I generally am working as an acting CTO for about 3-4 start-ups or other companies at any one time. Most often I'm being brought in the early stage, Start-up or Expansion (as the company looks at new product lines). My focus in this post is on the Early and Start-up stages - expansion is more of a consulting, focused project role and it acts different. I was just talking with someone who asked me to define how that could work and what they meant. Great question.

This is part of my ongoing series “ Start-up Lessons. ” Imagine you pour 5 years of your life into your next gig and it starts to become successful.  Would 8221;  The problem is that you’re opening yourself up to a claim by one of these people that you somehow stole their ideas.  I 8221;  If you want to subscribe to my RSS feed please click here or to get my blog by email click here . In the Beginning …

This is part of my ongoing series called “ Start-up Lessons .” I came across this blog post about getting a computer science degree as the best degree for getting into venture capital or working at a VC-backed start up. BCG, Bain, LEK – they’re all great), a few years at a start-up or a few years somewhere like Microsoft, Google, Amazon or Apple.  8221; I

I started my first company in 1999 in London at the height of the dot com craze.  We It didn’t add up to me.  How We’re all scared that the next round of funding won’t come. Bad morale is the enemy of any company let alone a start up.” This is part of my ongoing series Startup Lessons Building companies is hard work.  I

Tags: Pitching VCs Start-up Advic This is part of my ongoing series Pitching a VC. Last Last night I attended a DealMaker Media (whom I love because they always host such great discussions) panel on raising angel money moderated by Dan Gould and with panelists Rob Hayes (First Round Capital, more seed or A round than angel), Scot Sangster (with OrganicStartup and [...] ...Tags:

Good idea & plan: You must start with a good idea and a PowerPoint deck (my outline is here , scroll down mid way).  Jarl Very few people fund individuals.  I And a great product starts with the founder. Quick caveats: having fewer investors (3-5) is better This is part of my ongoing series Pitching a VC . Last night I attended a DealMaker Media (whom I love because they always host such great discussions) panel on raising angel money moderated by Dan Gould and with panelists Rob Hayes (First Round Capital, more seed or A round than angel), Scot Sangster (with

There’s a great meme developing this morning on the need to simplify funding terms and documents.  The Tags: Pitching VCs Start-up Advic This is part of my ongoing series “Pitching a VC“. There’s The meme was kicked off by Chris Dixon with this post saying that term sheets need to be simplified and align investor / founder interests.  That

There’s a great meme developing this morning on the need to simplify funding terms and documents.  The believe that there is a new breed of VC emerging including True Ventures, Founder’s Fund, Union Square Ventures, Foundry Group and several others that have this founder / investor alignment ethos.  I One very important item from Chris’s original post that wasn’t picked up by Fred or Brad is founder vesting.  Chris This is part of my ongoing series “ Pitching a VC “. The meme was kicked off by Chris Dixon with this post saying that term

Francisco Dao came up with the idea of letting 10 companies that weren’t selected for Twiistup to do a presentation the night before to a group of people and let the audience pick one company to win the final slot at Twiistup.  I I’ll put up the video when they post it on their website. Many of them have their iPhones and laptops 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

When to get a lawyer - If you plan to be a venture or angel backed technology company (what I mostly write about) the best time to start meeting and getting to know lawyers is long before you ever start your company.  Many people start companies arse backwards.  They get together with a few buddies, bounce around ideas, build some code (sometimes I recently read a post over on VentureHacks titled, “ Top Ten Reasons Entrepreneurs Hate Lawyers ” written by Scott Walker (who blogs on legal issues for entrepreneurs ).  I know that people have an allergy to lawyers