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Most people forget that with startups, what you are trying to create is a business... the technology behind is only one element to it. It is extremely difficul

Most people forget that with startups, what you are trying to create is a business... the technology behind is only one element to it. It is extremely difficult to do good marketing and sales and they did it. Solve a customer problem while building a healthy business... a success story in my book.

gxs 9y ago
Agree - I think there is a perception that if you build an awesome product it sells itself. There is so much work to running a successful business, especially at that scale. Marketing, Sales, Implementation, Support, on top of G&A, and that's not even touching on HR and retaining employees in a competitive market. There is a reason some people are known as the "business" guys, I think expertise in that area is underrated, especially among people who've only worked at smaller companies or startups. Edit: Genuinely curious to know why I'm being downvoted. Care to elaborate on why you're downvoting?
- nopzor 9y ago
  Have no idea why you're being downvoted. I think your point is salient and under appreciated. Certainly from my own experiences it's easy to get caught up in the product and the tech, and not focus enough on the biz side of things. Ie. Sales and Marketing. Basically I'm in complete agreement with you, and feel this is a hard learned lesson.
- KGIII 9y ago
  Speculation: You were being downvoted because software types often express ideas that can be summed up as business is easy and the people doing the business aspects aren't important. They seem to think that everyone and anyone can do it and, when they hear success stories as examples, it reinforces those ideas. A good example is some of the comments that software folks make about the sales department. They are different skillsets and people have varied abilities in each. The business aspect is not actually easy. It is also not always done well. The software end isn't always done well, either. My guess would be that is why you were being downvoted. I notice a number of votes are emotional in nature. They aren't based on logic. I see some that are most easily explained as, "I don't want to know." The comment is factual, not confrontational, and topical. The vote is still negative. Meh... I don't mind it when it happens to me. I have karma to spare and don't actually make comments for the points. I say what I feel needs to be said and try to stick mostly within the guidelines. (I do meander off topic sometimes.) But, no... I don't comment for the points. I comment for the replies and thoughts. They are usually quite brilliant and insightful.
  - sanderjd 9y ago
    I did not downvote the parent comment, but I did downvote you, because I think your comment stereotypes "software types" in an unfair way. It is possible to both have a lot of respect for the difficulty of building the business side of an organization and for the folks who can do it well, and to think that it is unwise to build a business based mostly on sales and marketing without focusing enough on the quality of the product itself.
    - KGIII 9y ago
      You missed the part where I said 'often.' That is okay by me. Karma is only good if you spend it.
      - sanderjd 9y ago
        Sure, but your speculation suggests that the "often" is enough to explain the parent's downvotes. I think there's a better explanation that doesn't impugn certain "types" of people. I'm just speculating too of course.
        KGIII 9y ago
        Just out of curiosity, what do you think is a better (and more probable) answer?
        sanderjd 9y ago
        Sorry I just saw this - it's what I said in my original comment that you replied to, I think a better and more probable explanation is that people "have a lot of respect for the difficulty of building the business side of an organization and for the folks who can do it well, [but that they] think that it is unwise to build a business based mostly on sales and marketing without focusing enough on the quality of the product itself".
- sanderjd 9y ago
  I didn't downvote you, but if I had, it would be because while you're right that building sales and marketing is difficult and doing so successfully is certainly admirable, another fundamentally important part of creating a successful software business is building a successful product. I suspect your downvoters don't believe that Mongo has actually done that part.
  - onion2k 9y ago
