There's one more thing I would like to add. Apologies if it's already discussed... Non-techie guys with ideas should not think that by offering nice stock options/equity to a techie, they can get them on board.. A simple thought - there's no value of your equity.. So, do not make the mistake of thinking that you're obliging the techie by offering him/her a considerable stake in your idea/company...
Dear Programmer, I have an idea
131–140 of 143 posts
Re: Dear Programmer, I have an idea
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
(Note: I am a programmer.) Being "the suit" isn't just "I have an idea", and assuming the suit must be capable of doing something technical undermines the interesting complexity that that kind of knowledge entails. Instead, imagine someone who has found a "market opportunity" (not "an idea": everyone has ideas, and assuming programmers somehow don't have enough of their own to work on is part of what makes these kind…
I am with you all the way on this. The great businesses and fortunes of the last 200 years of industry did not come from engineering or technical expertise, but rather from those few, adept individuals who were able to navigate the mysterious world of relationships. If you do not make a dozen friends in every crowded room and instinctively form lucrative relationships on a daily basis, then knowing someone who does i…
You give the non-technical person's point of view and there is no way it can be correct. All successful tech firms are successful because of their advanced technology created by employees or acquired. In no situation did Apple engineers hang out in a crowded room until someone told them where they can pick iPhones off of a tree. Someone had to actually design and make those, and that is what made the business the largest. It's the airplane effect. Airplanes are so amazing that its difficult to image that a group of people designed and crated it.
Re: Dear Programmer, I have an idea
#133Re: Dear Programmer, I have an idea
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
(Note: I am a programmer.) Being "the suit" isn't just "I have an idea", and assuming the suit must be capable of doing something technical undermines the interesting complexity that that kind of knowledge entails. Instead, imagine someone who has found a "market opportunity" (not "an idea": everyone has ideas, and assuming programmers somehow don't have enough of their own to work on is part of what makes these kind…
I am with you all the way on this. The great businesses and fortunes of the last 200 years of industry did not come from engineering or technical expertise, but rather from those few, adept individuals who were able to navigate the mysterious world of relationships. If you do not make a dozen friends in every crowded room and instinctively form lucrative relationships on a daily basis, then knowing someone who does i…
>The great businesses and fortunes of the last 200 years of industry did not come from engineering or technical expertise, but rather from those few, adept individuals who were able to navigate the mysterious world of relationships.
I am not sure how you can say that, considering the dramatic technical advances over the same period. I mean, there is no way to experimentally show what is cause and what is effect, but to me, the idea that we had this incredible technical progress because a few guys figured out how to better socialize, rather than the other way around (what social and organizational progress we had was enabled and really, made almost inevitable by the incredible technology we developed.) We all have opinions, I guess. I disagree with yours.
>If you do not make a dozen friends in every crowded room and instinctively form lucrative relationships on a daily basis, then knowing someone who does is the most valuable asset to your professional goals.
Social skills are extremely context-dependent. The same attributes and actions that mean you are well liked at the sales meeting will get you the cold shoulder at a sufficiently technical conference.
I mean, I'm not saying a 'human interactions' specialist isn't useful... I'm just saying, it's not as generalizable as you think.
Really, a 'business guy' isn't necessarily a social specialist, either. I mean, a lot of what makes a professional a professional is the ability to grab as much of the surplus value in a deal as possible. Being a nice person with a sense of fairness can hold you back at that, sometimes.
A 'business guy' could also specialize in finding inefficiencies in the market.
It's interesting; I primarily sell virtual servers to people that are smarter than I am, people that generally identify as nerds. I seem to be okay at this. But, I go and try to sell bandwidth to co-lo customers? even at dramatically below market prices, I find I am not so good. See, in that case, you are usually selling to some middle manager. different people;
The really interesting thing isn't so much that I am bad at it; it's easy enough to hire a sales guy on commission, and like I said, my bandwidth prices are way below market, so there is plenty of room for commission. The really interesting thing is that even when I do that, and the sales guy closes the deal and I get the customer? they aren't happy with me.
I mean, your nerds? they like transparency. They like to see how the sausage is made; I mean, yeah, I have some serious problems; Nerds want to hear about those, and if the answer to "why are you doing it that way?" is "because I made a bad decision 2 years ago and the contract isn't up" or "because I haven't fixed it yet, I'm sorry. This thing, that thing and the other thing are ahead in the priority queue." - that's usually okay.
Your business people? they want the godaddy response. As little information as possible. short and to the point. They don't want to hear there is a bug in your router software. They don't want you to say "I might be wrong" when you give them something.
It's weird... almost all of my 'organic' customers seem to be pretty happy with me. (Not all of them. I do have problems, I do screw things up, and, well, some people just have high expectations. But the vast majority seem to be pretty happy.) But the customers I've gotten through sales people, through professionals? It's like they are expecting a very different personality on the other side of the phone line. The social skills that serve me well with the first group actively hurt me with the second.
Re: Dear Programmer, I have an idea
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
Views are not email addresses. Worse, views are not real people expressing real interesting (e.g. would pay or be willing to change their habits) in your product. Views are a pretty meaningless indicator, overall.
I think the point was the parent post was saying you'd need 100k views w/ a 5% conversion which would be challenging. Evbn was saying reddit could get the 100k views.
I think you are completely correct. I think @evbn is, well, not wrong, because you can get the 100k views. I just don't think those views are going to net your (incredibly high) 5% conversion. The value of a view from a bored redditor is generally less than the value of a well-earned, targetted view.
