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The 15 Roles Absolutely Necessary in a Startup, No Matter How Small it is
- coglethorpe 18y agoPoints where I know I'm exceptionally weak: - Graphic Artist. - CSS Designer. - Tester. - Manager. - Lawyer. I'm not trying to be negative, but assessing what I need to outsource or partner to get my company strong.
- rantfoil 18y agoI like to summarize it as: 1) Coders, to code 2) Designers, to make stuff people want (interaction / product design, NOT visual design) 3) Hustlers, to get the stuff to the people
- Goladus 18y agoThat's almost the same conclusion he reaches in the blog. The only difference is that he includes the System Administrator role, for actually setting up and maintaining the platform that the code is going to run on.
- djahng 18y agodon't forget an accountant
- scorxn 18y agoWhat do you do if you find yourself having to wear all these hats, while the founder forwards emails and reads FastCompany all day? I don't see a hat for that.
- brandnewlow 18y agoYou realize you're working for a lifestyle business; his.
- scorxn 18y agoThanks for that term, hadn't heard it before. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifestyle_business http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifestyle_business That's exactly what it is, and I want out.
- swombat 18y agoThen leave. From the sound of it, you've already proven that you can wear all the necessary hats anyway, so you should feel pretty confident about it.
- moe 18y agoAre you a 2-person company?
- scorxn 18y agoYeah. I'm employee #1.
- moe 18y agoThen, if what you say is true, why do you put up with it? Does he pay a salary? Did you receive an appropiate equity share for the work you put in relative to his? Or, to put it bluntly, what do you need him for?
- scorxn 18y agoI get a salary that would be laughable by most standards, partly because I'm a young autodidact with a BFA, and partly because I live in a part of the US with very little web dev opportunity. I'm stuck here while my SO finishes grad school. I think it's time to start looking again, this time remotely.
- brandnewlow 18y agoToss some links in your profile of stuff you've done. There are always folks on here who get asked for recommendations or who are looking to hire.
- Flemlord 18y agoThink it through before quitting. You're getting paid to be a startup CEO-in-training. I did this for 4 years for somebody and it gave me the practical experience I needed to launch my own startup. My situation had the added bonus of the founder being a gifted salesman, and I learned how to sell from watching him.
- YuriNiyazov 18y agoThat sounds a lot like what my ex-cofounder did. I resigned from the company.
- menloparkbum 18y agoI had a similar situation many years ago. It lasted about 3 months - which was about 2.5 months too many. Complete waste of time. This actually happens to a lot of startups. Usually it doesn't happen until after a certain amount of funding has been raised (often after the series A). If the CEO has checked out and is just pretending to work, the company is doomed - find a new job.
- quizbiz 18y agoHave a talk with the founder. Reading about good management isn't enough.
- gfodor 18y agoThe pruned down list seems to be missing the very important "business development" role (which generally is mixed into other stuff.) Who's calling leads, creating deals, making contacts (substantial ones, not marketing-based ones) in the local business and technology community, understanding new feature requests, and basically making sure operating costs and revenue projections are on track?
- jpwagner 18y agoAgree in a general sense. He introduces the list as "...that I see as important to making a new site come together." Not "startup", "site." I could be wrong, but Twitter doesn't need to focus on lead-gen...
- run4yourlives 18y agoTwitter also lacks an income, but I digress. One could argue that viral marketing is business development. The main difference is that in the former, your customers are doing the work for you, while in the latter, you've got a defined role. I'd be careful to suggest though that this role isn't being done at all.
- jpwagner 18y agoMy only point is that he does not have a broader view in which bizdev is a super important role in and of itself. I think the author is suggesting that the "Marketer" fulfills this specifically in the vertical he's approaching.
- mde 18y agoI appreciate the call-out of an important omission from the article. I've learned that having a bizdev on the team is truly critical. That whacked me on the side of the head when I started thinking about Twitter's strategizing (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/13/twitter-decides-to-hire-someobody-whose-job-it-is-to-make-money/ http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/13/twitter-decides-to-hire...), and thinking about the shaping of various features that customers are not getting a chance to weigh in on. I've tried to wear the bizdev hat myself but it is all-consuming. Now I have a full-time bizdev partner and it's making a world of difference in focus/direction. The XP practice of "on-site customer" is really enabled by having bizdev pull the customers close early on. Another valuable role I've discovered is that of the incubator (I'm not YC; doing OTBC in PDX). It's another secondary role similar to Lawyer, but can be very supportive in making sure you're focused on doing all the business stuff that hackers can easily lose sight of. I'm presently being shown the value of having a solid business plan, perfecting multi-length elevator pitches, and refining the more formal investor and sales pitches. This is all possible thanks to experienced entrepreneurial coaches who really want to see you succeed. Lastly, the "consort" is a non-obvious role -- someone who can give validation to your thinking, and exchange predicament stories with you. You may find him through the incubator, or at a hacking event, or wherever. My main consort is an extremely capable hacker and our regular discussions are gold. So with the core team containing the right hacking, creative, and outreach balance, you can make progress. But I want to stress that the supporting people (Lawyer, Consort, Coach, et al) provide a lot of necessary elements.
