"Technology, however, isn’t the driver any more for [most] startups."
Well that is marginally better, but it still assumes a certain kind of startup as evinced by the statement "that marketing influences the community that floods the site,".
You don't need a "flood" of a site by a "community" to have a successful startup. You need customers . Whether customers are pulled in my deliberate "marketing" or technological superiority providing differential capability depends on the exact offering.
If you confine the technology behind a startup to things like using open source CMS es as "building blocks", then of course technology and programming are commodities, and the "scarce talent" is indeed marketing, not programming.
I could continue, but my original point was that it was an over broad generalization, which is addressed if you are talking about the kinds of startups using off the shelf building blocks as their "technology" and have no real technological differentiator, and therefore don't need excellent programmers (who are very hard to find- just ask anyone running a "non cms" startup.)
Under those circumstances, (in other words, with a narrower focus than implied in the original sentence ) the original claim is completely valid. Under those assumptions, technology is not the driver and "scarce talent" is indeed marketing. I concede the argument.
Yeah, I think there's a narrower focus than what might have been originally implied. I'll let John come in tomorrow and clarify, but most of what John and I deal with are either Web startups or tech sector directly related to web (cloud, hardware, consulting, analysis firms, social media and design firms, iPhone design firms, Facebook development houses, ad agencies that monetize one or more of the aforementioned company types).
This is our world, and though the Silicon Valley startup world encompasses more than these types of companies, this is what was likely in his mind when he wrote it (and the context by which I interpreted the post).
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"Technology, however, isn’t the driver any more for [most] startups."
Well that is marginally better, but it still assumes a certain kind of startup as evinced by the statement "that marketing influences the community that floods the site,".
You don't need a "flood" of a site by a "community" to have a successful startup. You need customers . Whether customers are pulled in my deliberate "marketing" or technological superiority providing differential capability depends on the exact offering.
If you confine the technology behind a startup to things like using open source CMS es as "building blocks", then of course technology and programming are commodities, and the "scarce talent" is indeed marketing, not programming.
I could continue, but my original point was that it was an over broad generalization, which is addressed if you are talking about the kinds of startups using off the shelf building blocks as their "technology" and have no real technological differentiator, and therefore don't need excellent programmers (who are very hard to find- just ask anyone running a "non cms" startup.)
Under those circumstances, (in other words, with a narrower focus than implied in the original sentence ) the original claim is completely valid. Under those assumptions, technology is not the driver and "scarce talent" is indeed marketing. I concede the argument.
Yeah, I think there's a narrower focus than what might have been originally implied. I'll let John come in tomorrow and clarify, but most of what John and I deal with are either Web startups or tech sector directly related to web (cloud, hardware, consulting, analysis firms, social media and design firms, iPhone design firms, Facebook development houses, ad agencies that monetize one or more of the aforementioned company types).
This is our world, and though the Silicon Valley startup world encompasses more than these types of companies, this is what was likely in his mind when he wrote it (and the context by which I interpreted the post).