Starting a company that delivers a digital product or service has become MUCH easier than it used to be. Many formerly complicated and expensive building blocks, like website creation and hosting, payment integration, or database management have become commodities.

However, there still is a lot of stuff you need to know when getting started. When is it OK to use an off-the-shelf solution, and when do you need to build something yourself? How do you identify good IT services or staff? What is a software setup for running your company that doesn't cost a fortune but will grow with your needs? At what time should you consider cheaper softare development in eastern Europe, and how does that work?

Much of this cannot - and should not - simply be delegated to the CTO. Even less so since many founders start out without a CTO, meaning that - like it or not - some technical decisions need to be made by the CEO himself.

With Stephan Schmidt (CTO brands4friends, Blogger codemonkeyism.com), Markus Kempkes (ex-Microsoft, Sapient, coder) and Konstantin Mitrofanskiy (CEO intellisoft, Kiev), we're bringing in three highly experienced IT Gurus to give you an injection of essential startup IT know-how. After keynotes and Q&A, make use of the opportunity to sit down with them and talk about the IT challenges you're currently facing with your company.