5 ms·

Tech people can't sell

21 points by astrec 18y ago

cyberpunkdreams 18y ago
I saw some friends pee away £40K of their own money for just reasons outlined here. It's too true.
noonespecial 18y ago
I've found that as a tech person, I'm too well acquainted with the shortcomings of products I've developed. I always feel like I'm pulling the wool on the customer by not jumping up and telling them all of the weak points of what I've built. I find that I need a biz guy to stretch the truth, sell features that I haven't developed yet, and relentlessly hammer the good points in a way that I'm just not prepared to do.
- dmix 18y ago
  Uh oh, you may have found the secret to most enterprise software companies success.
- herval 18y ago
  that's probably why people that BUILD stuff usually don't sell it - not just software/tech...
- johnyzee 18y ago
  Completely agree. Other replies in this thread reveals how non-intuitive this insight is (why not just learn to sell?). The thing is that selling and engineering are two different mindsets - one requires you to be a borderline delusional optimist, while the other requires you to be a nitpicking pessimist, always looking for flaws and shortcomings to fix. You'd have to be schizophrenic to be great at both at the same time.
- known 18y ago
  yes. all marketeers are liars.
lacker 18y ago
I liked the article except for this complaint - I see businesspeople ask for tech all the time to build a great idea but where are the tech people clamoring for a businessperson to market and sell a great product? Many tech people can do a reasonable job at business for a while until you find just the right business person. Whereas much of the "clamor for tech people" is from business guys who need tech people just to get started, so they are desperate for anybody.
- ABrandt 18y ago
  As a business guy, I completely agree that we are helpless to develop a web application at the start. We develop a thorough business plan to put our great ideas to paper, evaluate the structural requirements for said business, and set off to file the proper government documents. As soon as we receive our EINs from the IRS, however, that horrible pang of incompetency sinks in--we just dont $_GET it. The point is that in developing a business, we both have our own strengths and weaknesses. Great things happen when people accept that fact.
rgrieselhuber 18y ago
The overall point to this article contains some truth but I came away with the impression that "tech" people and "biz" people are somehow genetically different. Either one, in reality, can learn to do the other one but it takes time, practice and lots of mistakes. As a tech person learning how to sell in the last year, I've made many mistakes and learned a lot. Aside from on-the-job experience, one book that I recommend is The New Solution Selling. This is probably more applicable in the enterprise sales world (where I do most of my work), but it's a fantastic place for tech people to start.
- adamsmith 18y ago
  Interesting. Could you describe how this process has gone in more detail? How broadly do you think about "selling?" What kind of on-the-job training did you do? How good can one get in twelve months? Thanks!
  - rgrieselhuber 18y ago
    Good question. :-) My answer turned out to be a bit long, so I just created a post: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=485701 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=485701
nolanbrown23 18y ago
In a startup in the process of building a product, a business guy is the biggest drag a company has. You might as well swim across a lake with anchors tied to your legs. They provide almost no value to the company and instead stand around advocating pulling cash from development (outsource!) and putting it towards something the company doesn't need yet like marketing. (This statement is based on personal experience in various startups from both internal and external viewpoints) A tech guy can build and run a company, it doesn't take a genius to do it. He may fumble a little bit more and have a bigger learning curve for things like accounting and business law, but even business guys have the same issues. The only time a business guy can make a solid contribution is only when there are both customers and money, not before. Bottom line, if he's not writing code, he's not helping enough. It's not a 2 way street in terms of symbiotic needs between business and tech people. Business people need tech people or they have no business, tech people only need business people once they already have a business.
patio11 18y ago
Tech people can sell fine, once they realize that sales is an engineering problem. (Or it can be, if you set out to make it that way. I suppose you could also do it by believing in magic and hoping magic works for you.) See also: marketing, PR, and customer support.
johnyzee 18y ago
> If you've got something to sell or are already selling something, [the nextNY presentation] is a must-attend! A corollary to the article's point is that sales and marketing precludes building product, so that sounds a bit like putting the cart before the horse.

