3 ms·

It's not beneficial to have every single person at the company thinking about the business as a whole. Now more than ever, we live in an age of specialization a

by rmk 4y ago

It's not beneficial to have every single person at the company thinking about the business as a whole. Now more than ever, we live in an age of specialization and it's counterproductive for all the people at the company to be thinking about the business as a whole. That is why there are departments, teams, and other groupings with discrete responsibilities: the separation of responsibilities and focus on small, manageable areas of responsibility helps people do a great job, efficiently. This is true even with a company that's just starting, because there are way too many aspects of running a company for a single person to contemplate, let alone do efficiently or well.

ketzo 4y ago
thinking about =\= working on I can learn about my company’s deal flow and benefit from that without needing to spend six hours in Quickbooks It’s good for me to know the feature I’m building is important to a prospective customer who has an emphasis on security, even if I don’t sit on a call with them
yAt8Pirng5fSxax 4y ago
Those departments, teams, and other groupings - none of which probably exist in a 7 person company, by the way - have to interact with each other.
- rmk 4y ago
  Yes, and trust plays a huge role in that more than anything else. Information sharing is unlikely to make a huge difference for a close-knit group that likely knows one another quite well to begin with. Even in a 7-person company, there aren't many direct interactions between disparate functions that are called for, or even desirable, for that matter. Employees and founders/co-founders have massively different incentives and need for information. Some functions, such as HR, actually rely on keeping a lid on certain types of information to function properly!
borski 4y ago
I would argue that the specialization you’re referring to is what causes very many early stage startups to fail. Before you’ve found product market fit, you need everyone to be thinking about the whole product, even if they’re not working on the whole product. Also, give “Range” a read. It’s a fantastic book and may help change your mind.
- rmk 4y ago
  Thank you for the book recommendation. Many early-stage startups fail because they fail to find a good product-market fit, or because they fail in marketing and sales, which are much harder to get right. I very much doubt that poor information sharing by the founders about the state of the business with rank and file (which is what is implied in the question here) causes disasters. Later-stage startups often fail because managing growth is a supremely difficult skill, and if everyone is not rowing in the same direction or if there are strategic missteps, the growth engine sputters. Absence of growth is death in our industry. Sharing too much information at this stage may be counterproductive if the company is still trying to make unit economics work, improving sales efficiency, or burning cash to fight an external competitor while scrambling to secure more. Many of these will just drive away many employees, who show up for the paychecks.
  - borski 4y ago
    I agree on the latter point. The advice of be transparent applies much more to earlier stage companies. Often, engineers and other employees have great ideas that lead to a development that changes your product or your market and helps you find fit. That can only happen if they both: a) have the info, and, b) care enough about the mission / company to think about it. That varied set of experiences gives you (the founder) a greater surface area to draw from when coming up with solutions.

by rmk 4y ago

ketzo 4y ago

thinking about =\= working on I can learn about my company’s deal flow and benefit from that without needing to spend six hours in Quickbooks It’s good for me to know the feature I’m building is important to a prospective customer who has an emphasis on security, even if I don’t sit on a call with them

yAt8Pirng5fSxax 4y ago

Those departments, teams, and other groupings - none of which probably exist in a 7 person company, by the way - have to interact with each other.

rmk 4y ago
Yes, and trust plays a huge role in that more than anything else. Information sharing is unlikely to make a huge difference for a close-knit group that likely knows one another quite well to begin with. Even in a 7-person company, there aren't many direct interactions between disparate functions that are called for, or even desirable, for that matter. Employees and founders/co-founders have massively different incentives and need for information. Some functions, such as HR, actually rely on keeping a lid on certain types of information to function properly!

borski 4y ago

I would argue that the specialization you’re referring to is what causes very many early stage startups to fail. Before you’ve found product market fit, you need everyone to be thinking about the whole product, even if they’re not working on the whole product. Also, give “Range” a read. It’s a fantastic book and may help change your mind.

rmk 4y ago
Thank you for the book recommendation. Many early-stage startups fail because they fail to find a good product-market fit, or because they fail in marketing and sales, which are much harder to get right. I very much doubt that poor information sharing by the founders about the state of the business with rank and file (which is what is implied in the question here) causes disasters. Later-stage startups often fail because managing growth is a supremely difficult skill, and if everyone is not rowing in the same direction or if there are strategic missteps, the growth engine sputters. Absence of growth is death in our industry. Sharing too much information at this stage may be counterproductive if the company is still trying to make unit economics work, improving sales efficiency, or burning cash to fight an external competitor while scrambling to secure more. Many of these will just drive away many employees, who show up for the paychecks.
- borski 4y ago
  I agree on the latter point. The advice of be transparent applies much more to earlier stage companies. Often, engineers and other employees have great ideas that lead to a development that changes your product or your market and helps you find fit. That can only happen if they both: a) have the info, and, b) care enough about the mission / company to think about it. That varied set of experiences gives you (the founder) a greater surface area to draw from when coming up with solutions.