3 ms·
Let's do some simple estimation! I haven't really looked at their spreadsheet, so this is just guesswork. The product is fairly simple technologically yes, bu
by Arcsech 10y ago
Let's do some simple estimation! I haven't really looked at their spreadsheet, so this is just guesswork.
The product is fairly simple technologically yes, but the value is provided by making it easy to use so the customer saves time (= money). To do that you need a few UX people plus some developers (especially with web and mobile apps), call that 15 engineers/designers total, plus another 5 for ops. Now you need a sales team since your real money will be in selling to enterprises - call that 15 people. And on top of that you need customer support, and call that another 20 people. Now that we're up to 55 people, we need another 10 people worth of HR and 5 bean counters, that takes us to 70. Now cap it off with 10 managers/executives and we're up to 80, and I'm sure there's some things I was off about or forgot.
It's easy to forget about all the non-engineering resources you need for a medium-sized business.
- joshdickson 10y agoIf anyone reads this comment, FYI it is not remotely accurate. They have 23 just in engineering and 6 designers, with 2 in ops. We have AWS and these guys have incredibly run of the mill needs, why on earth would you need 1 ops person for every 3 developers... They have nobody doing what you'd classify as a "sales." They have some marketing people, people doing whatever "customer research" is, a number of people working in "community" and a bunch working in customer success.
- arctor 10y ago>Now that we're up to 55 people, we need another 10 people worth of HR 1 HR person per 5.5 employees? This is insanely high. A company that size need 2-3, tops.
- robbiemitchell 10y agoYou need more in HR (or more accurately, HR/finance) if you have lots of remote employees, especially international. That's a ton of extra administration to deal with.