Monthly Archives: February 2015

Recruiting a CTO Co-Founder for Your Startup

Recruiting a CTO from The Startup Garage

Recruiting a CTO Co-Founder for Your Startup

Many technology based startups are founded by entrepreneurs without technical backgrounds.

The tech companies that are successful,
quickly realize the importance of bringing on a technical co-founder.

The biggest mistake that a non-tech entrepreneur can make when launching a tech business is to neglect bringing on a tech savvy co-founder very early on. Otherwise, it is like launching a bakery or restaurant without a chef.

The benefits of having a CTO as part of your founding team are extensive:

  • A CTO can put together a technology plan with technical specifications, high level system architecture, wireframes, timeline, and budget.
  • A CTO can hire a development team to build the idea and determine if an in-house or outsourced development team would be best.
  • A CTO understands the code and backend features that will allow him/her to update your technology going forward.
  • A CTO significantly reduces risk for investors and therefor increases your likelihood of successfully raising capital.

    • The biggest challenge with finding a qualified CTO (i.e. experienced developers and/or engineers with strong project management skills) is that they are in high demand and have many employment options in front of them.

    Below are a few tips to help you successfully recruit a CTO co-founder:

    1. Be a leader. Whether you are bringing on a CTO co-founder, an investor, or an employee, people like to rally behind leaders. Your passion for your product, your financial and time commitment to your company, and your ultimate belief in the solution that you offer will go further towards rallying people for your cause than anything else.
    2. Demonstrate the opportunity. Surely a co-founder wants to be compensated for their work, either in equity, salary, or a combination of both. However, a co-founder is more interested in the potential impact the company can have. Similar to investors, co-founders want to know that your product solves a major problem in the marketplace, that you are differentiated from your competition, and that you have tested and proved your assumptions. In many ways, your business plan is as useful of a tool for attracting talented team members as it is for attracting investment.
    3. Constantly be searching. Similar to applying for jobs, you cannot leave any stone unturned when searching for a co-founder. Start by leveraging your LinkedIn network. First, look for people in your network that might be potential candidates. Next, look into your network’s network and ask for introductions to potential candidates. You can also look into sites that match entrepreneurs with sought after talent such as Startup Agents or CoFounders Lab. Lastly, attend as many startup networking events, meetups, and conferences as possible. You never know who will be that next person you exchange business cards with.
    4. Define Your Criteria and Evaluate Candidates. It is important to understand what you are looking for in a co-founder before you begin your search. Start by determining minimum expertise and skill requirements, desired personality traits, and key roles the person must be able to perform. You may want to start this process by looking at yourself and identifying your gaps and weaknesses. Additionally, you will need to have thought through the compensation plan for this individual. Are they receiving equity, a salary, a mix of the two? Is their equity position vested based on key milestones and company benchmarks? If so, what are the terms of the vesting schedule?
    If you have a question about your Startup or you’d like to discuss our business plan writing services, feel free to contact us for a free consultation!

    Artificial Intelligence: The Trend For Tech Startups

    Artificial Intelligence From The Startup Garage

    Artificial Intelligence: The Trend For Tech Startups

    Looking to get funded in 2015?

    Why not add some elements of the “The Terminator” & “The Matrix” to your Startup Business model.

    Funding increased 302% for Artificial Intelligence (AI) Startups in 2014. Pouring in over $309.2 million in over 40 deals. That’s more than 20-fold in just 4 years from $14.9 million in 2010.

    Artificial Intelligence Startups are those that work in NLP, machine learning, deep learning and predictive APIs among other core applications.

    The rebirth and mini-boom of an Artificial Intelligence industry can give thanks to iconic tech entrepreneurs and investors like Microsoft, Facebook, Google, and Amazon. Google set the funding stage in January 2014 with $400M acquisition of Deep Mind Technologies.

    Deep Minds Technology’s recent achievement includes a computer that learns how to play video games similar to humans, while possibly mimicking short-term memory of the brain.

    It’s examples like these, which mesh together science fiction and startup innovation, that has investor interest in A1 so hot. “Many AI companies have raised significant money without any product plans.” Said Scaled Inference Inc. Founder Olcan Sercinoglu.

    Falling technology costs have also helped catapult AI startups. Processing large amounts of data, the core of AI work, is now cheaper as computer chips have gotten faster and the costs associated with storing and accessing data have dropped.

    The backbone of any great startup is “What Problem Inspired Your Business? And What is your Solution.” AI Startups ultimately provide clever tools to solve both corporate and consumer problems. “Solving Intelligence,” by building learning algorithms to better understand and predict human behavior, among other uses.

    Consumers and investors alike are witnessing and investing in, computer brains or AI tools, resulting in an increasingly powerful edge to the information age.

    The evolution of human super intelligence is at a noticeable tipping point, set to have a massive impact at both an individual and global scale. As a Startup Entrepreneur the questions remains will you be part of the problem? or part of the solution?

    If you have a question about your Startup or you’d like to discuss our business plan writing services, feel free to contact us for a free consultation!