Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 19, 2009

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. So over several months I went through a few iterations on his idea. They are filled with ideas and they get those ideas onto paper.

Entrepreneur 414

Entrepreneur Technical Review Slides CTO Coach 414

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.

Technical Review 418

Technical Review Software Review CTO Hire IP 418

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 5, 2010

They often make great team members such as head of products, CTO, head of sales, CFO, etc. But to me if you’re not willing to quit and take a risk on yourself, then you’re not confident enough in your own idea and skills. He had built and sold his first company and had good ideas for his second company. Why should I be?

Entrepreneur 293

Entrepreneur Startup Venture Capital CTO Hire 293

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. There are a bunch of questions in Startup Software Development – Do Your Homework Before You Develop Anything and in Startup CTO or Developer.

CTO Hire 170

CTO Hire Develop Development Startup 170

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 1, 2014

Today’s $24 billion storage market in the US has these same key disadvantages and that was the genesis of Sam Rosen’s initial idea for MakeSpace , which I initially funded 15 months ago. He had an idea to make it better. We then riffed on the idea of, “That’s interesting.

Technical Review 380

Technical Review Software Review CTO Hire Startup 380

SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 17, 2007

skip to main | skip to sidebar SoCal CTO Saturday, February 17, 2007 Finding Good Developers in Los Angeles? Im part of a CTO group that meets once a month to discuss various topics. If anyone has ideas on how to reach into to find candidates or other ways to find good people, I would love to hear it.

Los Angeles 150

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Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

Ryan was the most talented technologist we had hired at BuildOnline. We hired Ryan at a really young age and without a tremendous amount of prior experience. We had a strategy of hiring people really young because we couldn’t afford to hire too many senior people. The lead architect was blocking new ideas.

CTO Hire 322

CTO Hire Startup Resource Entrepreneur 322

SoCal CTO

APRIL 28, 2014

It’s generally a good idea to go through each of these line items to try to better understand what’s involved, especially for the ones that are bigger or that don’t seem to line up with your understanding of complexity. I.e., they need a developer more than they need a CTO.

Develop 280

Develop Development CTO Coach CTO Hire 280

SoCal CTO

MARCH 4, 2010

Background This post partly really came about as a result of a great conversation yesterday with David Croslin a former CTO at HP who recently conducted an interesting experiment. This is actually fairly common and I think it’s a bit challenging in that the technology roles (from technology advisor to CTO) in a startup vary widely.

Technical Review 170

Technical Review Technical Advisors CTO Coach Startup 170

SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 25, 2007

skip to main | skip to sidebar SoCal CTO Sunday, February 25, 2007 Interesting Model for University President Saw a post by Paul Kedrosky pointing us to Graeme Thickins on How Stanford Does It. Its interesting to think about how universities might want to have their staff better aligned with moving ideas from the lab to start-ups.

CTO Coach 150

CTO Coach Southern California CTO Hire Startup 150

TechEmpower

DECEMBER 11, 2023

While the appearance matters, remember you are hiring the development firm primarily for its development skills, not its graphic design skills. tew_cta text="Do you have an idea for a software project? cto , product , saas Quality of Work: The end product should not only look good but function as expected.

Software Development 297

Software Development Software Review Develop Development 297

SoCal CTO

MARCH 20, 2007

skip to main | skip to sidebar SoCal CTO Tuesday, March 20, 2007 Kevin Federline Search Engine Just saw a post - Sleep with a pop star, get your own branded search engine. Take a look at other sites: [link] But the overall idea is to provide branded search in order to get merchandise from your artist, star, etc.

CTO Coach 150

CTO Coach Southern California CTO Hire Social Media 150

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2013

He had an idea for a startup that would help consumers better book service jobs and would take on Service Magic, which he believed had a business model that could be disrupted. Because I knew that Ethan was on to a powerful idea and one in which he had developed huge competence and domain knowledge in. He was seeking $500k.