    There are a lot of successful software businesses built on terrible products. In fact, in my experience, a lot of startups put far too much emphasis on software quality. As painful as it is for many developer/designer entrepreneurs to hear, if your product solves the customer's problem at a price they're happy to pay then more than good enough to sell to them, even if it's absolute garbage from a tech perspective. There are plenty of reasons to write good quality code (it's more maintainable, moves faster, more secure, requires less resources, more fun, etc) but "because you won't be successful if you don't" really isn't one of them.
- mrbrowning 9y ago
  Mongo as a business has largely catapulted itself to where it is by making money off of information assymetry more than actual technical superiority. They may have since corrected a lot of the fundamental technical isssues with their product, but that doesn’t change the fact that (contrary to SV dogma) their success doesn’t rest on the creation of wealth, only its extraction from magpie-type customers. Downvoters likely chafe at the notion that such a strategy is laudable or valid.
  - rtpg 9y ago
    Even assuming that the product is so-so, saying that they did not create wealth is a bit disingenuous. They basically created "NoSQL" discussions at a time where most settled on some SQL variant despite their difficulties. It's not like they were just a vendor of some other product. They actually spent money on the product, on evangelism (kind of marketing, but also kind of development), on so much. Stripe's technical achievements at first were basically "a nice button" and a slightly friendlier risk model. Yet they are lauded (as they should be!). We can cut Mongo some slack given how we act about other companies.
    - philwelch 9y ago
      I would say that NoSQL was more popularized by Amazon’s whitepaper on Dynamo, which they published in 2007.
  - alexasmyths 9y ago
    "their success doesn’t rest on the creation of wealth, only its extraction from magpie-type customers" To make such an assertion, you're going to have to provide evidence that the people using Mongo and it's services, are, in fact too stupid to know what's good for them, and that they are absolutely better off using something else.
blitmap 9y ago
I'm not sure HN celebrates products for simply being successfully marketed. That said, I do think they made a way of handling a data model pleasurable. Different paradigm++
- developer2 9y ago
  >> not sure HN celebrates products for simply being successfully marketed Except that Mongo didn't find success through "simply being successfully marketed". So many people in this thread cannot seem to understand how to look at the business as a whole. Software devs are blasting the software for not being a mind-blowing piece of technology, while not understanding that it has its niche and - apparently - a good business strategy. You cannot (typically) succeed by only having an amazing product. You also (typically) cannot succeed by dumping millions into sales and marketing for a truly garbage product. The product itself and the business behind it are both necessary elements for success. There are a lot of developers in this thread trying very hard to appear smart by jumping on the "Mongo is a joke" bandwagon.
  - quickben 9y ago
    Have you looked at their financials? They are in the same bandwagon as their technology.
    - gaius 9y ago
      Mongo's business model is "exploiting the technically naive". They are the CueCat of databases.
      - lafar6502 9y ago
        Exploiting with products available for free? Oh really?
        gaius 9y ago
        The first taste is always free
awinder 9y ago
I agree but given that the technology is the product here, they’re in a bit of a different situation. Evaluating the technology is evaluating the product here.
- rburhum 9y ago
  During my first startup as the CTO I made the mistake of thinking this way. I was so wrong I burned through 2M like it was nothing. The "product" of a startup is a sustainable business model that can scale fast. The core technology may or may not be a key element part of that model. So they solved a customer problem with interesting technology - regardless of arguments if it ACID compliant, or as good as <replace with whatever you think is "better">. Where they sustainable at the beginning? No. Are they sustainable now and did they scale appropriately? Yes. As a startup that went through it stages, they did it. This is not easy because it requires all the elements to work properly (market need, sales, marketing, engineering, operations, etc). So what if RethinkDB/or_other has a feature that is better? Irrelevant. Even better they did this ethically, which is more than I can say about other "startups" with insane funding and dubious and questionable strategies.

