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Ask HN: Best business advice for software developers

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Re: Ask HN: Best business advice for software developers

#151

Post by wyc »

horsecaptin wrote: post #146
Kenji wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Remember that the most economical tool for the job is often not the coolest or trendiest - but is some old boring workhorse that other engineers will scoff at. When I read this, a voice in my head yelled PHP.

These days Ruby on Rails is fairly orderly as well.

Wrote about this here in an article titled Just Build it in Django or Rails:

https://www.wyc.io/posts/just-build-it-in-django-or-rails/

It's just really hard to beat the reliability, community, ecosystem, and features that are table stakes when using a competent web framework.

When you're poking at a new market, you really don't have time to give a shit about writing CSRF middleware. That's one less customer interview or feature request to grow your business. I'm sure you can do it, and no one's doubting your capability to do so. But these are just things that are tricky to implement and takes everyone time and effort to do so correctly.

Re: Ask HN: Best business advice for software developers

#152

Post by fragmede »

cookiecaper wrote: post #120
harry-wood wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand I've encountered folks who claim to be forming a start up. They've got the name and the logo. They've got the whole pitch ready. They sound enthusiastic and passionate. But... they still have to find a technical person to actually build it. They basically have nothing. And I often think there are too many people going around spouting wisdom for example about how you _must_ let customers and market d…

>On the other hand I've encountered folks who claim to be forming a start up. They've got the name and the logo. They've got the whole pitch ready. They sound enthusiastic and passionate. But... they still have to find a technical person to actually build it. They basically have nothing. These people are usually imposters who are asking for things that are totally unrealistic or generating interest for a concept that…

> while the technology is important and can give an edge, it is not the main value in your business.

Going out on a limb here, but I've been searching for a way to define this for a while, but... maybe those aren't tech companies? I'm talking about companies like Snapchat or Uber or AirBnB which, while they do exist as smarphone apps and lean heavily on the Internet, which unarguably involves a lot of technology, but they're brands, and not tech companies. Nothing wrong with that, but there are "tech" companies where the tech is the value... there are just a lot of non-tech "tech" companies, a majority of them B2C.

Companies that are doing things that humanity previously hadn't done are tech companies. Intel, as an early semiconductor company is, at least originally, a tech company. SpaceX's technology is the company. Regardless of who ends up winning, self-driving cars are going derive a lot of value from their technology in the form of patents.

Re: Ask HN: Best business advice for software developers

#153

Post by cookiecaper »

Kenji wrote: post #142
mattjaynes wrote: post #112

Since this is an audience of passionate technologists, here's the top piece of advice I have: Do not be seduced by the technology! I killed one of my startups this way. I've seen many many die this way. It can hurt your pride as a passionate technologist to choose non-cool but mature and easy-to-hire-for tools. But it's those tools that are the most economical. Remember, your customers care 0% about the backend techn…

>Remember that the most economical tool for the job is often not the coolest or trendiest - but is some old boring workhorse that other engineers will scoff at. When I read this, a voice in my head yelled PHP.

It could be anything in the top 20, really [0]. The problem is that devs have an impulse to do something experimental and cool, since they have to work with workhorse languages all day at their day jobs.

The myth that they tell themselves is that $REVOLUTIONARY_FEATURE_Y will greatly improve their productivity, but the fact of the matter is usually that no matter how revolutionary the features, it's hard to overcome the benefits that come from an active ecosystem of well-tested and widely used libraries. Even if productivity is improved 20x by the revolutionary feature, a library that has 10 man-years of effort in it will take you 6 months to implement. Rinse and repeat.

This is not to mention the availability of online references and established conventions/best practices, the impact of hitting esoteric errors, and so on.

A good example of this is probably reddit. Originally written in Lisp, they eventually gave up and compromised down to Python due to improved tooling and library availability. [1]

[0] https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/

[1] https://redditblog.com/2005/12/05/on-lisp/

Re: Ask HN: Best business advice for software developers

#154

Post by jpatte »

Knowing how to sell/market your product is more important than having a fully functional or carefully engineered product. Nobody will give you money for your (master)piece of software if they don't know what it does or what it's for. Sounds trivial, and yet the better you are at software development, the harder it is to keep in mind.