CTO Coach 359

CTO Coach Google CTO Hire Yammer 359

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 22, 2021

This strategy is called “organic growth,” yet it alone may yield only a fraction of the potential you could achieve, unless you add the additional strategies of partnerships and M&A (mergers and acquisitions). Add basic partner contracts or alliances. Use external sourcing to fill in the non-critical gaps. Partial acquisition.

Organization 132

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socalTECH

MARCH 8, 2013

What's the idea behind the incubator? I enjoyed my time there, and it was part of the deal, but it wasn't a long term career for me. So, I set out a little bit in an ad-hoc way starting companies as ideas came to me. We are the founders of these companies, and the ideas come from our own team. It's been great.

Incubator 208

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SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 20, 2011

One of the readers asked my opinion around sharing your startup concept: My first question has always been - how do you protect your idea while shopping around for feedback, partners, developers, etc.? Especially if the idea could be whipped-up by a few 24-year olds in a few weeks? Lots of thoughts here.

Startup 211

Startup IP Ideas Patents 211

SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 25, 2007

skip to main | skip to sidebar SoCal CTO Sunday, February 25, 2007 Challenge of Predicting Winners I just read a bit on the payout to YouTube from the Google Acquisition ( Internet News , CNN ). But even if you came to me with that idea, Im not sure I would have bought it. He has twenty years’ experience as a CTO.

CTO Coach 150

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Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 5, 2014

Who in the auto industry believed Tesla, a totally electric car, was a good idea? of Elon’s ideas to come to fruition and let him fail on the rest. If there is something holding these big ideas back, it is not a shortage of money or even the barrier of insurmountable technical hurdles. We hired outside experts.

Technical Review 417

Technical Review Startup Software Review Course 417

socalTECH

JANUARY 3, 2011

Will had this idea about unsubscriptions, and formulating an idea around creating a way to unsubscribe people from newsletters, and he started talking to me about it. I thought the idea was in interesting, and we started talking about buying the domain Unsubscribe.com. So, with this funding, are you planning any hiring?

Newsletter 216

Newsletter Startup CTO Hire Blogging 216

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 20, 2011

One of the readers asked my opinion around sharing your startup concept: My first question has always been - how do you protect your idea while shopping around for feedback, partners, developers, etc.? Especially if the idea could be whipped-up by a few 24-year olds in a few weeks? Lots of thoughts here.

Startup 198

Startup IP Ideas Patents 198

Tech Zulu Event

NOVEMBER 26, 2012

At Silicon Beach Fest Hollywood 2012 Kevin Winston organized a panel called “How to Find and Hire a Developer”. Always have a developer do a test project before hiring them to make sure they deliver quality work. Understand that people are motivated to be a part of a larger vision and to work with someone they believe in.

CTO Hire 81

CTO Hire Outsource Development Develop Development 81

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 22, 2012

The constraint between good ideas and growth operates in both directions. It’s not merely that you need a scalable idea to grow. If you have such an idea and don’t grow fast enough, competitors will. Ryan Lissack is the CTO of Maker Studios. “Why do founders want to take the VCs’ money?

Startup 390

Startup Venture Capital Entrepreneur Technical Review 390

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 9, 2020

Just because it was your idea doesn’t mean you “deserve” 90% of the equity. The value in a startup is all about tangible results, so I see no equity value in the idea alone. Your idea is not intellectual property yet, so it has no inherent value. Level of responsibility and time allocated. Now comes the reality check.

Startup 174

Startup Equity Patents CTO Hire 174

socalTECH

MARCH 1, 2013

Most of these guys have no idea who they are marketing to. My co-founder and CTO, Steven Corwin, is a graduate of UCLA's Electrical Engineering program, and built our program and lead the development of our technology platform. That's a massive amount of money to spend on marketing. You see lots of billboards, this, and that.

