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Lead Bullets (2011)

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Re: Lead Bullets (2011)

#11

Post by js2 »

FeatureRush wrote: post #4

The other time this story was discussed here (probably in 2011, linked to techcrunch) someone pointed out very insightful comment from person claiming to be employed at a time at the Netscape in Marketing (or Sales?). According to this employee the real reason why the web server was selling was not the regained technical supremacy, but mere fact that it was boundled with mail and directory servers that customers were…

I was at Loudcloud/Opsware from 2000 through the HP acquisition. I don't know what happened at Netscape, but at Opsware we had to improve the product.

Re: Lead Bullets (2011)

#12

Post by mi100hael »

philippz wrote: post #3

Nice excerpt from his book "Hard things about hard things" - can absolutely recommend it.

I really struggled to get through it. There's something about the rich guy from England now living in SF who went to Columbia using phrases like "oh snap" and quoting Public Enemy that just feels fake and obnoxious.

Re: Lead Bullets (2011)

#13

Post by beat »

fermigier wrote: post #5

2011

In the past six years, technological advances have rendered this essay obsolete. The SBaaS (Silver Bullet as a Service) market has allowed many companies that previously had to work hard to have the best product to simply add a service that makes them better than the competition.

Re: Lead Bullets (2011)

#14

Post by throwaway2016a »

crystalmeph wrote: post #7
throwaway2016a wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being the best is overrated. Three times in my career I was on an engineering team that built an objectively best in class product. Three times it failed because the competition out marketed us and/or beat us in the customer service department. Despite them having inferior products. Don't get me wrong. You need to have a good product. Your product can't be awful but it only needs to be about 80% as good as the compet…

How much of them beating you was marketing and how much was customer service? World class customer service by itself can be a market beater, even when the product you are backing up is more expensive / lower quality for the same feature set. People like to know that when they have problems, they'll get answers quickly.

2/3 marketing, 2/3 customer service in my case. Which adds up to 4/3 because one of the products was both bad marketing and bad customer service (or rather nonexistent).

Re: Lead Bullets (2011)

#15

Post by santoshalper »

FeatureRush wrote: post #4

The other time this story was discussed here (probably in 2011, linked to techcrunch) someone pointed out very insightful comment from person claiming to be employed at a time at the Netscape in Marketing (or Sales?). According to this employee the real reason why the web server was selling was not the regained technical supremacy, but mere fact that it was boundled with mail and directory servers that customers were…

Free mail and directory servers would not have been enough to overcome a massive performance deficit. Especially not in the 90's when web server performance was still a major issue.

Re: Lead Bullets (2011)

#17

Post by SerLava »

underbluewaters wrote: post #16

Can someone explain this metaphor for me? My understanding is that a silver bullet kills mythical creatures. You can't also kill a werewolf with a bunch of lead ones.

Silver bullet means an easy way out- usually clever but always relatively easy in the execution.

Re: Lead Bullets (2011)

#18

Post by fao_ »

underbluewaters wrote: post #16

Can someone explain this metaphor for me? My understanding is that a silver bullet kills mythical creatures. You can't also kill a werewolf with a bunch of lead ones.

Well you should be able to kill a warewolf with a gattling gun.

Re: Lead Bullets (2011)

#19

Post by Zombiefruit »

throwaway2016a wrote: post #6
seibelj wrote: post #2

It's so much easier to win when the product is the best. You can still lose because of 5000 other reasons, but the best product makes everything else so much easier.

Being the best is overrated. Three times in my career I was on an engineering team that built an objectively best in class product. Three times it failed because the competition out marketed us and/or beat us in the customer service department. Despite them having inferior products. Don't get me wrong. You need to have a good product. Your product can't be awful but it only needs to be about 80% as good as the compet…

Zune: case in point.

Re: Lead Bullets (2011)

#20

Post by philippz »

mi100hael wrote: post #12
philippz wrote: post #3

Nice excerpt from his book "Hard things about hard things" - can absolutely recommend it.

I really struggled to get through it. There's something about the rich guy from England now living in SF who went to Columbia using phrases like "oh snap" and quoting Public Enemy that just feels fake and obnoxious.

I agree. But i think it was not meant to be read like a roman rather than a reference book. :) Which makes it hard to read it like roman - storyline missing.
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