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There's a negative stigma about "managers" in the startup world because the word manager is associated with pointy-haired bosses and TPS reports. A manager can,

by eisenkr 18y ago

There's a negative stigma about "managers" in the startup world because the word manager is associated with pointy-haired bosses and TPS reports. A manager can, however, be a very positive force when the technical leads on a team are spending a lot of time on management related tasks like meeting with investors, doing financial projections, and revising the business plan. A manager can do these things to free up the owner-developers' time. In general, I like to think about hiring a manager the same way most startups think about hiring a designer. While all programmers can do some UI design, many startups realize that they're not going to do UI design as well as they write code, so they hire designers. The same principal can apply to hiring management, hiring lawyers to handle patenting, etc: You can do it all on your own, but it might make your life a lot easier if you hire somebody who loves and excels at the specific challenges you're facing.

notauser 18y ago
When hiring a manager a lot of companies go wrong in thinking that that person needs to be _senior_ (hence bosses and TPS reports). You can hire someone junior to add 'professional management' - by which I mean reporting, analysis, forecasting, planning and investment appraisal. They then feed these things into the senior decision makers in the same way as technical or design staff do. These people are normally called 'management accountants' or 'project managers' or something similar. For a startup hiring someone with an accounting degree and two or three years experience offers you the chance to: - Get hold of someone bright who is disaffected with working for a big firm and driven to do something new, and do it well. - Won't believe they have a god given right to tell you how to run your business, but _will_ have a solid understanding of the basic business techniques that offer a big return on investment. - Can be given the opportunity to grow into a senior member of staff that really understands the business you are in. That way you can treat it like hiring a designer. Hiring a (senior) manager is more like hiring a CTO - something to do only when you _want_ a more radical direction change.

by eisenkr 18y ago

notauser 18y ago

When hiring a manager a lot of companies go wrong in thinking that that person needs to be _senior_ (hence bosses and TPS reports). You can hire someone junior to add 'professional management' - by which I mean reporting, analysis, forecasting, planning and investment appraisal. They then feed these things into the senior decision makers in the same way as technical or design staff do. These people are normally called 'management accountants' or 'project managers' or something similar. For a startup hiring someone with an accounting degree and two or three years experience offers you the chance to: - Get hold of someone bright who is disaffected with working for a big firm and driven to do something new, and do it well. - Won't believe they have a god given right to tell you how to run your business, but _will_ have a solid understanding of the basic business techniques that offer a big return on investment. - Can be given the opportunity to grow into a senior member of staff that really understands the business you are in. That way you can treat it like hiring a designer. Hiring a (senior) manager is more like hiring a CTO - something to do only when you _want_ a more radical direction change.