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One of the most painful, obvious, and annoying lessons I learned in my software career is that if you're team needs to grind hard - it's unlikely to be successf

by lumost 4y ago

One of the most painful, obvious, and annoying lessons I learned in my software career is that if you're team needs to grind hard - it's unlikely to be successful. Software is a great business when its working, high margin, low maintenance, and great growth economics. When companies are successful at it, they often are so successful that there is very little internal pressure to produce. No successful company survives as a country club, so there is a high pressure for high quality delivery of some number of projects per year, or at least appreciable progress. There simply isn't any need for the company to push people beyond a 40 hour work week.

hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
I disagree with this when it comes to early-stage startups, primarily because the world often throws you curveballs that even the best planning can't avoid, and at an early stage there just isn't enough spare capacity to deal with it without scrambling. I worked at a startup that was very well managed IMO. We selected a critical partner early on. About 2 years later that critical partner was bought out by a larger corporation, and they decided to close the business line we depended on (lots of other customers were kicked off and pissed). They even tried to bring up BS contract issues to get out of their contract early. We had fortunately already started adding an additional partner to take advantage of more functionality and not have a single point of failure, but it was still a mad, stressful dash to get everything switched over. Startups just fundamentally don't have the level of repeatability/predictability at an early stage that would make bulletproof planning possible.
- lumost 4y ago
  > Startups just fundamentally don't have the level of repeatability/predictability at an early stage that would make bulletproof planning possible. Agreed, startups are often low margin, chaotic businesses at the outset, with poor product/market fit. At the start, these are not "good" software businesses, many of these startups will fail/be bought early/struggle. Early in my career I sought out teams who had strong "hustle", when I eventually went to work at a big tech - I was surprised at the slower pace.

by lumost 4y ago

hn_throwaway_99 4y ago

I disagree with this when it comes to early-stage startups, primarily because the world often throws you curveballs that even the best planning can't avoid, and at an early stage there just isn't enough spare capacity to deal with it without scrambling. I worked at a startup that was very well managed IMO. We selected a critical partner early on. About 2 years later that critical partner was bought out by a larger corporation, and they decided to close the business line we depended on (lots of other customers were kicked off and pissed). They even tried to bring up BS contract issues to get out of their contract early. We had fortunately already started adding an additional partner to take advantage of more functionality and not have a single point of failure, but it was still a mad, stressful dash to get everything switched over. Startups just fundamentally don't have the level of repeatability/predictability at an early stage that would make bulletproof planning possible.

lumost 4y ago
> Startups just fundamentally don't have the level of repeatability/predictability at an early stage that would make bulletproof planning possible. Agreed, startups are often low margin, chaotic businesses at the outset, with poor product/market fit. At the start, these are not "good" software businesses, many of these startups will fail/be bought early/struggle. Early in my career I sought out teams who had strong "hustle", when I eventually went to work at a big tech - I was surprised at the slower pace.