21 points by astrec 18y ago

I saw some friends pee away £40K of their own money for just reasons outlined here. It's too true.

I've found that as a tech person, I'm too well acquainted with the shortcomings of products I've developed. I always feel like I'm pulling the wool on the customer by not jumping up and telling them all of the weak points of what I've built. I find that I need a biz guy to stretch the truth, sell features that I haven't developed yet, and relentlessly hammer the good points in a way that I'm just not prepared to do.

dmix 18y ago
Uh oh, you may have found the secret to most enterprise software companies success.
herval 18y ago
that's probably why people that BUILD stuff usually don't sell it - not just software/tech...
johnyzee 18y ago
Completely agree. Other replies in this thread reveals how non-intuitive this insight is (why not just learn to sell?). The thing is that selling and engineering are two different mindsets - one requires you to be a borderline delusional optimist, while the other requires you to be a nitpicking pessimist, always looking for flaws and shortcomings to fix. You'd have to be schizophrenic to be great at both at the same time.
known 18y ago
yes. all marketeers are liars.

lacker 18y ago

I liked the article except for this complaint - I see businesspeople ask for tech all the time to build a great idea but where are the tech people clamoring for a businessperson to market and sell a great product? Many tech people can do a reasonable job at business for a while until you find just the right business person. Whereas much of the "clamor for tech people" is from business guys who need tech people just to get started, so they are desperate for anybody.

ABrandt 18y ago
As a business guy, I completely agree that we are helpless to develop a web application at the start. We develop a thorough business plan to put our great ideas to paper, evaluate the structural requirements for said business, and set off to file the proper government documents. As soon as we receive our EINs from the IRS, however, that horrible pang of incompetency sinks in--we just dont $_GET it. The point is that in developing a business, we both have our own strengths and weaknesses. Great things happen when people accept that fact.

rgrieselhuber 18y ago

The overall point to this article contains some truth but I came away with the impression that "tech" people and "biz" people are somehow genetically different. Either one, in reality, can learn to do the other one but it takes time, practice and lots of mistakes. As a tech person learning how to sell in the last year, I've made many mistakes and learned a lot. Aside from on-the-job experience, one book that I recommend is The New Solution Selling. This is probably more applicable in the enterprise sales world (where I do most of my work), but it's a fantastic place for tech people to start.

adamsmith 18y ago
Interesting. Could you describe how this process has gone in more detail? How broadly do you think about "selling?" What kind of on-the-job training did you do? How good can one get in twelve months? Thanks!
- rgrieselhuber 18y ago
  Good question. :-) My answer turned out to be a bit long, so I just created a post: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=485701 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=485701

nolanbrown23 18y ago

In a startup in the process of building a product, a business guy is the biggest drag a company has. You might as well swim across a lake with anchors tied to your legs. They provide almost no value to the company and instead stand around advocating pulling cash from development (outsource!) and putting it towards something the company doesn't need yet like marketing. (This statement is based on personal experience in various startups from both internal and external viewpoints) A tech guy can build and run a company, it doesn't take a genius to do it. He may fumble a little bit more and have a bigger learning curve for things like accounting and business law, but even business guys have the same issues. The only time a business guy can make a solid contribution is only when there are both customers and money, not before. Bottom line, if he's not writing code, he's not helping enough. It's not a 2 way street in terms of symbiotic needs between business and tech people. Business people need tech people or they have no business, tech people only need business people once they already have a business.

patio11 18y ago

Tech people can sell fine, once they realize that sales is an engineering problem. (Or it can be, if you set out to make it that way. I suppose you could also do it by believing in magic and hoping magic works for you.) See also: marketing, PR, and customer support.

johnyzee 18y ago

> If you've got something to sell or are already selling something, [the nextNY presentation] is a must-attend! A corollary to the article's point is that sales and marketing precludes building product, so that sounds a bit like putting the cart before the horse.