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> The same just isn't true of product development, sales and marketing. Any one of those three teams, staffed well, will account for well more than the value of

by kartan 9y ago

> The same just isn't true of product development, sales and marketing. Any one of those three teams, staffed well, will account for well more than the value of the entire engineering organization. Why is it not true for them? Sales are not magic, it is a profession that can be learned. I have seen a lot of companies stating how important is sales, and how unique they are. It can't be true for all companies. It is like everyone thinking that they are above average, it is just not possible. If your product is software, literally it is impossible that sales add more value than the engineering organization that builds the product. Without engineering organization, you don't have anything to sell. Without sales and marketing, you will also have a hard time. It is collaboration what brings success. > There's too much focus by developers on shallow things, like fad-following the latest frameworks, on pseudo-intellectualism or technology-purism This is usually a problem with recruiting. You get what you pay for. If your interviews are about technical expertise and you ignore basic persona-values evaluation and fit to build valuable features, you get that. And it jeopardizes the viability of a company. You need some really good experts, but you don't need everyone to be one.

JumpCrisscross 9y ago
> Why is it not true for them? Sales are not magic, it is a profession that can be learned Like software engineering. And like writing software, some people are better at it / enjoy it more than others. Software engineers and good salespeople are very well compensated because they're hard to replace. > I have seen a lot of companies stating how important is sales, and how unique they are. It can't be true for all companies. It is like everyone thinking that they are above average, it is just not possible. Most companies, particularly most start-ups, suck at sales. "Great engineers, shit sales" is a more common failure mode in Silicon Valley than "sold something couldn't be built." Also, "good at sales" isn't a one dimensional metric. There are different sales processes, some of which some people (and consequently companies) are better at than others. > If your product is software, literally it is impossible that sales add more value than the engineering organization that builds the product You're conflating how essential a step is to a process with how valuable it is. Mediating those factors is how difficult it is to replace the parts in the step. Consider, for example, an automobile assembly line. It would be incorrect to assume that just because the vehicle is useless without an engine, it is impossible for anyone to be more valuable than the person who mounts the engine.
- leeoniya 9y ago
  onboarding an engineer - even a great one - is notoriously expensive, because they need to understand the product in extreme detail that a salesperson never will - not even close. there are many good engineers, but they are very difficult to replace. in addition, more engineers does not always translate to faster delivery, so there is a natural limit to how many should exist to build out a specific product. there are also many good salespeople and they can be trained in much less time and there can be many more of them.
  - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
    > there are many good engineers, but they are very difficult to replace These engineers tend to find themselves well compensated. They aren’t representative of most coders in the Valley. Similarly with salespeople, you have lots of meagrely-compensated glorified customer service people and then people with difficult-to-replace relationships.
  - goatherders 9y ago
    No, there aren't many good sales people. No, they can't be trained in much less time. And no, there aren't necessarily more of them. This is probably the most "I'm a technical founder and I have something to say!" thread I've seen here in a while.
    - hohenheim 9y ago
      Neither you, or your parent comment, provided justification. "There are many good sales people", "There aren't many good sales people". Plain statements, little reasoning. Both worthless.
- divideby0829 9y ago
  I think it's disingenuous to say that it's a more common failure mode just because you see more of those failures. More realistically, if an organization has a good sales ability but no product, with some rare exceptions where people are hoodwinked etc., they just don't get to step up to the plate, i.e. They are not given the chance to fail because nothing happens and they don't get funded.
