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Ask HN: How did you transition yourself from Software Developer to Business?

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Re: Ask HN: How did you transition yourself from Software Developer to Business?

#5

Post by icey »

Largely dependent on what you mean by "business man", but going from dev to sales can be as easy as transitioning to a sales engineering / solutions architect role and getting exposure to closing deals that way. The next leap you'd make is figuring out how to get into a closing role; which will take a little patience in order to find a good fit (namely: a company willing to put someone with engineering experience in a closing role -- they're out there!).

If you mean other parts of the business (operations, finance, BD, etc), the pattern is probably similar -- find a technical role that's in that org and start there, with the intention of moving into the business side more and more.

If you mean "I'm a software developer and want to understand the business side of running a company better", there is a ton of reading you can do to learn how businesses work. Some books that were helpful to me:

  * The 4 Steps to Epiphany by Steve Blank
  * How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie 
  * The Personal MBA by Josh Kaufman
  * The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber
  * Venture Deals by Brad Feld
Ultimately business skills are gained the same way you'd learn software skills -- self-study combined with exposure to the problems you're interested in solving.

Re: Ask HN: How did you transition yourself from Software Developer to Business?

#6

Post by spo81rty »

It is hard. I still struggle with this myself. The first thing you have to do is stop writing code. You have to get comfortable letting someone else handle that side of it.

You have to learn to focus more on sales, marketing, and growing the company... not little details about the code.

Re: Ask HN: How did you transition yourself from Software Developer to Business?

#8

Post by everdev »

I had a college degree in business, but as a contractor I started saying yes to more work than I could handle myself which forced me to hire contractors.

As others mentioned, you have to stop writing as much code and start QAing or PMing more which takes practice.

But the short answer is, don't turn down work and be prepared to work a ton while you're still part time coding and part time managing.

Re: Ask HN: How did you transition yourself from Software Developer to Business?

#9

Post by justherefortart »

alfiedotwtf wrote: post #7

HN: > Ask HN: How did you transition yourself from Software Developer to Business man? > from Software Developer to Business man? > Business man? > man? Also HN: Why do women feel excluded from IT?

My guess is, he's referring to himself.

Also, why bother posting this?

Re: Ask HN: How did you transition yourself from Software Developer to Business?

#10

Post by alfiedotwtf »

justherefortart wrote: post #9
alfiedotwtf wrote: post #7

HN: > Ask HN: How did you transition yourself from Software Developer to Business man? > from Software Developer to Business man? > Business man? > man? Also HN: Why do women feel excluded from IT?

My guess is, he's referring to himself. Also, why bother posting this?

OP was asking a question in general. If people can't see what the problem is, I think we're done here.
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