I met a business guy who explained his attitude to tech guys to me, over a number of meeting about starting a venture.
- Tech guys can just sit back once the website is built and cash in forever, while the marketing and business guys have to keep on the ball.
- You can rent an army of developers in Eastern Europe for no money at all. He had 30 guys doing his one-pager color split testing for him.
- All the value is in the marketing and supply chain. He's 80% of the value and feels screwed giving the tech people 25%.
The sad reality is that the "business" guys are often clueless because they don't understand the ecosystem in which their technology functions - note that I'm not saying they're clueless because they don't understand the technology - rather that they're clueless because they don't understand technical sales, or the cost and benefit of development decisions - and if they view technologists as "a bunch of nerds who know nothing about business" - they're in trouble. Technologists don't need to know much about business to be able to provide valuable information that should sculpt your decision-making.
A good business guy realises that the right technical backing and understanding is essential in today's world - if you don't understand the technology, or the impact that your business decisions have on your development - i.e. the costs they incur vs. the marginal benefit - and you're not prepared to talk to your technology team because you view them as valueless... you are unequivocally screwed, because you'll end up coded into a corner with your development staff walking out on you, your customers let down, and you on the hook.
Many (most?) of the business guys who you end up talking with in those situations are idiots. The ones that can execute often already are, and aren't wasting their time doing cofounder dating.
Likewise by the time you're scrounging around looking for technical cofounders, you're at meetups and startup weekends, and most capable technical folks never end up going to those - they're either happy in their current situation, or working on something of their own.
The ones that can execute often already are, and aren't wasting their time doing cofounder dating.
The same can be said about programmers, I guess. What a horrible attitude.
FYI: many startups fail because the founders don't have a clue that a business involves far more than writing code. Sometimes you need "people skills", and when you think you're God's gift to a business, you're probably lacking there.
I thought I'd addressed that with "Likewise by the time you're scrounging around looking for technical cofounders, you're at meetups and startup weekends, and most capable technical folks never end up going to those".
I'm not at all saying everyone who is at every networking even is a total loser. Far from it. I've met some interesting folks at events over the years (cofounder dating, meetups, startup weekends, etc). But I also tend to meet a disproportionate number of "idea folks" who try to push NDAs before telling you about their next "big idea".
And on the tech side, there's usually a few tech god/wizard folks who can literally do almost anything with a few keystrokes, and other people who are just getting started, have a lynda.com or treehouse account, and want to hack away. It's not necessarily a bad attitude to have, but usually the skills aren't enough to execute enough to get traction.
I'm sometimes surprised at how far people get with so little, and those are the people I tend to want to work with or help out in some way - regardless of the industry/work/project. I like working with people who can get stuff done. It's just harder to do that at many networking events, because the people who are 'getting stuff done' usually don't have time for those events because they're getting stuff done.
Couldn't tell if you meant "horrible attitude" at me directly because of the comment or what.??
I think where you really want to work is a team where nobody considers anyone else surplus to requirements. Everyone has an understanding of the other fields, even if they are not directly involved.
With this particular guy, I don't think his shop relied much on tech excellence. He talked a lot about how to show people ads that were against the ToS for various platforms. Of course if you're doing that, you won't think that tech is providing any value.
True. The technical person can always claim that SEO and call-calling is easy and one can hire an army of cheap labor to do that once the product is ready.
Comments
I met a business guy who explained his attitude to tech guys to me, over a number of meeting about starting a venture.
- Tech guys can just sit back once the website is built and cash in forever, while the marketing and business guys have to keep on the ball. - You can rent an army of developers in Eastern Europe for no money at all. He had 30 guys doing his one-pager color split testing for him. - All the value is in the marketing and supply chain. He's 80% of the value and feels screwed giving the tech people 25%.
Funnily enough we never got that one launched.
The sad reality is that the "business" guys are often clueless because they don't understand the ecosystem in which their technology functions - note that I'm not saying they're clueless because they don't understand the technology - rather that they're clueless because they don't understand technical sales, or the cost and benefit of development decisions - and if they view technologists as "a bunch of nerds who know nothing about business" - they're in trouble. Technologists don't need to know much about business to be able to provide valuable information that should sculpt your decision-making.
A good business guy realises that the right technical backing and understanding is essential in today's world - if you don't understand the technology, or the impact that your business decisions have on your development - i.e. the costs they incur vs. the marginal benefit - and you're not prepared to talk to your technology team because you view them as valueless... you are unequivocally screwed, because you'll end up coded into a corner with your development staff walking out on you, your customers let down, and you on the hook.
There are also plenty of "business guys" who know very little about business
Flip side is most tech guys think the business guy is an idiot. people suck at realizing other disciplines have worth.
Many (most?) of the business guys who you end up talking with in those situations are idiots. The ones that can execute often already are, and aren't wasting their time doing cofounder dating.
Likewise by the time you're scrounging around looking for technical cofounders, you're at meetups and startup weekends, and most capable technical folks never end up going to those - they're either happy in their current situation, or working on something of their own.
Two economists are walking down the sidewalk. One looks down and sees a 100 dollar bill on the ground in front of them.
"Look," he exclaims to his friend, "a $100 bill!"
"Nonsense," remarks the other, "if there was a $100 on the sidewalk, someone would have already seen it and picked it up."
The same can be said about programmers, I guess. What a horrible attitude.
FYI: many startups fail because the founders don't have a clue that a business involves far more than writing code. Sometimes you need "people skills", and when you think you're God's gift to a business, you're probably lacking there.
I thought I'd addressed that with "Likewise by the time you're scrounging around looking for technical cofounders, you're at meetups and startup weekends, and most capable technical folks never end up going to those".
I'm not at all saying everyone who is at every networking even is a total loser. Far from it. I've met some interesting folks at events over the years (cofounder dating, meetups, startup weekends, etc). But I also tend to meet a disproportionate number of "idea folks" who try to push NDAs before telling you about their next "big idea".
And on the tech side, there's usually a few tech god/wizard folks who can literally do almost anything with a few keystrokes, and other people who are just getting started, have a lynda.com or treehouse account, and want to hack away. It's not necessarily a bad attitude to have, but usually the skills aren't enough to execute enough to get traction.
I'm sometimes surprised at how far people get with so little, and those are the people I tend to want to work with or help out in some way - regardless of the industry/work/project. I like working with people who can get stuff done. It's just harder to do that at many networking events, because the people who are 'getting stuff done' usually don't have time for those events because they're getting stuff done.
Couldn't tell if you meant "horrible attitude" at me directly because of the comment or what.??
You mean there isn't something wrong with me for not being in a constant networking-extrovert mode? :p
I think where you really want to work is a team where nobody considers anyone else surplus to requirements. Everyone has an understanding of the other fields, even if they are not directly involved.
With this particular guy, I don't think his shop relied much on tech excellence. He talked a lot about how to show people ads that were against the ToS for various platforms. Of course if you're doing that, you won't think that tech is providing any value.
True. The technical person can always claim that SEO and call-calling is easy and one can hire an army of cheap labor to do that once the product is ready.
Everyone thinking every other kind of role is worthless is one of the things I've persistently seen ruin and even kill companies.