slg 9y ago
>If your product is software, literally it is impossible that sales add more value than the engineering organization that builds the product. Without engineering organization, you don't have anything to sell. Without sales and marketing, you will also have a hard time. It is collaboration what brings success. The distinction is that product development, sales and marketing can act as multipliers in a way that engineering seldom does. A tech company's growth is rarely due to the technical excellence of their product. There are obvious exceptions at the extremes, but very few of us are working for a Pied Piper with some truly amazing competitive advantage in technology. For example, what would happen if magically Twitter's tech became 50% better overnight? That would certainly reduce costs, but would it lead to any growth? Would the average person use the service more if the tech was better? Would companies buy more ads? Would revenue increase? Now imagine their product development, sales and marketing teams became 50% better. They could have actual product improvements beyond doubling Tweet length. They could instantly sell more ads. They could increase external partnerships to bring more attention to the platform. They would have all sorts of opportunities for added revenue and growth.
- vvanders 9y ago
  More efficient engineering ships features faster, not just cheaper, which lets you respond quicker, which gets you more users/clients/your favorite metric.
  - skufuor 9y ago
    I think that's the point he's trying to make this. But who communicates this to the customer? How decides what features are built (in a larger company)? Who pitches these new features to potential customers? At a big enough company where the engineers aren't the ones doing this work, the benefits of any engineering achievement is moot if those other 3 groups don't do their jobs well.
  - slg 9y ago
    Shipping faster is really just another form of cheaper. It isn't a linear relationship (the whole 9 women working for 1 month thing), but there is no question that dedicating more resources to a problem can help fix it quicker, especially with the frequency that companies are acquired in tech. I am not sure that Facebook creating Instagram Stories to compete with Snapchat is a definitively better solution than Twitter buying Periscope to compete with Meerkat. Either way, you still need someone to think up those new features, communicate them to the public, and sell them to your customers.
crdb 9y ago
> If your product is software, literally it is impossible that sales add more value than the engineering organization that builds the product. Without engineering organization, you don't have anything to sell. Anecdote as counter-example: a previous employer was approached by a vendor which offered a solution developed by "former NASA specialists" (I think it was to manage inventory). The total cost of deploying it was around a million. We tried hard to stop the executives from going ahead with it, but around $400k had been paid by the time we managed to kill the project when it became clear that a. the vendor did not actually have a product and was using us as the R&D guinea pig, taking advantage of the data from millions of our customers and b. the "NASA" part referred to one of their developers who had briefly interned with a NASA contractor. So, the sales organisation managed to "create" $400k of "value" (in the sense of hard revenue in their bank account) without engineering being involved.
- VexXtreme 9y ago
  > So, the sales organisation managed to "create" $400k of "value" Yes, it's called "fraud".
- dclowd9901 9y ago
  I think this is more an anecdote to the example than counter example.
dlwdlw 9y ago
Another thing is that software is more mercenary while sales/marketing is more embedded. Theres more domain expertise that needs to be built and legacy folks that need to relinquish their positions. This requires more time and risk. Though IMO the mercenary freedom exists only in theory as the true freedom which makes it worth it is blocked by the inane interview processes that develepers impose on each other. There is a dissonance in the way technical skills are supposed to be some sort of objective measure and the moat digging this culture creates. (It specifically allows in only a certain class of "technical") Though taking a few steps back these are all first world in first sorld problems. :/

