The salesman and the developer • Hacker News Board

Re: The salesman and the developer

#51

Post by omni » Fri, May 11, 2012, 4:48 PM UTC

wglb wrote: post #49

mbell wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How exactly do you tweak a gun? And what sort of gun that will kill bears ain't gonna kill a wolf? Simple example: there are a number of guns that can be converted from semi-automatic to full-automatic with very simple changes, removing a spring, filing something down, etc. If you've got a pack of wolves coming at you the rate of fire could certainly change the balance in your favor.

If you are equipped to hunt bear, I don't think you are using a semi-automatic. It seems like we are getting into further trouble here. As this pack of wolves is stampeding (never heard of wolves stampeding, though) at you, removing the spring, filing something down might not be consistent with the very short period of time you have as this herd (?) of wolves is closing the gap on your, er, person.

If you are equipped to hunt bear, you are almost certainly not using an automatic. Any caliber high enough to drop a bear in one shot (which you want to do as to not ruin the bear) would break your arm into slivers were you to fire it at automatic speeds.

Re: The salesman and the developer

#52

Post by jpwagner » Fri, May 11, 2012, 5:14 PM UTC

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…

the phenomenon of mentioning Steve Jobs should probably be added as a corollary to Godwin's law

or maybe a broader law should have both Godwin's law and the Job's law as corollaries.

Re: The salesman and the developer

#53

Post by jpwagner » Fri, May 11, 2012, 5:17 PM UTC

The thing that sucks about this story is that at the end, the customer is DEAD. Every great salesman I know cares deeply about the continued satisfaction of the customer. It's why they sell in the first place!

Re: The salesman and the developer

#54

Post by mbell » Fri, May 11, 2012, 6:12 PM UTC

omni wrote: post #51

wglb wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are equipped to hunt bear, I don't think you are using a semi-automatic. It seems like we are getting into further trouble here. As this pack of wolves is stampeding (never heard of wolves stampeding, though) at you, removing the spring, filing something down might not be consistent with the very short period of time you have as this herd (?) of wolves is closing the gap on your, er, person.

If you are equipped to hunt bear, you are almost certainly not using an automatic. Any caliber high enough to drop a bear in one shot (which you want to do as to not ruin the bear) would break your arm into slivers were you to fire it at automatic speeds.

I'm no gun expert, never even fired one, but it seems there are many guns that would fit the bill. Example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOoUVeyaY_8&feature=plcp in particular, watch at about 5min point to see the (lack) of) recoil, put slugs in it and I would think you'd have no problem stopping a bear. This guy's You tube channel in general contains a lot of things that would not have a problem stopping a bear. That said many are not your average hunting equipment either, but I don't think anyone goes out with the plan of getting close enough to a bear to use a shotgun.

Re: The salesman and the developer

#55

Post by MatthewPhillips » Fri, May 11, 2012, 6:23 PM UTC

aspir wrote: post #43

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #40

There's nothing worse than a company where the sales department has too much power. Especially if they are able to hand off the project once the sale is made. It makes it impossible for the rest of the company to innovate on products.

I assume you're referring to BigCo, or even just a non-startup. If you're referring to a startup, I have to disagree with you -- revenue in the door when you're starting out, even if you have to alter your product, is invaluable. In fact, you'll likely have to alter the product from the original vision to get revenue in the door period :)

So what if you have to alter your product in 5 different, possibly incompatible, ways because 5 sales reps all sold something that you don't have? And you have to have it done by the agreed-upon delivery date (between sales and the client)? You wind up with a gigantic, unmaintainable hack.

Re: The salesman and the developer

#56

Post by aspir » Fri, May 11, 2012, 6:50 PM UTC

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #55

aspir wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume you're referring to BigCo, or even just a non-startup. If you're referring to a startup, I have to disagree with you -- revenue in the door when you're starting out, even if you have to alter your product, is invaluable. In fact, you'll likely have to alter the product from the original vision to get revenue in the door period :)

So what if you have to alter your product in 5 different, possibly incompatible, ways because 5 sales reps all sold something that you don't have? And you have to have it done by the agreed-upon delivery date (between sales and the client)? You wind up with a gigantic, unmaintainable hack.

I see your point, but if you have 5 sales reps with the authority to green-light extreme features, you're not really a startup anymore. You're officially a full-steam ahead business, or you should be.

It also comes down to the amount of money these guys are paying as well. If you're selling to say, banks, insurers, or some other larger player, you should me bringing enough revenue to justify the added expenditure. If you're selling $200+/month software tools, there had better be more customers for it somewhere. But if you're selling anything less than $100/month, you nailed it. There's a problem.

Re: The salesman and the developer

#57

Post by MatthewPhillips » Fri, May 11, 2012, 7:08 PM UTC

aspir wrote: post #56

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what if you have to alter your product in 5 different, possibly incompatible, ways because 5 sales reps all sold something that you don't have? And you have to have it done by the agreed-upon delivery date (between sales and the client)? You wind up with a gigantic, unmaintainable hack.

I see your point, but if you have 5 sales reps with the authority to green-light extreme features, you're not really a startup anymore. You're officially a full-steam ahead business, or you should be. It also comes down to the amount of money these guys are paying as well. If you're selling to say, banks, insurers, or some other larger player, you should me bringing enough revenue to justify the added expenditure. If…

Even if it's not grand new features it hurts innovation. If you have to sideline a product that's being worked on because sales sold a feature that doesn't exist and you have to hack together a solution quickly, by definition of it being a hack it probably isn't going to scale well to other customers. And even if it does, you are not building a cohesively product at this point, you are creating a product that caters to the wishes of a specific clientele who, by the way, probably wouldn't have a problem up and leaving your business if someone else is willing to cater a little more.

Re: The salesman and the developer

#58

Post by pacomerh » Fri, May 11, 2012, 7:37 PM UTC

swombat wrote: post #47

debacle wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It just breaks down on so many levels. So the client is a bear, and the developer is setting up camp, and the salesperson draws a bear into the cabin which destroys all of the developer's hard work. So the real-world analogy would be that the developer is setting up an architecture (which performs similar to a camp - as a staging point for reaching goals), and the business guy brings in a client that then...what? Des…

That's hardly the point I was trying to make... What do you think of the rest of the article, which has nothing to do with architecture or whatever, but to do with the importance of sales in a business?

Yeah the part where the bear destroys the hard work is so miss leading. I thought you where trying to say that salesmen are the developers worst enemy.

Re: The salesman and the developer

#59

Post by tluyben2 » Sat, May 12, 2012, 10:44 AM UTC

marcusf wrote: post #32

tluyben2 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I've worked with one or two of those (out of about something like a hundred, I'd guess). Both came from technology and had engineering degres but had figured out they preferred sales. I'm not sure that's the sole reason, but they really did grok how our solutions worked, what benefits they offered and how to map that to the customers desires and idiosyncrasies.

I come from technology, but when I have my sales-hat on, I become full-on sales and when clients ask me questions or when I ask them questions, I read their expressions and hold my own in any way to maximize sales. I find myself sometimes walking out of the clients' office thinking WTF did I just do?