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Why Startups Should Train Their People
- aditya 16y agoI'm not sure how this applies to 2-10 people startups. And, honestly, once a startup reaches the scale where it has multiple hierarchies of management and engineering organization that requires formal training, it's not a startup anymore. It's a different kinda beast... small business perhaps. Not saying informal training isn't useful, it's just not something you'd formalize at a small startup.
- eru 16y agoPerhaps you can formalize in a light weight manner? E.g. just write down what kinds of training steps seem to work well, in which don't.
- blogimus 16y agoAt the very bottom of the page: Warning: This document was written 15 years ago and is probably not relevant for today’s product managers. I present it here merely as an example of a useful training document.
- gojomo 16y agoHorowitz referring to the example PDF he links to -- which internally contains Netscape branding and a 'Summer 1996' date. The blog post is all new.
- Luyt 16y agoFrom the 1996 PDF: "Good product managers send their status reports in on time every week, because they are disciplined. Bad product managers forget to send in their status reports on time, because they don't value discipline." I can't help reading 'TSR Reports' there.
- sokoloff 16y agoYou mean 'TPS Reports' I presume?
- 10ren 16y agogoogle view of the pdf "Good Product Manager, Bad Product Manager" http://docs.google.com/gview?url=http://benhorowitz.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/good-product-manager.pdf http://docs.google.com/gview?url=http://benhorowitz.files.wo... - "Good product managers decompose problems. Bad product managers combine all problems into one." - "Good product managers err on the side of clarity vs. explaining the obvious."
- jasonkester 16y agoOne of the defining qualities of a Startup is that it's small. The implication there is that everybody on the team needs to be running at full speed right out of the gate, and if anybody is not pulling their weight the entire venture will probably fail. I don't see where training would fit into a team like that. It seems that there is no room in a startup for employees that need training to do their job. Nor is there much in the way of slack time to train people to do things that aren't their core.
- blrgeek 16y agoCase 1. You hired me for my engg. skills, but I suck at managing my time. Spending an hour teaching me time management is going to give far more returns than anything else you can do. Case 2. You hired me as a junior sales-person. I've done product sales, but I don't understand solution selling. Training on solution selling is going to pay off. Case 3. You hired me for sw devel. I can do some design, but I'm not as good as you are, and you can see that I'm not that good. Spend time coaching me on design, instead of criticizing my design work. You don't hire a person for just one thing. Anyone you hire is likely to be strong in some things, and weak in others. Training is what's going to plug their gaps and make your team stronger.
- jasonkester 16y agoAll that makes sense in the context of a company. Startups don't really have time for it. If you're going to burn into the ground inside of 6 months, there's simply no room for training.
- blrgeek 16y agoI don't think a startup is defined as having a life of 6 months or less. The large majority of startups must have a few dozen employees - which is exactly where training would help.
- friendstock 16y agoI agree wholeheartedly. We've started doing some pair programming. In addition to making the code better, we've also found that it serves as a form of training, helping us to learn coding techniques from each other. For small startups where you need people to fill multiple roles and new people to get up to speed quickly, it's best to teach as much as possible. Finally, training is also a great source of team-building and motivation. When people leave the perks of a big company to join your fledging startup, you can offer them the satisfaction of learning new skills and taking on new responsibilities.