by kartan 9y ago

JumpCrisscross 9y ago

> Why is it not true for them? Sales are not magic, it is a profession that can be learned Like software engineering. And like writing software, some people are better at it / enjoy it more than others. Software engineers and good salespeople are very well compensated because they're hard to replace. > I have seen a lot of companies stating how important is sales, and how unique they are. It can't be true for all companies. It is like everyone thinking that they are above average, it is just not possible. Most companies, particularly most start-ups, suck at sales. "Great engineers, shit sales" is a more common failure mode in Silicon Valley than "sold something couldn't be built." Also, "good at sales" isn't a one dimensional metric. There are different sales processes, some of which some people (and consequently companies) are better at than others. > If your product is software, literally it is impossible that sales add more value than the engineering organization that builds the product You're conflating how essential a step is to a process with how valuable it is. Mediating those factors is how difficult it is to replace the parts in the step. Consider, for example, an automobile assembly line. It would be incorrect to assume that just because the vehicle is useless without an engine, it is impossible for anyone to be more valuable than the person who mounts the engine.

leeoniya 9y ago
onboarding an engineer - even a great one - is notoriously expensive, because they need to understand the product in extreme detail that a salesperson never will - not even close. there are many good engineers, but they are very difficult to replace. in addition, more engineers does not always translate to faster delivery, so there is a natural limit to how many should exist to build out a specific product. there are also many good salespeople and they can be trained in much less time and there can be many more of them.
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  > there are many good engineers, but they are very difficult to replace These engineers tend to find themselves well compensated. They aren’t representative of most coders in the Valley. Similarly with salespeople, you have lots of meagrely-compensated glorified customer service people and then people with difficult-to-replace relationships.
- goatherders 9y ago
  No, there aren't many good sales people. No, they can't be trained in much less time. And no, there aren't necessarily more of them. This is probably the most "I'm a technical founder and I have something to say!" thread I've seen here in a while.
  - hohenheim 9y ago
    Neither you, or your parent comment, provided justification. "There are many good sales people", "There aren't many good sales people". Plain statements, little reasoning. Both worthless.
divideby0829 9y ago
I think it's disingenuous to say that it's a more common failure mode just because you see more of those failures. More realistically, if an organization has a good sales ability but no product, with some rare exceptions where people are hoodwinked etc., they just don't get to step up to the plate, i.e. They are not given the chance to fail because nothing happens and they don't get funded.

slg 9y ago

>If your product is software, literally it is impossible that sales add more value than the engineering organization that builds the product. Without engineering organization, you don't have anything to sell. Without sales and marketing, you will also have a hard time. It is collaboration what brings success. The distinction is that product development, sales and marketing can act as multipliers in a way that engineering seldom does. A tech company's growth is rarely due to the technical excellence of their product. There are obvious exceptions at the extremes, but very few of us are working for a Pied Piper with some truly amazing competitive advantage in technology. For example, what would happen if magically Twitter's tech became 50% better overnight? That would certainly reduce costs, but would it lead to any growth? Would the average person use the service more if the tech was better? Would companies buy more ads? Would revenue increase? Now imagine their product development, sales and marketing teams became 50% better. They could have actual product improvements beyond doubling Tweet length. They could instantly sell more ads. They could increase external partnerships to bring more attention to the platform. They would have all sorts of opportunities for added revenue and growth.

vvanders 9y ago
More efficient engineering ships features faster, not just cheaper, which lets you respond quicker, which gets you more users/clients/your favorite metric.
- skufuor 9y ago
  I think that's the point he's trying to make this. But who communicates this to the customer? How decides what features are built (in a larger company)? Who pitches these new features to potential customers? At a big enough company where the engineers aren't the ones doing this work, the benefits of any engineering achievement is moot if those other 3 groups don't do their jobs well.
- slg 9y ago
  Shipping faster is really just another form of cheaper. It isn't a linear relationship (the whole 9 women working for 1 month thing), but there is no question that dedicating more resources to a problem can help fix it quicker, especially with the frequency that companies are acquired in tech. I am not sure that Facebook creating Instagram Stories to compete with Snapchat is a definitively better solution than Twitter buying Periscope to compete with Meerkat. Either way, you still need someone to think up those new features, communicate them to the public, and sell them to your customers.

crdb 9y ago

> If your product is software, literally it is impossible that sales add more value than the engineering organization that builds the product. Without engineering organization, you don't have anything to sell. Anecdote as counter-example: a previous employer was approached by a vendor which offered a solution developed by "former NASA specialists" (I think it was to manage inventory). The total cost of deploying it was around a million. We tried hard to stop the executives from going ahead with it, but around $400k had been paid by the time we managed to kill the project when it became clear that a. the vendor did not actually have a product and was using us as the R&D guinea pig, taking advantage of the data from millions of our customers and b. the "NASA" part referred to one of their developers who had briefly interned with a NASA contractor. So, the sales organisation managed to "create" $400k of "value" (in the sense of hard revenue in their bank account) without engineering being involved.

VexXtreme 9y ago
> So, the sales organisation managed to "create" $400k of "value" Yes, it's called "fraud".
dclowd9901 9y ago
I think this is more an anecdote to the example than counter example.

dlwdlw 9y ago

Another thing is that software is more mercenary while sales/marketing is more embedded. Theres more domain expertise that needs to be built and legacy folks that need to relinquish their positions. This requires more time and risk. Though IMO the mercenary freedom exists only in theory as the true freedom which makes it worth it is blocked by the inane interview processes that develepers impose on each other. There is a dissonance in the way technical skills are supposed to be some sort of objective measure and the moat digging this culture creates. (It specifically allows in only a certain class of "technical") Though taking a few steps back these are all first world in first sorld problems. :/