What skills are most crucial for running small internet companies? • Hacker News Board

Re: What skills are most crucial for running small internet companies?

#61

Post by niknikson » Thu, Nov 21, 2019, 7:01 AM UTC

karmelapple wrote: post #44

Flexibility. Humility. Optimism. Flexibility means you’re willing to do any task needed, whether it’s filling out some spreadsheet or going to a conference or figuring out how to come up with an intelligent database schema. Flexibility also means you don’t need to build everything perfectly, that you have the flexibility to leave some things a little less-than-perfect. Humility to admit you don’t know what the best r…

Well said. Being humble is incredibly important. I think of it in the context of having a beginners mind: having an attitude of openness, eagerness, and lack of preconceptions.

I try to remind myself that every person I meet has something to teach me if I'm willing to listen.

Re: What skills are most crucial for running small internet companies?

#62

Post by lifeisstillgood » Thu, Nov 21, 2019, 7:48 AM UTC

kareemm wrote: post #7

I'm running Savio[1], which is my fourth small internet company I've run since 2007 (the previous three were sold). At the risk of sounding cliche, the three skills that have been most valuable are: 1. The ability to build software that meaningfully solves a customer's problem 2. The ability to reach people who have the problem my software solves 3. The persistence to grind until we have a decent product and can regu…

Very well put - thank you, it's a help for me to focus on

Re: What skills are most crucial for running small internet companies?

#63

Post by djm_ » Thu, Nov 21, 2019, 9:58 AM UTC

bcrosby95 wrote: post #42

734129837261 wrote: post #34

Here's what NOT to do, from my experience in the first decade of this millennium: 1. What came first: More work or more developers? Don't stress your development team for ages without hiring new employees. They'll burn out and hate working for you. 2. Don't focus all your energy on outward appearance. Your work should speak for itself, not your amazing expensive new car and tailored suits. 3. Don't stop innovating. T…

> 3. Don't stop innovating. The developers who were there since day 1 who refuse to adopt new tech? Yeah, get rid of them. They're pulling the rest down to their level. Sorry, but adopting new tech isn't innovating. Building new tech is. Adopting new tech may make it easier. Or it might just be that your developers are bored and need something to entertain themselves.

Re-read the first sentence.

Re: What skills are most crucial for running small internet companies?

#64

Post by tonyedgecombe » Thu, Nov 21, 2019, 10:11 AM UTC

GhettoMaestro wrote: post #40

734129837261 wrote: post #34

Here's what NOT to do, from my experience in the first decade of this millennium: 1. What came first: More work or more developers? Don't stress your development team for ages without hiring new employees. They'll burn out and hate working for you. 2. Don't focus all your energy on outward appearance. Your work should speak for itself, not your amazing expensive new car and tailored suits. 3. Don't stop innovating. T…

> 5. If you are one of two founders: Don't have sexual intercourse with the wife of the other founder of the company. He will find out and because you have 50/50 shares in the company, everyone needs to pick a side. This destroys the company. This sounds juicy...

It's surprisingly common and you really don't want to get involved in any way.

Re: What skills are most crucial for running small internet companies?

#65

Post by bshimmin » Thu, Nov 21, 2019, 10:12 AM UTC

A Willingness to Hire Fast and Fire Faster

I think you need to be really careful with this. Treating employees like fungible commodities doesn't really foster any particular sense of commitment or a strong team. It's okay, I suppose, if you're a solo founder (or a couple of co-founders) and you just hire an endless stream of Upwork freelancers to do various tasks and then dismiss them when they're done (or if they're not performing well enough) - but if you scale beyond that, you actually need to treat people like they're humans.

I'm sure it's well-intentioned by the author, but I've seen people really take this to extremes and behave like total bastards - and they didn't start out being bastards, they just began their journey down the slippery slope of sacrificing common decency to pursue the goal of doing what was, they thought, necessary for their startup to succeed. (When you fire someone on the last day before Christmas because "it was a tough decision, but we're a startup, and we have to make tough decisions", you know you've reached the bottom of that slope.)

Re: What skills are most crucial for running small internet companies?

