4 ms·

“we need to ship feature X by Y to get client Z otherwise the opportunity is gone.” When you say client it becomes consulting that happens to have a software p

“we need to ship feature X by Y to get client Z otherwise the opportunity is gone.” When you say client it becomes consulting that happens to have a software project at that point. If your market needs feature x Like a mobile app because a competitor is going to crush you without it then it makes sense. Reacting to a market every now and then is understandable. However I think the horrible sales driven companies react to individual customers and that destroys your chances of any cohesive plan as each sales person hijacks your devs...which means at that point they are selling your devs time for their individual gain hurting company’s ability to make a large impact on the market. Shouldn’t happen but that’s sales driven.

reader_mode 5y ago
I don't know - I've worked for a startup (in the size/age sense, not in the unicorn scaling sense) where they focused on one market segment (small customers) then got the opportunity to onboard a huge franchise. This required a huge change but would basically make their buisiness stable for X years and allow them to grow into a different market. But they had specific dates that needed to be met because existing provider contract was expiring, etc. etc. So the product wasn't built for their scale, it took a bunch of invasive changes, dirty hacks, and accepting client specific workflow initially. You can look at that and say "we're lockign ourselves into their workflow" and "we're making client specific features" - but this client literally 3x their revenue year one and increased it a couple times more for extra features developed. And once you have one big client and solve their problems - you can try to generalise and sell to their competition as well.
- LootCrateDev 5y ago
  Devs aren't loot crates.
  - simlevesque 5y ago
    Could you please explain what you mean instead of repeating an empty catchphrase? And did you really create this account to say the same thing over and over ?
    - LootCrateDev 5y ago
      The HN community takes a grotesque pride in striving for imagined middle ground or pointless sophistry, so I'm here to take a singular position to counter that collective absurdity. Devs aren't loot crates. More info here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26854038 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26854038
nkozyra 5y ago
> When you say client it becomes consulting that happens to have a software project at that point. 100%. If you cannot qualify a feature being important for the product and most/all customers you're chasing dollars. It's a common trap, driven by commission structures that incentivize a sale over anything else.
- inter_netuser 5y ago
  How do you qualify a feature being important enough for the product? In the end, all of this boils down to money/market share.
  - knowyourleadcom 5y ago
    Short answer - 2 factor login option likely interesting for > 60% of users, special thing for client X good for < 1%. Maybe a mvp for the 1% can be ok and maybe that could show promise as a new side hustle or enterprise feature. Long answer - It’s very tough. It really is checkers vs chess and thinking 3 years ahead vs a quarter. Big client X wants to give us 100k now for quick thing but what will it take to babysit them going forward, also client X is a 1% of our revenue and everyone else is medium sized...I’m leaving out the 99% and making the product more bloated, etc. But can that feature be a enterprise level feature if your product is b2b enterprise sales.

reader_mode 5y ago

I don't know - I've worked for a startup (in the size/age sense, not in the unicorn scaling sense) where they focused on one market segment (small customers) then got the opportunity to onboard a huge franchise. This required a huge change but would basically make their buisiness stable for X years and allow them to grow into a different market. But they had specific dates that needed to be met because existing provider contract was expiring, etc. etc. So the product wasn't built for their scale, it took a bunch of invasive changes, dirty hacks, and accepting client specific workflow initially. You can look at that and say "we're lockign ourselves into their workflow" and "we're making client specific features" - but this client literally 3x their revenue year one and increased it a couple times more for extra features developed. And once you have one big client and solve their problems - you can try to generalise and sell to their competition as well.

LootCrateDev 5y ago
Devs aren't loot crates.
- simlevesque 5y ago
  Could you please explain what you mean instead of repeating an empty catchphrase? And did you really create this account to say the same thing over and over ?
  - LootCrateDev 5y ago
    The HN community takes a grotesque pride in striving for imagined middle ground or pointless sophistry, so I'm here to take a singular position to counter that collective absurdity. Devs aren't loot crates. More info here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26854038 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26854038

nkozyra 5y ago

> When you say client it becomes consulting that happens to have a software project at that point. 100%. If you cannot qualify a feature being important for the product and most/all customers you're chasing dollars. It's a common trap, driven by commission structures that incentivize a sale over anything else.

inter_netuser 5y ago
How do you qualify a feature being important enough for the product? In the end, all of this boils down to money/market share.
- knowyourleadcom 5y ago
  Short answer - 2 factor login option likely interesting for > 60% of users, special thing for client X good for < 1%. Maybe a mvp for the 1% can be ok and maybe that could show promise as a new side hustle or enterprise feature. Long answer - It’s very tough. It really is checkers vs chess and thinking 3 years ahead vs a quarter. Big client X wants to give us 100k now for quick thing but what will it take to babysit them going forward, also client X is a 1% of our revenue and everyone else is medium sized...I’m leaving out the 99% and making the product more bloated, etc. But can that feature be a enterprise level feature if your product is b2b enterprise sales.