Re: Dear Programmer, I have an idea
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
Honestly the suits don't need to code, but they do need to be comfortable discussing software and the limits/possibilities of technology. Similarly, the geeks don't need to know all the aspects of selling, but they do need to know how to tell a customer that their product is awesome and all the advantages it has and why it's silly to not have use it.
Tell me the limits of a miter saw as they relate to project X without ever touching one... I don't actually think suits need to learn code either but the knowledge is worth its weight in gold if they can.
In just about every business relationship I have with a vendor, there are two people talking to me. A sales guy who doesn't work on the product, and an engineer who does. The sales guy sells me the product, and the engineer gets me to buy it. It's far from standard to have suits get their hands dirty.
Re: Dear Programmer, I have an idea
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am with you all the way on this. The great businesses and fortunes of the last 200 years of industry did not come from engineering or technical expertise, but rather from those few, adept individuals who were able to navigate the mysterious world of relationships. If you do not make a dozen friends in every crowded room and instinctively form lucrative relationships on a daily basis, then knowing someone who does i…
>The great businesses and fortunes of the last 200 years of industry did not come from engineering or technical expertise, but rather from those few, adept individuals who were able to navigate the mysterious world of relationships. I am not sure how you can say that, considering the dramatic technical advances over the same period. I mean, there is no way to experimentally show what is cause and what is effect, but…
I am not sure how you can say that, considering the dramatic technical advances over the same period. I mean, there is no way to experimentally show what is cause and what is effect, but to me, the idea that we had this incredible technical progress because a few guys figured out how to better socialize, rather than the other way around (what social and organizational progress we had was enabled and really, made almost inevitable by the incredible technology we developed.) We all have opinions, I guess. I disagree with yours.
Technological progress and building a big business/fortune are not the same thing. At the end of the day, to build a big business or fortune is about convincing people to give their capital to you. People who deal well with people do this the best, by definition.
Social skills are extremely context-dependent. The same attributes and actions that mean you are well liked at the sales meeting will get you the cold shoulder at a sufficiently technical conference.
And if I was working in tech, I would want a relationship manager/account man/business cofounder who was good at dealing with people in both contexts.
Really, a 'business guy' isn't necessarily a social specialist, either. I mean, a lot of what makes a professional a professional is the ability to grab as much of the surplus value in a deal as possible. Being a nice person with a sense of fairness can hold you back at that, sometimes.
My original point boils down to one simple thing - the people who are good at dealing with people are more instrumental to creating big companies and fortunes than the people with technical expertise. Getting the most value out of the deal comes back to dealing with people. Selling the most widgets is about convincing a lot of people. People, people, people.
Does this person have to be nice? Does this person have to be everyone's pal? Not necessarily, no. But such a one does have to be able to get people to do some desired action.
So if you're better at selling to nerds than lay-consumers, make more products for nerds. If you can deal with nerds better, you'll be able to build a better business around serving them.
Re: Dear Programmer, I have an idea
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am with you all the way on this. The great businesses and fortunes of the last 200 years of industry did not come from engineering or technical expertise, but rather from those few, adept individuals who were able to navigate the mysterious world of relationships. If you do not make a dozen friends in every crowded room and instinctively form lucrative relationships on a daily basis, then knowing someone who does i…
You give the non-technical person's point of view and there is no way it can be correct. All successful tech firms are successful because of their advanced technology created by employees or acquired. In no situation did Apple engineers hang out in a crowded room until someone told them where they can pick iPhones off of a tree. Someone had to actually design and make those, and that is what made the business the lar…
Apple is the worst example that you could use. Steve Jobs never wrote single line of code! He didn't solder a single chip into a single iPhone. Nor was he the lead product designer, the lead ad man, or an expert in any field EXCEPT dealing with people. He brought all the people together to form the iPhone teame at Apple, and that was far more instrumental to designing, manufacturing, shipping, and selling iPhones than any technical expertise.
Re: Dear Programmer, I have an idea
#139meh
Re: Dear Programmer, I have an idea
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
>The great businesses and fortunes of the last 200 years of industry did not come from engineering or technical expertise, but rather from those few, adept individuals who were able to navigate the mysterious world of relationships. I am not sure how you can say that, considering the dramatic technical advances over the same period. I mean, there is no way to experimentally show what is cause and what is effect, but…
I am not sure how you can say that, considering the dramatic technical advances over the same period. I mean, there is no way to experimentally show what is cause and what is effect, but to me, the idea that we had this incredible technical progress because a few guys figured out how to better socialize, rather than the other way around (what social and organizational progress we had was enabled and really, made almo…
>My original point boils down to one simple thing - the people who are good at dealing with people are more instrumental to creating big companies and fortunes than the people with technical expertise. Getting the most value out of the deal comes back to dealing with people. Selling the most widgets is about convincing a lot of people. People, people, people.
Re-reading the parent comment, I see now that I misunderstood what you were saying. I thought that you meant that 'great men' who created "the modern corporation" and other social structures are what drove innovation over the last century.
I agree that social stuff has a lot to do with an individual's ability to accumulate money, and that a social specialist can still generally go further than a technical specialist (though, both get a lot of mileage out of knowing a little of the other's specialty.)
I do note that the world is dramatically better for the socially unskilled now than it was 100 years ago; the trend is that nerds are more and more valued, to the point now where some of the socially skilled manipulators actually pretend to be nerds.
but yeah, re-reading, I misunderstood your point. I don't really disagree that business people tend to make more money than technical people. (though, like I said, the trend is favourable for the technical folks.)