Technical Co-Founder
Often when the "Technical Co-Founder" label is applied it is done so in contrast to the responsibilities of the other founding members. The Technical member Builds. The other members Sell. In fact, the only two roles in the early days of a startup are Sellers and...
CTO vs. Principal Engineer
There's a funny thing about titles in the startup space. Titles are cheap and equally meaningless. I find it useful to take a given title and then calibrate against the size of the organization. A CTO of startup with less than 10 people does not do the same job as...
Goal Setting
KPIs, KRIs, OKRs Oh My! There are good reasons why everyone talks about these things. When done properly they really work! You are what you measure. When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.Yet, there's truth in Goodhart's Law. It comes...
Recruiting and Hiring
Congratulations! You've Made It! You've got big opportunities in the pipeline. Your business is growing, so now's the time to expand your technical team. But as leader of this organization you're missing the experience and knowledge required to evaluate technical...
Strategy and Tactics
Why - How - What We've all seen the Simon Sineck Why - How - What video. Most come away from that with a powerful insight into marketing messaging. We came away with a second order idea about abstractions and the power of shifting time scales with asking the right...
Startup Advice
Asking for Help is a Good Sign Too many startup founders believe that they need to have all the answers. Too many struggle and end up learning things the hard way. Too many. Including me. In the past three years I've changed my habit and instead I'm freely sharing...