4 ms·

A lot of startups are founded by programmers, who know a lot about programming but not much about sales. This makes them able to see all the upcoming problems i

by WJW 11y ago

A lot of startups are founded by programmers, who know a lot about programming but not much about sales. This makes them able to see all the upcoming problems in the technical bits of the company, but not the upcoming problems in sales. Most effort is then spent on the technical side because "that's where the problems are." Kind of related to the Dunning-Kruger effect.

vonmoltke 11y ago
Actually, it is exactly Dunning-Kruger when DK is applied to areas of expertise and not simply general knowledge. One of the frequent contributors to the Science-Based Medicine blog uses it this way to explain why you need to be wary of highly-respected academics in one field weighing in on completely unrelated fields.
stevesearer 11y ago
I think this is part of the reason ad networks are are so popular - you only need to drop in code and sales is unnecessary.
- nostrademons 11y ago
  It doesn't actually work that way, though - ads are worthless if people don't convert, and you make them convert by building something they actually want, and you figure out how to do that by talking to them, one-on-one. So you still need sales.
  - borvo 11y ago
    Or product management.
jorgecurio 11y ago
> This makes them able to see all the upcoming problems in the technical bits of the company, but not the upcoming problems in sales. Most effort is then spent on the technical side because "that's where the problems are." ugh. this is 100% me. spent 6 years working on a hard problem. Why? Because ironically people wouldn't pay large sums of money for it and I figured that if I made it 1000% more innovative than the market I'd surely justify the price. I sometimes look back and see how fucking naive I was. I'm a totally different mentality now. It's figuring out how to get paid and making sure you are able to CHARGE people for it. You just need to get to the absolute MVP. If it's something nobody has seen before then you don't even need to build it. Just try to sell the god damn thing before you even build it. However, if there are already established markets and competitors you can't do it without risking looking like a snake oil salesman but what this is the problem of many engineers, we view making money as evil and negative because we devalue our work, we just don't see the business value and so highly possible we end up working for free at some point our careers. For example: Marketer: Our software that will boost your sales by 50%. Developer: It just scrapes data from other companies and resells you public data. You can find it on github.com VP of Sales: Shut the fuck up. Anyhow, I can't stress enough. Startup is 80% people and 20% coding. I've learned my fucking lesson the hard way.
- mschenkel 11y ago
  Did you ever get to the point of having revenues?
- swimorsinka 11y ago
  Author here: This Comment made me seriously LOL.
- gamechangr 11y ago
  "I can't stress enough. Startup is 80% people and 20% coding." Agreed. I have recently come to that revelation :)
softawre 11y ago
> Kind of related to the Dunning-Kruger effect Interesting, applying Dunning-Kruger outside it's original scope. Good explanation for the brilliant-yet-incredibly-dumb Dr. Ben Carson.

by WJW 11y ago

vonmoltke 11y ago

Actually, it is exactly Dunning-Kruger when DK is applied to areas of expertise and not simply general knowledge. One of the frequent contributors to the Science-Based Medicine blog uses it this way to explain why you need to be wary of highly-respected academics in one field weighing in on completely unrelated fields.

stevesearer 11y ago

I think this is part of the reason ad networks are are so popular - you only need to drop in code and sales is unnecessary.

nostrademons 11y ago
It doesn't actually work that way, though - ads are worthless if people don't convert, and you make them convert by building something they actually want, and you figure out how to do that by talking to them, one-on-one. So you still need sales.
- borvo 11y ago
  Or product management.

jorgecurio 11y ago

> This makes them able to see all the upcoming problems in the technical bits of the company, but not the upcoming problems in sales. Most effort is then spent on the technical side because "that's where the problems are." ugh. this is 100% me. spent 6 years working on a hard problem. Why? Because ironically people wouldn't pay large sums of money for it and I figured that if I made it 1000% more innovative than the market I'd surely justify the price. I sometimes look back and see how fucking naive I was. I'm a totally different mentality now. It's figuring out how to get paid and making sure you are able to CHARGE people for it. You just need to get to the absolute MVP. If it's something nobody has seen before then you don't even need to build it. Just try to sell the god damn thing before you even build it. However, if there are already established markets and competitors you can't do it without risking looking like a snake oil salesman but what this is the problem of many engineers, we view making money as evil and negative because we devalue our work, we just don't see the business value and so highly possible we end up working for free at some point our careers. For example: Marketer: Our software that will boost your sales by 50%. Developer: It just scrapes data from other companies and resells you public data. You can find it on github.com VP of Sales: Shut the fuck up. Anyhow, I can't stress enough. Startup is 80% people and 20% coding. I've learned my fucking lesson the hard way.

mschenkel 11y ago
Did you ever get to the point of having revenues?
swimorsinka 11y ago
Author here: This Comment made me seriously LOL.
gamechangr 11y ago
"I can't stress enough. Startup is 80% people and 20% coding." Agreed. I have recently come to that revelation :)

softawre 11y ago

> Kind of related to the Dunning-Kruger effect Interesting, applying Dunning-Kruger outside it's original scope. Good explanation for the brilliant-yet-incredibly-dumb Dr. Ben Carson.