Marcelo Calbucci

It's surprising how few events there are (if any) for those building startups using .NET. There are lots of .NET events for enterprise and ISVs / VAR. Even thought Microsoft built the BizSpark initiative, which is awesome at supporting startups by addressing one of their main concerns (cost of software), there is not events who are community driven that allows startups to share experiences with other startups. Until now!

Today I'm kicking of the Dot Net Startup meetup and the Dot Net Startup discussion list.

1) Register for the first meetup:

• Dot Net Startup Meetup
• Speaker: Scott Porad, CTO at Cheezburger Network
• Talk: Framework for Setup and Best Practices 
• When: Tuesday, February 7 - 6:00 PM
• RSVP:  http://www.dotnetstartup.com/events/49927842/  

2) Join the discussion list:

• http://groups.google.com/group/dotnetstartup

Let me know if you have suggestions on how to make the meetup and discussion list ultra-valuable, and let your friends who are doing (or planning on doing) a startup know about it.

This is a bit nitpick of me, or not, but I see a lot of entrepreneurs who put “CEO at XYZ” on their LinkedIn profile. That’s a big mistake in my view. It gives the impression – for some people, not all – that you are a professional manager. It’s even stranger when your previous job was “Dev Lead at Microsoft” and now it says “CEO at XYZ”. The right title should always contain the word “Founder” or “Co-Founder” (if you are one that is). So call yourself “Co-founder & CEO”.

Why? Well, I think of the CEO as the “manager” and founder as the “entrepreneur”. Missing the second part is the most common on LinkedIn profiles of startup founders. Being a founder / co-founder tells the world that you started it. Seldom have I seen just “Founder”, but sometimes I do, and this founder also being the CEO is missing a great opportunity to simplify the life of whoever is reading their bio.

Then there is the “Founder, CEO, President & Chairman of XYZ”. I guess you kind of overdid there my friend. Keep it simple “Founder & CEO” or “Co-founder & CEO” are my preferred way to describe that role (same for the CTO co-founder).

The one title that I like the least is “Co-founder & COO”. A two or three person startup having a COO is just crazy! This means the COO wanted a big title, but the CEO title was taken. If you and your co-founder CEO both have a business background (versus a product background), you guys probably have one more business person than you should on the team. Either one of you must learn and become the VP of Product (or CPO nowadays), or you better raise a lot of money fast to justify this org-chart.

EveryMove is kicking off the year with a bang! And by a “bang” I mean an incredible opportunity for me, for our team members and for a few new team members to build a very disruptive company tackling a big systemic problem around a person’s physical activity. If you are passionate about building software that makes a big impact in millions of lives, including your own, check out the job opportunities at EveryMove (and let your friends know about them as well).