gxs 9y ago

Agree - I think there is a perception that if you build an awesome product it sells itself. There is so much work to running a successful business, especially at that scale. Marketing, Sales, Implementation, Support, on top of G&A, and that's not even touching on HR and retaining employees in a competitive market. There is a reason some people are known as the "business" guys, I think expertise in that area is underrated, especially among people who've only worked at smaller companies or startups. Edit: Genuinely curious to know why I'm being downvoted. Care to elaborate on why you're downvoting?

nopzor 9y ago
Have no idea why you're being downvoted. I think your point is salient and under appreciated. Certainly from my own experiences it's easy to get caught up in the product and the tech, and not focus enough on the biz side of things. Ie. Sales and Marketing. Basically I'm in complete agreement with you, and feel this is a hard learned lesson.
KGIII 9y ago
Speculation: You were being downvoted because software types often express ideas that can be summed up as business is easy and the people doing the business aspects aren't important. They seem to think that everyone and anyone can do it and, when they hear success stories as examples, it reinforces those ideas. A good example is some of the comments that software folks make about the sales department. They are different skillsets and people have varied abilities in each. The business aspect is not actually easy. It is also not always done well. The software end isn't always done well, either. My guess would be that is why you were being downvoted. I notice a number of votes are emotional in nature. They aren't based on logic. I see some that are most easily explained as, "I don't want to know." The comment is factual, not confrontational, and topical. The vote is still negative. Meh... I don't mind it when it happens to me. I have karma to spare and don't actually make comments for the points. I say what I feel needs to be said and try to stick mostly within the guidelines. (I do meander off topic sometimes.) But, no... I don't comment for the points. I comment for the replies and thoughts. They are usually quite brilliant and insightful.
- sanderjd 9y ago
  I did not downvote the parent comment, but I did downvote you, because I think your comment stereotypes "software types" in an unfair way. It is possible to both have a lot of respect for the difficulty of building the business side of an organization and for the folks who can do it well, and to think that it is unwise to build a business based mostly on sales and marketing without focusing enough on the quality of the product itself.
  - KGIII 9y ago
    You missed the part where I said 'often.' That is okay by me. Karma is only good if you spend it.
    - sanderjd 9y ago
      Sure, but your speculation suggests that the "often" is enough to explain the parent's downvotes. I think there's a better explanation that doesn't impugn certain "types" of people. I'm just speculating too of course.
      - KGIII 9y ago
        Just out of curiosity, what do you think is a better (and more probable) answer?
        sanderjd 9y ago
        Sorry I just saw this - it's what I said in my original comment that you replied to, I think a better and more probable explanation is that people "have a lot of respect for the difficulty of building the business side of an organization and for the folks who can do it well, [but that they] think that it is unwise to build a business based mostly on sales and marketing without focusing enough on the quality of the product itself".
sanderjd 9y ago
I didn't downvote you, but if I had, it would be because while you're right that building sales and marketing is difficult and doing so successfully is certainly admirable, another fundamentally important part of creating a successful software business is building a successful product. I suspect your downvoters don't believe that Mongo has actually done that part.
- onion2k 9y ago
  There are a lot of successful software businesses built on terrible products. In fact, in my experience, a lot of startups put far too much emphasis on software quality. As painful as it is for many developer/designer entrepreneurs to hear, if your product solves the customer's problem at a price they're happy to pay then more than good enough to sell to them, even if it's absolute garbage from a tech perspective. There are plenty of reasons to write good quality code (it's more maintainable, moves faster, more secure, requires less resources, more fun, etc) but "because you won't be successful if you don't" really isn't one of them.
mrbrowning 9y ago
Mongo as a business has largely catapulted itself to where it is by making money off of information assymetry more than actual technical superiority. They may have since corrected a lot of the fundamental technical isssues with their product, but that doesn’t change the fact that (contrary to SV dogma) their success doesn’t rest on the creation of wealth, only its extraction from magpie-type customers. Downvoters likely chafe at the notion that such a strategy is laudable or valid.
- rtpg 9y ago
  Even assuming that the product is so-so, saying that they did not create wealth is a bit disingenuous. They basically created "NoSQL" discussions at a time where most settled on some SQL variant despite their difficulties. It's not like they were just a vendor of some other product. They actually spent money on the product, on evangelism (kind of marketing, but also kind of development), on so much. Stripe's technical achievements at first were basically "a nice button" and a slightly friendlier risk model. Yet they are lauded (as they should be!). We can cut Mongo some slack given how we act about other companies.
  - philwelch 9y ago
    I would say that NoSQL was more popularized by Amazon’s whitepaper on Dynamo, which they published in 2007.
- alexasmyths 9y ago
  "their success doesn’t rest on the creation of wealth, only its extraction from magpie-type customers" To make such an assertion, you're going to have to provide evidence that the people using Mongo and it's services, are, in fact too stupid to know what's good for them, and that they are absolutely better off using something else.

blitmap 9y ago

I'm not sure HN celebrates products for simply being successfully marketed. That said, I do think they made a way of handling a data model pleasurable. Different paradigm++

developer2 9y ago
>> not sure HN celebrates products for simply being successfully marketed Except that Mongo didn't find success through "simply being successfully marketed". So many people in this thread cannot seem to understand how to look at the business as a whole. Software devs are blasting the software for not being a mind-blowing piece of technology, while not understanding that it has its niche and - apparently - a good business strategy. You cannot (typically) succeed by only having an amazing product. You also (typically) cannot succeed by dumping millions into sales and marketing for a truly garbage product. The product itself and the business behind it are both necessary elements for success. There are a lot of developers in this thread trying very hard to appear smart by jumping on the "Mongo is a joke" bandwagon.
- quickben 9y ago
  Have you looked at their financials? They are in the same bandwagon as their technology.
  - gaius 9y ago
    Mongo's business model is "exploiting the technically naive". They are the CueCat of databases.
    - lafar6502 9y ago
      Exploiting with products available for free? Oh really?
      - gaius 9y ago
        The first taste is always free

awinder 9y ago

I agree but given that the technology is the product here, they’re in a bit of a different situation. Evaluating the technology is evaluating the product here.

rburhum 9y ago
During my first startup as the CTO I made the mistake of thinking this way. I was so wrong I burned through 2M like it was nothing. The "product" of a startup is a sustainable business model that can scale fast. The core technology may or may not be a key element part of that model. So they solved a customer problem with interesting technology - regardless of arguments if it ACID compliant, or as good as <replace with whatever you think is "better">. Where they sustainable at the beginning? No. Are they sustainable now and did they scale appropriately? Yes. As a startup that went through it stages, they did it. This is not easy because it requires all the elements to work properly (market need, sales, marketing, engineering, operations, etc). So what if RethinkDB/or_other has a feature that is better? Irrelevant. Even better they did this ethically, which is more than I can say about other "startups" with insane funding and dubious and questionable strategies.