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- oldgregg 18y agoAnd someone to pay the bills and maintain accounting...
- hhm 18y ago"Uses web framework, creates functionality; knows Python/Ruby, Javascript, AJAX, Flash(?), HTML, databases." This is a very weak description of what a hacker is by the way.
- cjc 18y agoCan you offer a better one?
- blhack 18y agoI also just want to chime in and say that I absolutely HATE websites that feel like they're been over-designed. perfect = hackernews horrible = digg.com I feel like the "uses webframework python $buzzword, javascript $buzzword $buzzword $buzzword" speaks to this. SOOO many websites have got too many distracting buttons and things to click on, and no actual <i>content</i>. Look at something like craigslist...its perfect. It's clean, and it gives you only the information that you want. Look at hackernews...same thing, nothing but content...yes there is some of that web2.0 (i hate that term) sauce on it, but it is a compliment to the content, not the main attraction of the site.
- jfornear 18y agoMy personal taste is similar to yours, but I've learned the hard way that your visual design should be shaped specifically for the market you are targeting.
- ricree 18y agoI don't really prefer one way or the other. If digg's content was at the level that HN's is, it wouldn't be that bad.
- lsb 18y agoA man with a shovel, instead of an up arrow? That's like ADD X TO Y GIVING Z. instead of z=x+y so yes, it wouldn't be that bad, but food from Per Se wouldn't be that bad if you ate it at McDonald's, either.
- 18y ago
- alabut 18y agoSummary - the blogger envisions the bare minimum of roles needed in a startup and lists them all as different hats. The Hat List * Visionary/Architect * Lead Developer(s). AKA Hackers. * Sysadmin * Toolsmith * Webmaster * DBA * Graphic Artist * CSS Designer * Content Creator * Customer Support * Tester * Marketer * Manager * Lawyer * Chef The roles don't necessarily equally different people - the smaller your startup, the hats combine into larger multitasking sombreros. The Sombrero List * Developer * Sysadmin * Artist * Marketer Overall, I found this to be a useful exercise. Although I'd disagree with which hats are the bare minimum and how they'd combine into larger sombreros, it got me thinking about what my personal list would look like and it wouldn't be too different (remove Marketer & Sysadmin, add another Developer, rename Artist as Designer), so in that sense it was still pretty useful as a thought experiment.
- swombat 18y agoPersonally, I'd hate to be referred to as "the blogger". "The author" seems a bit less dismissive.
- alabut 18y agoIt's all in the viewpoint - I don't see "blogger" as dismissive at all and see "author" a bit pompous for the level of writing.
- swombat 18y agoI don't see what the level of writing has to do with whether one is an author or not. You're the author of your comment, and a graffiti artist who draws a penis on a wall is the author of that graffiti. Author merely implies who created the thing. Anyway, all I was commenting is that I find it quite unpleasant when I write blog posts and people refer to me in the third person, as either "the author" or "the blogger", but between the two, "the author" seems less dismissive and I'd pick that over the other. It's worth keeping in mind that the author probably reads these comments too.
- 18y ago
- strlen 18y agoThis particular piece of advice is something I want to highlight: Learn about system administration. I don't have much data to back this, but I've found that many of the famously successful hackers have at one time in their careers been sysadmins. E.g., ESR, Robert Morris, Tim O'Reilly, and many more. Try browsing resumes of your hacker heroes and see if any of them don't have this qualification. Such work gives you an important practical perspectives on usage patterns, systems topologies, hardware limitations, lifecycles, automation, tool availability, user-friendliness, user-stupidity, etc. This is very important piece of advice-- any great developer should be a minimally competent sysadmin (and any great sysadmin should be a minimally competent developer).
- wvenable 18y agoIt's a great list as long as your startup doesn't intend to ever make any money! No accountant, no business people, nothing of the sort? Speaking from experience, the business management side is very important if you want your venture to be successful (or take advantage of success when it comes).
- njharman 18y agoThese are/can be all business people. * Visionary/Architect * Marketer * Manager * Lawyer * Chef Accountant is something you rent/outsource.
- ktharavaad 18y agoA low cost way to handle the role of "Chef" is to outsource it the microwave and packs of raman, at least fo me.