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well, I'm a nerd pretending to be a business guy, not the other way around, but I think some of the same lessons apply. First nobody will take you seriously (a

by lsc 16y ago

well, I'm a nerd pretending to be a business guy, not the other way around, but I think some of the same lessons apply. First nobody will take you seriously (as a business guy or a nerd) without some experience. so we need to get you some experience. Do you have cash? if not, go get a regular job. get it the way regular business grads do it (what I mean, is you need cash for the first step. not a lot of cash, but some. a job, in my experience, is the easiest way to get cash. If the job sounds impressive, it can also count some towards experience. But, if you have enough cash already, you can move on to step two.) Now, find someone to hire. You can hire inexperienced nerds for very little. depending on where you are, anywhere from min. wage to $15/hr will get you started. Note, you won't get anyone with experience for this rate... but sometimes you get really promising people without that attribute (and you can't afford experience right now, unless you have more money than I think.) the thing to remember here is that you will probably end up firing the guy. I mean, I know nerds fairly well, and I end up making a lot of mistakes, so you will too. The trick here (and if you can learn this, you will have vastly improved your value as a business person) is to learn how to fire well. By firing well, I mean you need to learn how to get rid of your mistake without making an enemy or making him or her feel to bad. It's a small community and if you have a rep. as an asshole, you are going to have a hard time picking up your second guy. (and when you find someone you don't need to fire? be /extra careful/ - that guy's friends will be the people you want to hire when he moves on to a higher paying job... or he might be the co-founder you want.) I think the key is to start people off as contractors without the expectation of continued work. If they don't work out, you pay them for what they did, and the job is over. Nobody's expectations have been violated; nobody feels ripped off, etc... Only move someone into an expectation of longer term employment once they've proven themselves. As you get better you can move on to figuring out how to fire people who have been working for you for a while... but that's pretty rare if you work everyone as contractors first. People will leave, but usually they leave on their own for more money before needing to be pushed. next, if you do manage to do something cool, always give the nerd who helped a bunch of the technical credit when you are talking to other people. It'll make the guy feel good, and if anything, it makes you look better. Nobody likes (or believes) a business guy who tries to takes all the credit, and really, as a business guy, if you pick the right nerd co-founder, that makes you look really good. by pointing out how good your nerd is, you are pointing out how good you are to have found and kept that nerd.

tyng 16y ago
Hey lsc, thank you so much for your advice about hiring techs on a contracter basis, it's such an eye-opener and I think this might be something I can pursue! (Only if I could upvote multiple times, I'd upvote you multiple times!) Out of curiosity, does it work the same way for you as a hacker hiring a biz type? For example, if you hire a sales and later fires him, there's the chance that he/she will take your clients away. Thoughts?
- lsc 16y ago
  >Out of curiosity, does it work the same way for you as a hacker hiring a biz type? For example, if you hire a sales and later fires him, there's the chance that he/she will take your clients away. Thoughts? I wouldn't know. I'm in a business where face-to-face sales doesn't matter. the value is in the price and reliability. I mean, if someone else wants to build something better and cheaper, I might have a problem, but I don't think anyone would get very far just calling my customer list. Also, when I do advertise, or "sell" I mostly focus on brand building rather than selling to individual customers, and I own the brand much more than I own the customer list. If more of my perceived value was in individual customer sales, of course, this would be different. You do bring up an interesting point, though. most of the people I do this with, I can train, to some extent. I mean, every now and again I'll find a webapp dev who is better than I am at that right off the bat, but most people I've hired required some training from me to get to that point, so it might be that you need to do this with people in your skill area? on the other hand it sounds like you've got some basic tech skills, so it's probably worth a shot. The closest thing to biz types I've hired are accountants and bookkeepers. I've actually done okay, I think, hiring bookkeepers; as for my accountant, I pay full price just 'cause of the incredible badness of screwing up your taxes.
  - tyng 16y ago
    Accountants and bookkeepers weren't really the "biz type" I was talking about (though they are important), I was talking about sales, marketing and finance guy. Granted, a smart techie willing to learn can learn those stuff too. But I think the type of business really determines whether you'll need to find a biz type cofounder early on, which in your case, a marketing/sales person is useless during the startup phase. Something like Groupon for instance, would probably need sales people early on. Thanks for the discussion, I found it really stimulating. :)

by lsc 16y ago

tyng 16y ago

Hey lsc, thank you so much for your advice about hiring techs on a contracter basis, it's such an eye-opener and I think this might be something I can pursue! (Only if I could upvote multiple times, I'd upvote you multiple times!) Out of curiosity, does it work the same way for you as a hacker hiring a biz type? For example, if you hire a sales and later fires him, there's the chance that he/she will take your clients away. Thoughts?

lsc 16y ago
>Out of curiosity, does it work the same way for you as a hacker hiring a biz type? For example, if you hire a sales and later fires him, there's the chance that he/she will take your clients away. Thoughts? I wouldn't know. I'm in a business where face-to-face sales doesn't matter. the value is in the price and reliability. I mean, if someone else wants to build something better and cheaper, I might have a problem, but I don't think anyone would get very far just calling my customer list. Also, when I do advertise, or "sell" I mostly focus on brand building rather than selling to individual customers, and I own the brand much more than I own the customer list. If more of my perceived value was in individual customer sales, of course, this would be different. You do bring up an interesting point, though. most of the people I do this with, I can train, to some extent. I mean, every now and again I'll find a webapp dev who is better than I am at that right off the bat, but most people I've hired required some training from me to get to that point, so it might be that you need to do this with people in your skill area? on the other hand it sounds like you've got some basic tech skills, so it's probably worth a shot. The closest thing to biz types I've hired are accountants and bookkeepers. I've actually done okay, I think, hiring bookkeepers; as for my accountant, I pay full price just 'cause of the incredible badness of screwing up your taxes.
- tyng 16y ago
  Accountants and bookkeepers weren't really the "biz type" I was talking about (though they are important), I was talking about sales, marketing and finance guy. Granted, a smart techie willing to learn can learn those stuff too. But I think the type of business really determines whether you'll need to find a biz type cofounder early on, which in your case, a marketing/sales person is useless during the startup phase. Something like Groupon for instance, would probably need sales people early on. Thanks for the discussion, I found it really stimulating. :)