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The salesman and the developer

swombat.com

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Re: The salesman and the developer

#21

Post by seclorum »

FuzzyDunlop wrote: post #10

There's something about the story that, in its telling, feels a little leaky. The developer is getting the cabin in order, the salesperson is out bear-hunting, and we assume the bear is the potential client. While the developer is still building, the salesperson is trying to find bears. He then lures the bears into a cabin which, from its description, was not built for the purpose of capturing bears. So why was the s…

Yeah, thats the point of the article: two people going bear-hunting, one better be prepared to lure and the other one better be prepared to kill and prep. Unless they're communicating about the best way to do it, its gonna be all bear-scratchy-furniture-developer-killing'y and not really much 'bear is dead, lets eat'.

Re: The salesman and the developer

#22

Post by marcusf »

wglb wrote: post #20
marcusf wrote: post #2

The main problem is when you're going bear hunting and they bring back a stampede of wolves. Wholly impossible to kill with the gun you brought, but if you tweak it just a little, you can kill them as well. Then the next time it's a an antler, that you can't kill like that due to regulation, but with just a few tweaks again. Great sales people are a game changer. People that can sell your vision and convince the audi…

How exactly do you tweak a gun? And what sort of gun that will kill bears ain't gonna kill a wolf? And I am not sure that wolves stampede.

Yeah, I admit the metaphor was weak. I wanted to head to lunch. I was thinking a flock of wolves requires a different gun than a single bear unless you want to be flooded in wolves.

Re: The salesman and the developer

#23

Post by swombat »

IsaacL wrote: post #19
babarock wrote: post #11

Completely off topic (or is it?) I find myself being quickly turned off by all these blogposts which 'casually' mention Steve Jobs on every single occasion the author comes across. Taken individually, each of these articles (like this one) would have a prefectly defendable reason to mention it. I'm annoyed with the trend. I have mentioned this issue before in other comments threads on HN. Am I the only one annoyed by…

Yes, couldn't agree more. I agree with the people that say that future generations will see Steve Jobs as revolutionary a businessman as Henry Ford. But this hagiography has got to stop. Let's put things in perspective. Steve Jobs made really good products that sold at a high-margin and made a lot of money. But hang on -- another way to see it is he focused on the features customers really did care about: nice UX, be…

I only ended up mentioning Steve Jobs because the Apple II came to mind as a piece of technology that was so awesome and beyond its time that it really ought to sell itself. It just so happens that Steve Jobs was the sales side of that business at the time (at least according to the biography).

I tremendously respect what Jobs achieved, but I don't think I'm putting him on a pedestal. Are you guys suggesting I should deliberately avoid using any of Apple's products or achievements as an example for anything because I might end up having to mention Jobs? That seems extreme, but it's the natural conclusion of your reaction...

Re: The salesman and the developer

#24

Post by pudakai »

marcusf wrote: post #2

The main problem is when you're going bear hunting and they bring back a stampede of wolves. Wholly impossible to kill with the gun you brought, but if you tweak it just a little, you can kill them as well. Then the next time it's a an antler, that you can't kill like that due to regulation, but with just a few tweaks again. Great sales people are a game changer. People that can sell your vision and convince the audi…

One hallmark of the truly great sales person is that they can sell the product they have rather than the one they wish you had.

Re: The salesman and the developer

#25

Post by gaius »

swombat wrote: post #23
IsaacL wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, couldn't agree more. I agree with the people that say that future generations will see Steve Jobs as revolutionary a businessman as Henry Ford. But this hagiography has got to stop. Let's put things in perspective. Steve Jobs made really good products that sold at a high-margin and made a lot of money. But hang on -- another way to see it is he focused on the features customers really did care about: nice UX, be…

I only ended up mentioning Steve Jobs because the Apple II came to mind as a piece of technology that was so awesome and beyond its time that it really ought to sell itself. It just so happens that Steve Jobs was the sales side of that business at the time (at least according to the biography). I tremendously respect what Jobs achieved, but I don't think I'm putting him on a pedestal. Are you guys suggesting I should…

Apple II came to mind as a piece of technology that was so awesome and beyond its time

Well... So the last man standing from the 8-bit days tells us (I mean Apple, not Jobs himself obv). But in truth, the C64 gave a lot more bang for the buck, esp. when you include the price of disk drives! And was just as hackable, etc. Similarly, the ST and Amiga were much more powerful and cheaper and more hackable than contemporary Macs. The Jackintosh was the first machine to deliver 1Mb of memory for under $1000. I just think we need to keep things in the proper perspective. Apple made and indeed makes some great products. But it's also true that they smothered technically superior but not as well commercially managed competitors. History is written by the winners.

