How to Find, Select, and Build your Co-Founding Team

This meeting is co-sponsored by the IEEE Boston Consultants’ Network

Are you a hacker?  Or are you a hustler?  Success in startups requires both.  Some of the most successful founder teams are two-person teams (Wozniak and Jobs among them) where one founder (the hacker) is more technical, and the other (the hustler) is more business-oriented. The hacker is a problem solver who can make the technology work to meet the needs of customers, and do it efficiently. The hustler is a team builder who can orchestrate marketing, sales, and operations. Sometimes teams have three, four or even more founders, but that can get unwieldy, and decisions often gravitate toward two leaders in the group.  Most common are single founders, and they too can be successful (Zuckerberg, for example), but it’s important that the single founder quickly build a core team to fill in the gaps that aren’t his strengths.  

In this meeting, our expert panel will take up co-founders and core team issues such as

• How do you find co-founders?  How do you recruit a core team?  
• As you build and maintain your team, how do you protect your interests? If someone leaves the team, can you get all or most of their stock back? Other issues include relations with past employers, ownership of IP, keeping trade secrets, etc.
•  How do you manage the expectations of founders, core team, as well as investors?

Agenda:

6:30-7:30 PM – Registration & networking

7:30-7:40 PM – ENET Chairman’s announcements

7:40-7:55 PM – eMinute – Up to 3 Startup companies’ presentations

7:55-8:45 PM – 4 expert speakers on the night’s topic

8:45-9:00 PM – Audience / Speakers Q & A

900-930 PM – Final networking includes meeting presenting speakers

A question and answer session follow the presentation, and panelists will be available afterwards for responses to individual questions. As with every ENET meeting you will also get the chance to network with the panelists and other meeting attendees, both before the start of the meeting and afterwards.

Speakers:

Ken Steinberg, CEO/Founder, Cambridge Research & Development CEO/Founder, Clinicalbid

Mr. Steinberg has over 35 years of experience developing technology in a variety of verticals including supercomputing, data communications, cybersecurity, robotics, healthcare informatics, and data analytics. He has served in capacity as both scientist, engineering and manager for companies such as Cambridge Research & Development, National Science
Foundation (John Von Neumann Supercomputing Center, Princeton NJ), GE, Hitachi, Hughes, Softbank, and Digital Equipment Corporation. Ken is currently the CEO of Cambridge R & D as well as the CEO & Co-founder of ClinicalBid.

Rob Ciampa, CEO & Co-Founder, WePlayed 

Rob came up through the Italian restaurant and wine business in Boston’s historic North End to become an entrepreneur, provocative business speaker, best-selling book author, successful product, sales, and marketing executive, and now CEO of WePlayed, a sports video social platform powered by athletes, fans, and data science. He brought more than eighty products and services to market that generated nearly $2 billion in worldwide revenue. Rob has degrees in computer science, electrical engineering, and business management; holds patents in data transmission, analytics, and visualization; and thinks crafting garage vermouth is much more difficult than programming in Python.

Adrienne Bolger, CTO, BlocHealth

8+ years of software engineering experience. FMR Lead Software Engineer at Readcoor Inc. Previously worked at InterSystems & BionX Medical Technologies. Holds a MS in Engineering & BS in Computer Science from MIT.

Moderator and Organizer:

Dave Hall, CEO & Co-Founder DLH Tech Advisors, Salesforce& Startup Consultant, Revenue Marketing, and  Business Development

Dave Hall is the consummate Sales, Business Development, Start-up Marketing and Entrepreneurial Professional, living in the Salesforce Community since 2010. He co-founded Kona DataSearch to enhance the productivity of the search experience in Salesforce, and he’s now started DLH Technology Advisors to help ISVs and Sis drive sales, marketing and top line revenue.

A native or Worcester, MA, Dave’s career started as a Mechanical Engineer out of the University of New Hampshire, working for Teradyne Connections in Nashua, NH. With 15 years running his own rep business, Dave worked with multiple verticals including Industrial, Medical Device, Electronics, Robotics, Defense and Med-Tech accounts. Dave has worked at several high-tech firms including Fujitsu Consulting, Attivio and Elevated Resources. He’s always been passionate about driving deal flow and now advises other start-ups to support their marketing, brand awareness and Go-to-Market requirements.

Dave is a huge Salesforce evangelist, attending user groups, meet-ups, and cloud tour events to speak with folks face-to-face about Salesforce and the cloud platform. A certified coffee, golf and tennis addict, he enjoys the competitive aspect of all sports. Dave has taken his passion for golf and has been the director of the annual FRAXA charity golf tournament since 1990.