= About StartupCTO = **Welcome!** StartupCTO is dedicated to helping technology startups and other small development teams create better software, faster. Building good software quickly is hard, and even companies as large and experienced as Google have trouble with it. In my work as a software engineer at various startups here in the Bay Area, many people I’ve talked to say that it’s a bit of a ‘black art’... there is a lot of theoretical knowledge out there, but not that much practical guidance. And much of what is out there is hidden away in books and distributed via seminars, neither of which are easily Googleable ([[http://books.google.com/|Google Book Search]] notwithstanding). With the articles, how-to guides, and templates on this site, I hope to give everyone insight into this mysterious art and a leg up on their own projects. I do know that I don’t have all the answers, and I’d like to encourage you to post comments on the content. I also occasionally accept guest posts on topics of interest; email me if you have something you'd like to share and we can discuss it. If you’d like more background on me, visit [[http://www.ordal.com/|my personal website]], or my [[http://www.linkedin.com/in/dordal|LinkedIn Profile]]. The two companies I run are [[https://www.exavault.com/|ExaVault]] (a business file transfer platform) and [[https://www.everbooked.com/|Everbooked]] (pricing and market analytics for vacation rentals). If you have any questions or comments, please get in touch! Happy Coding, **David Ordal david -at- ordal.com**