Just because you are good at something doesn't mean you should be focusing on that thing and leave the rest for later.

Re: Ask HN: Best business advice for software developers

#155

Post by clubminsk »

Probably, the best business advice for software developers "Solving the problem that frustrates you - may be one of the best ways of finding an idea for your startup". Look at these software developers who acted accordingly before they found success. https://belitsoft.com/php-development-services/saas-ideas-st...

Re: Ask HN: Best business advice for software developers

#156

Post by truetraveller »

libertymcateer wrote: post #96

I'm a software attorney - I negotiate software development, installation, support and licensing, deals, including agile software development, SaaS, PaaS, API agreements, SLAs - you name it. I was also in house counsel for a group of tech startups for five years prior to my current role. Finally, I write software, actively - these days in Node - yes, I know this is an invitation to mockery, which I welcome. All of thi…

Thanks for the long post. Somewhat OT, but interesting.

Re: Ask HN: Best business advice for software developers

#157

Post by cbasoftware »

Before you hire anyone make sure you just can't live without them and then wait longer. Before you hire your first developer read the Mythical Man Month. Yes, it's old, it still applies. And, especially today, try your best to use contractors. And, make sure you have a Work for Hire agreement!

Re: Ask HN: Best business advice for software developers

#158

Post by cookiecaper »

fragmede wrote: post #152
cookiecaper wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>On the other hand I've encountered folks who claim to be forming a start up. They've got the name and the logo. They've got the whole pitch ready. They sound enthusiastic and passionate. But... they still have to find a technical person to actually build it. They basically have nothing. These people are usually imposters who are asking for things that are totally unrealistic or generating interest for a concept that…

> while the technology is important and can give an edge, it is not the main value in your business. Going out on a limb here, but I've been searching for a way to define this for a while, but... maybe those aren't tech companies? I'm talking about companies like Snapchat or Uber or AirBnB which, while they do exist as smarphone apps and lean heavily on the Internet, which unarguably involves a lot of technology, but…

Intel and SpaceX are less vulnerable to competition because it takes hundreds of billions of dollars to compete with them (nonetheless, they do have competitors). This is not the case with anything that's in bootstrap or even VC territory.

In principle, the same concept applies, it's just that it's too expensive for new entrants to come in to those industries, so they mostly don't have to worry about it. It should also be noted that businesses in other industries often attempt to install similar barriers to entry for themselves; suppressing competition is a huge part of remaining the big dog.

I hate to say it, but "tech companies" are "patent companies". If you have a patent on the technology and someone decides that it's not worthwhile to try to work around it, they'll license the patent, or maybe even buy your company if your patent portfolio is strong enough. In terms of an unpatented innovation by itself or actual software, it's not worth much on its own.

Re: Ask HN: Best business advice for software developers

#159

Post by clubminsk »

clubminsk wrote: post #155

Probably, the best business advice for software developers "Solving the problem that frustrates you - may be one of the best ways of finding an idea for your startup". Look at these software developers who acted accordingly before they found success. https://belitsoft.com/php-development-services/saas-ideas-st...

One more great advice: 1. validate your idea first and focus on the main features before launching a startup. 2. find paying customers before launching a startup https://belitsoft.com/custom-application-development-service...

Re: Ask HN: Best business advice for software developers

#160

Post by westoque »

mattjaynes wrote: post #112

Since this is an audience of passionate technologists, here's the top piece of advice I have: Do not be seduced by the technology! I killed one of my startups this way. I've seen many many die this way. It can hurt your pride as a passionate technologist to choose non-cool but mature and easy-to-hire-for tools. But it's those tools that are the most economical. Remember, your customers care 0% about the backend techn…

I disagree.

Technology is actually an advantage. I would look at it this way, if you used N tech, and it actually results in a faster, better app, meaning happier users and therefore more business.

TLDR; use technology that gives you an advantage.

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