BDT.COM: David Beckemeyer

David Beckemeyer

Acting CTO Role

My role is to work as part of the team to (1) understand related technologies and technical opportunities, (2) understand and help drive alignment around a vision of where the business should go, and (3) mesh those together to help make disciplined, proactive technical decisions.

Basically, the role is to support both the business strategy and technical strategy.

Technical Strategy

Supporting the technical team:

review short and long-term technology strategies to help direct strategic technical decisions and help to ensure appropriate technology usage,
help define needed technical research activities,
assess new and emerging technologies to determine application to business needs,
help determine resource needs within business constraints,
review and influence business and technical processes to help balance competing needs and priorities.

Business Strategy

Supporting the leadership team:

provide input on short and long-term business vision, strategies and plans to help define business priorities,
work closely with operational leadership to review and influence the product road map,
review and provide input on some investor presentation materials, business proposals,
participate in new business, partnership or investor meetings on a limited basis within time constraints,
advise the leadership team on business practices that will help to derive greatest short-term and long-term value from the technical team and other resources.

Most of the time, my engagements start with an introductory meeting where I meet the team, understand the issues, etc. Then, we come to an agreement on terms. Then, I

Review existing materials

Business Plan
Marketing Plan
Marketing Materials
Product Plan / Roadmap
Current and Projected Financials
Business Pipeline
Team Member Bios / Resumes
Current Metrics
Roadmap

Normally there are crude documents for each of these areas that can be quickly read / scanned. If there aren't existing documents, then it means more time to extract the information.

Conduct meetings to ensure understanding and alignment around market opportunities, business model, sources of revenue, immediate needs, growth, product opportunities, and ultimately to establish business and product priorities.
Support operational and technical team to revise product roadmap
Review and discuss short-term and longer-term technical strategy, define technical research needs

This gets me going. Normally, its a burst of activity at the start and then things settle down into a pattern with bursts of activity at particular times.

Contact me.

Personal Sites

Lisa's Site

Social Software:

GPS stuff:

In-Car Navigation

The Beckemeyer Site