#66

Post by louisswiss » Thu, Nov 21, 2019, 10:20 AM UTC

bshimmin wrote: post #65

A Willingness to Hire Fast and Fire Faster I think you need to be really careful with this. Treating employees like fungible commodities doesn't really foster any particular sense of commitment or a strong team. It's okay, I suppose, if you're a solo founder (or a couple of co-founders) and you just hire an endless stream of Upwork freelancers to do various tasks and then dismiss them when they're done (or if they're…

Yep - A willingness to hire slower and fire earlier would be much better advice.

Re: What skills are most crucial for running small internet companies?

#67

Post by mianos » Thu, Nov 21, 2019, 10:50 AM UTC

734129837261 wrote: post #34

Here's what NOT to do, from my experience in the first decade of this millennium: 1. What came first: More work or more developers? Don't stress your development team for ages without hiring new employees. They'll burn out and hate working for you. 2. Don't focus all your energy on outward appearance. Your work should speak for itself, not your amazing expensive new car and tailored suits. 3. Don't stop innovating. T…

> 3. Don't stop innovating. The developers who were there since day 1 who refuse to adopt new tech? Yeah, get rid of them. They're pulling the rest down to their level.

Here is one, listen to the experienced developers, stop innovating tech and focus on building what the customer actually wants/needs in a robust manner. In my experience, the focus on 'new tech' and not customers has been the death of startups I have worked in. Flakey products based on the latest and greatest tech has been another.

Re: What skills are most crucial for running small internet companies?

#68

Post by FindMySocks » Thu, Nov 21, 2019, 11:50 AM UTC

niknikson wrote: post #60

smithmayowa wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey man, would like to pick ur brain some regarding saas sales, sadly I am not based in the valley or US for that matter, mind if I email you, quick question what is the fastest no bullshit way to validating ur saas idea and seeing if people needed it, I was thinking of driving google ad words traffic to a landing page will that be sufficient?

Google AdWords campaign is good way to gauge market demand. Key is to identify granular high intent keywords in your market and setup your campaign to only target those keywords. If you are able to capture a decent amount of exact keyword search impression you can work backwards to get an idea of overall traffic/demand for your product. Keep in mind if you run a short campaign you will have to take into consideration…

I've just run a nice unsuccessful Adwords campaign, and I think my lack of knowledge on how to correctly use Adwords, alongside Analytics is where I'm going wrong. Any chance you know of some decent resources / quick-start guides to help understand Adwords and how to use it?

Re: What skills are most crucial for running small internet companies?

#69

Post by faeyanpiraat » Thu, Nov 21, 2019, 12:14 PM UTC

orasis wrote: post #53

kareemm wrote: post #7

I'm running Savio[1], which is my fourth small internet company I've run since 2007 (the previous three were sold). At the risk of sounding cliche, the three skills that have been most valuable are: 1. The ability to build software that meaningfully solves a customer's problem 2. The ability to reach people who have the problem my software solves 3. The persistence to grind until we have a decent product and can regu…

#2 is so much harder than people think.

All of the points are really really hard.

Actually everyone has a different skillset, therefore the hardest from the 4 options is different for everyone.

Re: What skills are most crucial for running small internet companies?

#70

Post by solatic » Thu, Nov 21, 2019, 1:56 PM UTC

louisswiss wrote: post #66

bshimmin wrote: post #65

A Willingness to Hire Fast and Fire Faster I think you need to be really careful with this. Treating employees like fungible commodities doesn't really foster any particular sense of commitment or a strong team. It's okay, I suppose, if you're a solo founder (or a couple of co-founders) and you just hire an endless stream of Upwork freelancers to do various tasks and then dismiss them when they're done (or if they're…

Yep - A willingness to hire slower and fire earlier would be much better advice.

Part of the issue is that there isn't a single correct way to hire somebody. Your hiring process must be able to adapt to a given candidate's circumstances.

For example, say that you met somebody who is already working somewhere, and through the course of networking you understand that they're not happy where they currently are but they're not actively looking for new work either. If you decide that you'd like to poach them, then you must necessarily take a slower approach, since they're not being actively pursued by other companies (since nobody knows that they're on the market) and you want to make sure that they'll be happy at your company and everything else that's an essential part of recruiting.

On the other hand, take a senior engineer who left their last startup because the startup went out of business, and whose skills will be in high demand by many competitors. You have less latitude as to how much time you can take during your hiring process before they get hired out from under you by a competitor. Committing to never hiring quickly is a recipe for filling your ranks with mediocre talent.