Re: The salesman and the developer

#26

Post by tluyben2 »

pudakai wrote: post #24
marcusf wrote: post #2

The main problem is when you're going bear hunting and they bring back a stampede of wolves. Wholly impossible to kill with the gun you brought, but if you tweak it just a little, you can kill them as well. Then the next time it's a an antler, that you can't kill like that due to regulation, but with just a few tweaks again. Great sales people are a game changer. People that can sell your vision and convince the audi…

One hallmark of the truly great sales person is that they can sell the product they have rather than the one they wish you had.

Where are those employed? I have never seen it; from small companies to MS (and especially Oracle), from services to product companies. They don't right-out lie because they've actually been drinking the kool-aid so they do not really know that actually the stuff they sell is hard (impossible) to produce. I'm talking software here; no clue :) about other branches of business.

Re: The salesman and the developer

#27

Post by swombat »

gaius wrote: post #25
swombat wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only ended up mentioning Steve Jobs because the Apple II came to mind as a piece of technology that was so awesome and beyond its time that it really ought to sell itself. It just so happens that Steve Jobs was the sales side of that business at the time (at least according to the biography). I tremendously respect what Jobs achieved, but I don't think I'm putting him on a pedestal. Are you guys suggesting I should…

Apple II came to mind as a piece of technology that was so awesome and beyond its time Well... So the last man standing from the 8-bit days tells us (I mean Apple, not Jobs himself obv). But in truth, the C64 gave a lot more bang for the buck, esp. when you include the price of disk drives! And was just as hackable, etc. Similarly, the ST and Amiga were much more powerful and cheaper and more hackable than contempora…

I'm not sure how it makes sense to compare the Apple II to the C64...

The C64 was released in 1982 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64 ), a whole 5 years after the Apple II in 1977 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II_series ), so I damn well hope that it gave more bang for the buck.

Re: The salesman and the developer

#28

Post by gaius »

swombat wrote: post #27
gaius wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple II came to mind as a piece of technology that was so awesome and beyond its time Well... So the last man standing from the 8-bit days tells us (I mean Apple, not Jobs himself obv). But in truth, the C64 gave a lot more bang for the buck, esp. when you include the price of disk drives! And was just as hackable, etc. Similarly, the ST and Amiga were much more powerful and cheaper and more hackable than contempora…

I'm not sure how it makes sense to compare the Apple II to the C64... The C64 was released in 1982 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64 ), a whole 5 years after the Apple II in 1977 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II_series ), so I damn well hope that it gave more bang for the buck.

Compare directly to the 64k IIe, then. $595 vs $1200, according to Wikipaedia.

Anyway, my point is not to take anything away from Apple or Jobs, but it's a stretch to say that they were so far ahead of everyone else. If you need a hero for rhetorical purposes, try Jack Tramiel :-)

Re: The salesman and the developer

#29

Post by dean »

tferris wrote: post #7

Another silly generalization of developers and business people (here called sales men). Maybe the drawn stereotype matches many folks out there but this view is aged and not valid anymore. Both the pure biz guy will die soon in the woods without any technical mindset and the dev will die soon when just waiting and hacking at the campfire. And together they won't be stronger. The picture the OP draws is from the past…

"Best proof is Instagram founder Kevin Systrom."

Ouch. I hope we're not going to start saying that the extent of Instagram's success was planned and inevitable due to the great founders. Let's be honest, it's a great app, but they won the lottery. It's not every day a super-rich guy decides he needs your app, and is willing to stunningly overpay for it. (I'm sure Instagram would have jumped at $50 million if it was ever offered.)

I don't know Kevin Systrom. I'm sure he is as you say, a great 'sales and technical' entrepreneur. But Instagram's success in terms of their sales price is not reproducible. It's random. Like the lottery.

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