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I've been involved recently in a local incubator YCombinator/Tech-Stars type program (BoomStartup in Salt Lake City). For a while they would have some sort of g

I've been involved recently in a local incubator YCombinator/Tech-Stars type program (BoomStartup in Salt Lake City). For a while they would have some sort of get together every Friday (mostly to discuss the program and let people meet those involved). I thought it was interesting that the vast majority of people that showed up were "business people". While I'm sure some of them are legitimately worthy of being called a business person, for most of them, that really just meant "want to start a company and can't code". We also had alot of issues with people being too paranoid of having their ideas stolen to feel comfortable talking about their ideas. I'd love to see someone come up with a good way for the right people with the right mindset to come together and socialize in order to help form teams.

mikepk 16y ago
Regular socializing is a first good step but it seems like the real filter, the way to get at the people you want, is to get people doing. When you're actually working on a project (even a small project) you learn pretty quickly who actually gets things done and who wants to be the "idea guy", occupy volume, and waste precious oxygen. I think as technology / hacker types we tend to undervalue the business side of the equation though (I know I did). My experience with my first startup was made a lot more difficult by the fact that no one in the company was really business/marketing/sales focused. There are valuable business skills that can help an early stage company but the question is, how do we filter and find the real business "makers". I think we can come up with ways to move people's various projects forward by small increments. I led a discussion at Boston BarCamp on this topic and someone brought up the "don't want people to steal my idea" thing. I made the person mad by saying that I wasn't interested in people like that. Ideas are ways to start the conversation/process, they're not an end in and of themselves. I find people like that are (usually) not really serious about building something.

mikepk 16y ago

Regular socializing is a first good step but it seems like the real filter, the way to get at the people you want, is to get people doing. When you're actually working on a project (even a small project) you learn pretty quickly who actually gets things done and who wants to be the "idea guy", occupy volume, and waste precious oxygen. I think as technology / hacker types we tend to undervalue the business side of the equation though (I know I did). My experience with my first startup was made a lot more difficult by the fact that no one in the company was really business/marketing/sales focused. There are valuable business skills that can help an early stage company but the question is, how do we filter and find the real business "makers". I think we can come up with ways to move people's various projects forward by small increments. I led a discussion at Boston BarCamp on this topic and someone brought up the "don't want people to steal my idea" thing. I made the person mad by saying that I wasn't interested in people like that. Ideas are ways to start the conversation/process, they're not an end in and of themselves. I find people like that are (usually) not really serious about building something.