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As programmers we really like to automate away the mundane stuff, and we're not too fond of human interaction. I'm grossly exaggerating, of course, but for a lo

As programmers we really like to automate away the mundane stuff, and we're not too fond of human interaction. I'm grossly exaggerating, of course, but for a lot of us, this was the push and pull that originally drove us to hack away at computers. Creating a big and shiny automated processes is almost a no brainer for us. Yet, I believe that you are absolutely right. We should fight our inclination to see everything as a nail for the hammer that we master. The ROI on automating everything from the outset is not worth it, and if the business flops, it's just wasted effort. Worse yet, it's a missed opportunity for learning about the customers and about the domain. So yes, do things that don't scale. If and when you get in the air, profile the business processes and only then automate the bottlenecks. It's the only sane way when you think about it.

HeyLaughingBoy 9y ago
Not only is he absolutely right, interaction is a selling point. A prospective customer/client is usually more comfortable with someone who keeps up an open line of communication than having it automated away by forms, FAQs, etc. For many industries, they expect the hands-on approach and this can be the way you get business over other competitors. I'm not kidding when I say that simply being friendly has won me business.
callmeed 9y ago
Yes. We've arrived at a place where engineers/devs are now first-class citizens in a company. They are also founders and remain as CEO much longer. These are all good things. But those things shouldn't (and needn't) come at the expense of not doing real sales. If you look at recent successful B2B tech companies (I'm talking IPOs or true unicorns), you'll likely find most of them had a strong sales focus early on. Notable exceptions would be very dev-focused products such as GitHub & Twilio.

HeyLaughingBoy 9y ago

Not only is he absolutely right, interaction is a selling point. A prospective customer/client is usually more comfortable with someone who keeps up an open line of communication than having it automated away by forms, FAQs, etc. For many industries, they expect the hands-on approach and this can be the way you get business over other competitors. I'm not kidding when I say that simply being friendly has won me business.

callmeed 9y ago

Yes. We've arrived at a place where engineers/devs are now first-class citizens in a company. They are also founders and remain as CEO much longer. These are all good things. But those things shouldn't (and needn't) come at the expense of not doing real sales. If you look at recent successful B2B tech companies (I'm talking IPOs or true unicorns), you'll likely find most of them had a strong sales focus early on. Notable exceptions would be very dev-focused products such as GitHub & Twilio.