Hollywood 256

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socalTECH

JANUARY 2, 2014

You fill out the short questionnaire, lawyers submit their price quotes, and they get hired. I had been wanting to combined entrepreneurship and law, so we started brainstorming ideas. We''ve worked out he bugs, and since then have hired a full time CTO and others. That happens in just a five minute process.

Help 240

Help Startup CTO Hire Pricing 240

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 1, 2012

This strategy is called “organic growth,” yet it alone may yield only a fraction of the potential you could achieve, unless you add the additional strategies of partnerships and M&A (mergers and acquisitions). Add basic partner contracts or alliances. Use external sourcing to fill in the non-critical gaps. Partial acquisition.

CTO Hire 91

CTO Hire Startup Outsource Development Resource 91

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. The problem we're trying to solve, is one I found from in my experience as a hiring manager in the IT industry.

CTO Hire 147

CTO Hire Startup Sites Technical Review 147

SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 5, 2010

Great content again in September that meets at the intersection of startups, technology, product and being a Startup CTO. 8220; His three things (worth reading his whole post anyway) are set vision/strategy and communicate broadly, recruit/hire/retain top talent, and make sure there’s enough cash in the bank. It’s great advice.

Startup 191

Startup Product Technology Venture Capital 191

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 8, 2013

This strategy is called “organic growth,” yet it alone may yield only a fraction of the potential you could achieve, unless you add the additional strategies of partnerships and M&A (mergers and acquisitions). Add basic partner contracts or alliances. Use external sourcing to fill in the non-critical gaps. Partial acquisition.

Acquisition 88

Acquisition CTO Hire Startup Outsource Development 88

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 22, 2010

I thought to myself, “OK, they were willing to F me when they thought I had no idea what I was talking about. Gee, if they treat me like this in good times I wonder how they’d treat me in bad times! You’ll need to hire and retain talen to grow your company. No option pool shuffle. No hidden terms.

Venture Capital 405

Venture Capital Pricing Startup Funding 405

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

aka: An Open Letter to the Next Big Social Network) - 500 Hats , November 1, 2010 I've held off writing this post for a long time, because I couldn't quite get my head around all the issues. And I tried to evaluate the idea and figure out: What did the founder really need here? Your First Iteration of an Idea Will Be Wrong.

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Startup Product Technology 175

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 23, 2014

I spent an hour on the phone working with Sam Rosen, the CEO of MakeSpace on a senior exec he is considering hiring. And I spoke with the CTO of another great company I used to be on the board of and enlisted his support in potentially being an advisor to one company. It came from my weekend activities.

Networking 366

Networking Startup CTO Coach Email 366

socalTECH

JUNE 9, 2014

The third piece of our business, is we''ve developed the infrastructure, technology, and methodology to discover content, and put it into our own, salesforce like system, which allows our researchers to pick out videos, track down the content creators, and do all of the contracting through the system.

Media 235

Media Content Startup IP 235

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. But it did take Brad as a public spokesman, consummate networker and successful VC to help create legitimacy to let David’s ideas flourish.

Venture Capital 317

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Press 317

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 14, 2009

First, early in the post, Mark mentions: The idea behind the meetup is to connect technology startups with prospective hires who may be interested to work for “alternative compensation”–e.g., reduced salary, partial equity, good experience, etc.

Software Development 150

Software Development Develop Development Software 150

socalTECH

MARCH 31, 2014

I was hired to head up strategy, marketing development, and product management. That''s really where the genesis of this comes from, and we have patents around the idea of continually analyzing both structure and semistructured data from a wide variety of sources, simultaneously. That was a very successful exit for everyone involved.

Orange County 245

Orange County Startup News IBM 245

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 1, 2023

Just because it was your idea doesn’t mean you “deserve” 90% of the equity. The value in a startup is all about tangible results, so I see no equity value in the idea alone. Your idea is not intellectual property yet, so it has no inherent value. Level of responsibility and time allocated. Now comes the reality check.

Equity 99

Equity Patents CTO Hire Startup 99