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I mean handling sales + marketing + accounting and everything else required to run a company is worth 50% (maybe more). But of course while you were probably c

by saulpw 2y ago

I mean handling sales + marketing + accounting and everything else required to run a company is worth 50% (maybe more). But of course while you were probably competent enough to "code it up", odds are he wasn't competent to "run the company".

laborcontract 2y ago
i’ve recently had a revelatory experience with my cofounder, who is focused entirely on sales. we were pitching our product/services to the company execs- and he just owned the room. He definitely oversold, hallucinated a little bit, said some (many) things i never would have said, but he didn’t lie. I have a highly diminished opinion of my talents than compared to reality and i know it. And i can’t fix it, i’ve tried. In that meeting, there are times i wanted to interject to add some context, they very skillfully pulled me away from talking too much and qualifying everything. We got our first sale. Big client, big company, very important sale. Came out of that meeting daze because that’s when i internalized it - im worth no more than half the company. It was truly revelatory. I’m writing all the code, all the “hard” work is on me. I dont care. Before that, i spent two years on my own project with zero traction because i didn’t even want to sell it, i just wanted to make it better. by the end i was gasping for air. If you can find a good decent person who has a great network and a knack for sales (and is fine doing administrative work) by god, let go of your ego and give them room to cook and have faith in yourself to ship. I spent the first half of my career deriding and diminishing the effort of salespeople. Never again.
- flappyeagle 2y ago
  When you watch a great salesperson in action it’s like magic. It’s like watching a chess player find moves you couldn’t have found in a million years. They chose the right words that converted to motions of neurons in your counterparty that caused action by them to give you money. Crazy.
  - laborcontract 2y ago
    I literally couldn’t stop shaking my head on the commute home. I’ve always had the habit of underselling myself. I would have never made that pitch. But he made them believe in the product and in that process made me believe in it too.
  - ggeorgovassilis 2y ago
    > When you watch a great salesperson in action it’s like magic. That, a hundred times. It's otherworldly, transcends laws of reality. That's why I dislike most salespeople I met, who don't tire of iterating how important sales are, but never come even close to what a great salesperson can deliver.
    - throwaway7ahgb 2y ago
      In my history the best sales people I've met wouldn't have me believe they were in sales at all. They are just great at relationships and solving problems for clients. You want to give them your money to solve your problem.
- protocolture 2y ago
  Yes my former business partner is a rare hybrid of super competant salesperson and super competant engineer. I sometimes just enjoyed reading his contracts.
dgb23 2y ago
Administrative work should probably not exceed 10% of the budget, especially in a small company, where the advantage is to have less requirements in that area. Marketing and sales, it depends on what you sell to whom. Let’s say 10-20%. Then there’s a grey area. Obviously there needs to be a feedback loop between clients, development and business. If the business/idea guy facilitates a lot of this and is mostly responsible to maintain the relationships, then he is part of development. So another 10-20% give or take. That 50% number seems kind of fair. Ultimately it implies that both are putting in the same time and effort. If the business guy is getting overwhelmed, the developer guy can automate things, talk to clients, write pretty documents for clients or take on some admin tasks. If the developer guy is overwhelmed then the business guy can simplify requirements negotiate deadlines, do manual testing and feedback, organize tasks and so on. What I‘m trying to say is that 50% might be more of a social contract rather than an a priori, objective assessment of value.
- ggeorgovassilis 2y ago
  I second your analysis, that's how things normally work. It's just that in these and similar scenarios, there isn't much product development happening before the MVP, so the developer fronts all the work and the risk.
ggeorgovassilis 2y ago
> odds are he wasn't competent to "run the company" A 2 people company where neither gets paid and "product development" consists of me coding the MPV, fronting all the work and the risk.

by saulpw 2y ago

laborcontract 2y ago

i’ve recently had a revelatory experience with my cofounder, who is focused entirely on sales. we were pitching our product/services to the company execs- and he just owned the room. He definitely oversold, hallucinated a little bit, said some (many) things i never would have said, but he didn’t lie. I have a highly diminished opinion of my talents than compared to reality and i know it. And i can’t fix it, i’ve tried. In that meeting, there are times i wanted to interject to add some context, they very skillfully pulled me away from talking too much and qualifying everything. We got our first sale. Big client, big company, very important sale. Came out of that meeting daze because that’s when i internalized it - im worth no more than half the company. It was truly revelatory. I’m writing all the code, all the “hard” work is on me. I dont care. Before that, i spent two years on my own project with zero traction because i didn’t even want to sell it, i just wanted to make it better. by the end i was gasping for air. If you can find a good decent person who has a great network and a knack for sales (and is fine doing administrative work) by god, let go of your ego and give them room to cook and have faith in yourself to ship. I spent the first half of my career deriding and diminishing the effort of salespeople. Never again.

flappyeagle 2y ago
When you watch a great salesperson in action it’s like magic. It’s like watching a chess player find moves you couldn’t have found in a million years. They chose the right words that converted to motions of neurons in your counterparty that caused action by them to give you money. Crazy.
- laborcontract 2y ago
  I literally couldn’t stop shaking my head on the commute home. I’ve always had the habit of underselling myself. I would have never made that pitch. But he made them believe in the product and in that process made me believe in it too.
- ggeorgovassilis 2y ago
  > When you watch a great salesperson in action it’s like magic. That, a hundred times. It's otherworldly, transcends laws of reality. That's why I dislike most salespeople I met, who don't tire of iterating how important sales are, but never come even close to what a great salesperson can deliver.
  - throwaway7ahgb 2y ago
    In my history the best sales people I've met wouldn't have me believe they were in sales at all. They are just great at relationships and solving problems for clients. You want to give them your money to solve your problem.
protocolture 2y ago
Yes my former business partner is a rare hybrid of super competant salesperson and super competant engineer. I sometimes just enjoyed reading his contracts.

dgb23 2y ago

Administrative work should probably not exceed 10% of the budget, especially in a small company, where the advantage is to have less requirements in that area. Marketing and sales, it depends on what you sell to whom. Let’s say 10-20%. Then there’s a grey area. Obviously there needs to be a feedback loop between clients, development and business. If the business/idea guy facilitates a lot of this and is mostly responsible to maintain the relationships, then he is part of development. So another 10-20% give or take. That 50% number seems kind of fair. Ultimately it implies that both are putting in the same time and effort. If the business guy is getting overwhelmed, the developer guy can automate things, talk to clients, write pretty documents for clients or take on some admin tasks. If the developer guy is overwhelmed then the business guy can simplify requirements negotiate deadlines, do manual testing and feedback, organize tasks and so on. What I‘m trying to say is that 50% might be more of a social contract rather than an a priori, objective assessment of value.

ggeorgovassilis 2y ago
I second your analysis, that's how things normally work. It's just that in these and similar scenarios, there isn't much product development happening before the MVP, so the developer fronts all the work and the risk.

ggeorgovassilis 2y ago

> odds are he wasn't competent to "run the company" A 2 people company where neither gets paid and "product development" consists of me coding the MPV, fronting all the work and the risk.