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.

CTO Hire 259

CTO Hire Startup Technical Review Development Team Review 259

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. Go to user groups.

CTO Hire 241

CTO Hire CTO Coach Equity Develop 241

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2007

I generally am working as an acting CTO for about 3-4 start-ups or other companies at any one time. I also found this interesting graphic of the changing needs around the CTO role in different size/type companies that somewhat echoes my experience. During Stabilization, often the focus is transitioning to a full-time CTO.

Startup 231

Startup CTO Hire Technical Advisors Technical Review 231

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 16, 2014

Eventually you need a VP of Product to handle your product roadmap, a CTO for engineering leadership and VPs of sales, marketing & biz dev. The “span of control” for a growing tech startup is probably 6-9 people. You hire great people. And then there’s product management. Engineering?

Entrepreneur 385

Entrepreneur CTO Hire Startup Sales 385

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 5, 2014

The press around the raise & company was fantastic and the promise of their technology – wireless charging that works as easily as WiFi – would positively affect many of our lives. uBeam’s tech does work and I have safely seen it demo’d in the real life many times. Working on it. And being ambitious.

Technical Review 417

Technical Review Startup Software Review Course 417

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

As your organization grows and you hire senior staff where you are no longer managing every employee directly the issue of how to manage people that are not your “direct&# reports arises. You’ll get sales information from your VP of Sales, marketing information from your VP Marketing, tech information from your CTO and so on.

Startup 308

Startup CTO Coach Technical Review CTO Hire 308

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. One method to negotiate a lower rate or no cost to have a developerwork with you > Pre sell your product.

CTO Hire 81

CTO Hire Outsource Development Develop Development 81

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. What's your product, and what is it used for? We're focused on a product which makes for a more efficient, safer, workplace.

Technical Review 100

Technical Review Startup Software Review CTO Hire 100

SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 13, 2013

I did a presentation this week at Coloft that looked at how Non-Technical Founders can go about getting their MVP built. Investors my tell you that, but what they can look at your product on paper and tell what it does and they will understand if it can be built. And the back-end is something that a non-technical founder can manage.

Technical Review 338

Technical Review CTO Hire CTO Coach Software Review 338

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 17, 2017

He eventually founded and sold consumer health firm ViSalus to a public company and is now back making investments, in technology companies, as a venture capitalist here at Los Angeles-based HashtagOne (www.hashtagone.com). We want to have startups we can get productive or generating revenue pretty quickly. It's all about leverage.

Venture Capital 100

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Technical Review Software Review 100

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.

CTO Coach 231

CTO Coach CTO Hire Outsource Development Develop 231

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

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 19, 2009

The technology team disagrees on direction and wants resolutions. 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. There’s a guy in Los Angeles that I met at several tech networking events. I said that was my point.

Entrepreneur 414

Entrepreneur Technical Review Slides CTO Coach 414

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. in Computer Science.

Blogging 150

Blogging CTO Coach CTO Hire Southern California 150

socalTECH

OCTOBER 4, 2010

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. On the SAT/ACT side, in classroom tutoring, we have used our technology to automate the back office.

Software Review 178

Software Review Technical Review Education Startup 178

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

I continue to collect great content that is the intersection of startups, products, online and technology. The United States is now a debtor nation to China and that the bill is about to come due. So let’s be very specific: let’s assume your dream job is product manager at Google, working on the Analytics product.

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Startup Product Technology 175

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 22, 2012

Growth will slow, partly due to internal limits and partly because the company is starting to bump up against the limits of the markets it serves.” ” There’s an allowance for a period of time where there’s “slow or no growth” while you’re figuring things out. Business that are innovative.

Startup 390

Startup Venture Capital Entrepreneur Technical Review 390

SoCal CTO

MARCH 4, 2010

I’ve worked with 30+ early-stage companies in all sorts of capacities (and spoken to many, many more), so I thought it might be worthwhile trying to classify the various ways that I’ve engaged in different technology roles in startups. It depends on the business, people, technologies, etc. Each situation is just a bit different.

Technical Review 170

Technical Review Technical Advisors CTO Coach Startup 170

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. I reviewed an email from Kara Nortman, the CEO of Moonfrye who is working on putting together venture debt. I then traded emails with two former senior tech professionals in LA. Mavens & Super Mavens.

Networking 366

Networking Startup CTO Coach Email 366

SoCal CTO

APRIL 9, 2013

Are there particular technologies or platforms involved? And you will want to make sure you see what the particular designers have done, samples of their work product, their process, etc. Have they used the technologies that are involved in your project? What are the review periods? Or are you starting from scratch?

Web Development 204

Web Development Web Develop Development 204

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 19, 2013

Co-founder and CEO Matt Ehrlichman and CTO and co-founder Eric Schleicher sat down to talk to us about the new startup, which is split between San Diego and Seattle. Matt sold his last startup, Thriva, to Active Network, and was part of the team that build up Active Network until its successful IPO in 2011.

Startup 133

Startup Guide CTO Hire Organization 133

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 1, 2014

” Bill Gross, who is one of the Godfathers of the Internet, once told me, “ If you don’t design a product that is 10x better than the competition then you’ll never build anything truly big or amazing.” After 9 months it was time to raise seed capital and go test drive our new software and processes.

Technical Review 380

Technical Review Software Review CTO Hire Startup 380

socalTECH

JUNE 8, 2009

technology to make submitting expense reports extremely easy. We built a product that was really, really deep, meant for the business traveler, got rid of manual entry, allowed for cash transactions when you're out in the field, records receipt images from your Blackberry or iPhone type of camera. What's your company doing?

Web 2.0 100

Web 2.0 Startup SaaS Report 100

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: Postie is a building a technology platform with a mission of making direct mail marketing behave as easily and dynamically as your favorite, programmatic channels. What is Postie?

CTO Hire 100

CTO Hire Artificial Inteligence Technical Review Marketing 100

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 5, 2011

Seattle should be the envy of any non Silicon Valley tech community in the country. It really wouldn’t take much to turn a great technology ecosystem into a truly electric one. He listed all of the product releases that were up coming, the customers that were in the pipeline and where he saw his competition moving.

Venture Capital 317

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Press 317

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.

CTO Hire 248

CTO Hire Content Networking Web 248

socalTECH

JANUARY 2, 2014

You fill out the short questionnaire, lawyers submit their price quotes, and they get hired. In a long, convoluted way, the value proposition we bring to the client gives them many different options for lawyers they can choose from, not just based on price, but also based on their profile, experience levels, and client reviews.

Help 240

Help Startup CTO Hire Pricing 240

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 28, 2011

Some investors are team focused, others market focused, others seems to look for product / market fit. Only then can I even care about product, market or their nebulous “fit.&#. It’s my belief that through exceptional leadership you attract great teams that do more than the sum of the parts. Is it book smarts?

CTO Hire 363

CTO Hire Technical Review Startup Demand 363

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 23, 2012

The easy answer of splitting it equally among all co-founders, since there is minimal value at that point, is usually the worst possible answer, and often results in a later startup failure due to an obvious inequity. In the real world, the "idea" is a very small part of the overall equation. Sacrifice and time commitment.

Startup 101

Startup Entrepreneur Equity CTO Hire 101

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 8, 2010

The easy answer of splitting it equally among all co-founders, since there is minimal value at that point, is usually the worst possible answer, and often results in a later startup failure due to an obvious inequity. In the real world, the "idea" is a very small part of the overall equation. Sacrifice and time commitment.

Equity 91

Equity Startup CTO Hire CTO Coach 91