I’ve been having discussions with several people recently about the role of the CTO (Chief Technology Officer) in very early stage companies. I recently read a post that called this a Consulting CTO and suggested: Founders of startups use a consulting CTO when they have business vision but limited knowledge of the technology needed to launch their company. That same post said that finding part-time, consulting CTOs is fairly hard. 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

via: Mobile RSS Email Alerts Bios: Dion’s Bio January 20th, 2010 The social Web in 2010: The emerging standards and technologies to watch Posted by Dion Hinchcliffe @ 10:38 am Categories: ATOM , Badges , Blogs , Collaboration , Community , Convergence , Enterprise Web 2.0 , Gadgets , Identity 2.0 , Lightweight Service Models , Open APIs , Products , RSS , SaaS , Small Pieces, Loosely Joined , Social Computing , Social Media , Social Networking , Social Software , Social media

We’re living in the age of modern technology and there is no way to crowdsource someone’s penis or vagina? I’ve found the straw that’s breaking the camel’s back when it comes to bridging the gap between dating and technology. Or will a dark horse technology company situated in a random brick-walled office in San Francisco finally find a way for us all to spot the weirdos before we’re on date six with them? I mean, what the hell is that about?

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. I thought it was worth capturing a bit more about Advisory Roles, Advisory Boards and particularly Technology-Oriented Advisors – who are often thought of a bit different when it comes to those roles. Actually, if you look back, advisory boards came from being Technical Advisory Boards where the advisors were primarily professors, researchers, experienced practitioners

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. 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. He posted on several social networking sites the following message: If you know of a startup company that could benefit from the knowledge, experience, professional

If you’re not familiar with the term it’s basically trying to help all of us who are deluged with technology to find ways to cope with the masses of information without having it ruin our lives. Tags: Entrepreneur Advice Start-up Advice Startup Advice startup technology v A couple of years ago I read the popular book, “The Four Hour Workweek ” by Tim Ferriss.  It It was recommended to me by my friend, Net Jacobsson , who was trying to do some basic Life Hacking .  If

There are several new marketing trends for 2010 that will have an impact on practically every marketing organization because of new trends in customer behavior, such as: New technologies for communicating with customers Let's take a look at the major marketing trends for 2010 that will affect both business-to-business (B2B) and consumer (B2C) companies so we can update our marketing strategies Shift in consumer mentality from recession to recovery Changes in how customers make purchase decisions

This is purely anecdotal, but it seems like a lot of companies are hiring technology talent here in Southern California. I’ve recently seen several tweets from software development companies looking for talent. And I’ve heard from several people looking for Startup Software Developers . And we have been looking to hire several positions (but are being really picky

It might be a VP of Sales, Marketing or Technology.  Or File this under entrepreneurial advice I know that this will sound like a random post topic for startup advice but I promise it’s relevant.  You You actually need to give advice to nearly every employee whom you offer a job to on how to best quit their job.  This

Talk us through how the person using your product is benefiting through your technology.  Don’t: Most people suck at presenting to big groups.  It’s It’s a shame because the ability to nail these presentations at key conferences can be once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to influence journalists, business partners, potential employees, customers and VCs. This was evident at the Twiistup pre-event company