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. ( Roger Smith ) This helps explain where I normally play. During Stabilization, often the focus is transitioning to a full-time CTO. I was just talking with someone who asked me to define how that could work and what they meant. Great question.

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. However, I’ve now begun questioning how and what an early-stage / startup CTO Most often at the earliest point in the life of a startup, the dominant need is certainly to produce product to get something in the market, get funding, etc.

Mark is a CTO, see, and his company, PortBlue , was recently acquired (congrats, Mark!). LA CTO Forum – This is a private community of CTOs in the southern California area. Tags: Technology Web Startup Advice CTO internet startup los angeles marketing networking startup army tech networking technology networkin My friend Mark Long recently asked me about networking in Los Angeles. After transitioning to the new team, Mark was left to wonder, what now?

Based on my posts Startup CTO or Developer and Acting CTO , Chris O’Meara wrote an interesting post Startup CTO: Could It Work? Chris starts with a description of the person that pretty much every startup is looking for: Their primary characteristics are deep technical skills and a hacker mentality. They tend to understand the product management side of the product well enough to guide the technology in a complementary way. I think that's the person you need. I love blog conversations. They tend to have the knack for architecture.

I just got done reading a post by Roger Ehrenberg Advice for CTO Founders: Don't Let Business Kill the Business where he suggests that CTO Founders should not move too early in finding a business cofounder: Too often, however, I have found CTO / Founders paired with business people who not only don't add value, but frequently detract from the value of the business. This is not only sad but incredibly frustrating, because it is so easy to see how a great technology can be developed and commercialized if only - if only the CTO hadn't been impulsive and insecure and

Home About Press IA Capital Partners Archives After 17 years in M&A, Derivatives and Trading, Im spending my time with young entrepreneurs in and around financial technology and digital media.... Vaultive « Are Derivatives the Real Problem? | Main February 23, 2010 Advice for CTO Founders: Dont Let Business Kill the Business Founding a technology company is an amazing thing. Read more » Recent Press The New York Times April 22, 2009 - A Company Plans to Market Illiquid Assets CNBC.com April 8, 2008 - Social Stock Picking Reuters April 6, 2009 - Bit.ly

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,

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

Just a quick note that I'll be moderating a Technology Council Event : Social Networking as a Business Strategy May 19, 2009 - Culver City Social networking media are used on a daily basis to grow businesses and expand career opportunities. Tony Karrer, CEO/CTO of TechEmpower Speaker Bios: Jason Oberfest, Senior Vice President, Business Development of MySpace Jason Oberfest is Senior Vice President, Business Development at MySpace, as well as SVP and GM, MySpace Open Platform. Individuals use social networking sites such as LinkedIn and Plaxo as career-advancing tools, even more useful in a down economy.

Last Friday, the LA CTO Forum hosted a discussion on the various metrics used to measure ourselves and our companies. Tags: Startups Technology analyze cto engineering LA CTO Forum measure measurement metric metrics repor I was asked to participate, and eagerly dug into my archives. I