any time and tend to go pretty deep so the result is that we care deeply about where we commit our time. Meredith came to see me along with the CTO Marc Berte.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 1, 2014

But while Amazon blew away existing physical distribution channels to deliver products to you, we are blowing away existing physical infrastructure to help you store the things you want to keep – just not at your home. He spent a few months building out the software because just taking stuff from people isn’t that difficult.

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Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 22, 2014

Even if you are looking in all the right places, it helps to know what you are looking for. The reason is that good attributes apply equally well to “external” partners, as they do to internal partners, like a co-founder or CTO. Partner decisions are more important than hiring decisions. Complementary skills. Marty Zwilling.

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Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 8, 2013

Even if you are looking in all the right places, it helps to know what you are looking for. The reason is that good attributes apply equally well to “external” partners, as they do to internal partners, like a co-founder or CTO. Partner decisions are more important than hiring decisions. Complementary skills. Marty Zwilling.

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socalTECH

AUGUST 8, 2018

We spoke with Dave Fink , CEO and co-founder of Posite, and Jonathan Neddenriep , co-founder and CTO of the company, to learn more. Dave Fink: I was one of the original partners at Sciences, and Jonathan was CTO of the e-commerce staff. Photo: Dave Fink on left, Jonathan Neddenriep on right. What is Postie? What is a print cloud?

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 29, 2011

Even if you are looking in all the right places, it helps to know what you are looking for. The reason is that good attributes apply equally well to “external” partners, as they do to internal partners, like a co-founder or CTO. Partner decisions are more important than hiring decisions. Complementary skills. Marty Zwilling.

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socalTECH

FEBRUARY 17, 2017

My CIO had been ex-CIO at Herbalife, and was an EVP of Software for Disney. We hired the ex-CTO of Sears, and other senior executives out of Disney in software. It was a great software team, and although we were really a tech company, we looked like healthy lifestyle company. Execution is everything.

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socalTECH

JULY 22, 2016

Rufus Labs is one of a number of hardware startups which have started to proliferate in the community, due to low cost hardware, 3D printing, and crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo. Plus, they don't collect data, and use really old, limited software. What's your product, and what is it used for?

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 24, 2010

Even if you are looking in all the right places, it helps to know what you are looking for. The reason is that good attributes apply equally well to “external” partners, as they do to internal partners, like a co-founder or CTO. Partner decisions are more important than hiring decisions. Complementary skills. Marty Zwilling.

Software Review 92

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socalTECH

MARCH 12, 2013

The company--which is in the business of operating a content delivery network (CDN) to accelerate the delivery of web graphics, multimedia, applications, and more to end users-- recently disclosed it more than doubled its revenues in 2012, and has grown to over 230 employees--all due to a huge amount of demand for CDN services by its customers.

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socalTECH

OCTOBER 4, 2010

The company provides SAT, ACT, and other similar test preparation courses and related software. I had worked as a tutor for Princeton Review, and Jake for Kaplan. We thought, we could put out a better product than Kaplan or Princeton Review, which would be more compelling, and also would tie in a strong social mission.

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Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 5, 2014

I told her that I believed America’s best asset – driven initially from software innovation mindset in the San Francisco Bay Area and media innovation driven from Los Angeles – was our willingness to accept failure. We hired outside experts. We checked charge times. Time will tell. Time will tell.

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Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 19, 2009

I spent nearly a decade building software for large companies and then advising companies on the same. 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. So we discussed his ideas several times. This was such a guy. “Why?&#

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SoCal CTO

APRIL 9, 2013

I just got an email asking about exactly this: I''m with a new company that needs some software built, but doesn''t need (or have the resources for) a large staff of software developers. Do not fall into the trap of Startups and a Common Misunderstanding in Agile Software Development. What are the review periods?

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socalTECH

JULY 23, 2009

It's somewhat unusual in this economy to find companies who are seeing strong growth, so we were intrigued recently in running into BlackLine Systems (www.blackline.com), a firm which develops software for helping in the financial reporting process. I had actually retired from SunGard as CTO before starting BlackLine.

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socalTECH

JUNE 8, 2009

Eric Sikola is CEO of ExpenseBay (www.expensebay.com), a Los Angeles-based, online, software-as-a-service startup which has created an online application which uses Web 2.0 finance software such as Wesabe and Mint, and applied it to the corporate expense area. How did decide to start a company on focused expense software?

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 5, 2011

Your highest priority right now is hiring the 1 or 2 people that are going to join your company and make a difference. There’s you and your killer CTO co-founder. Who’s going to help you with improving your marketing / positioning to become a clear platform category leader like Twilio? No Dave S. =

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Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 28, 2011

They often are very good at getting information out of people, helping create a framework for making decisions and pushing for support amongst the organization from those that back the decision and those that do not. I meet entrepreneurs all the time who tell me one of the following things: “I’ve had trouble raising money.

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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. Maybe this meme will help.

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