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Great questions, Dan. Thanks for bringing them here. An overwhelming majority of the time spent on a software startup is at the terminal, coding. If you're n

by edw519 17y ago

Great questions, Dan. Thanks for bringing them here. An overwhelming majority of the time spent on a software startup is at the terminal, coding. If you're not doing that, then you damn well better be bringing something else of value, a lot of value, to the table. Things I'd be looking for... - Specific domain knowledge. You gotta be the guy who says, "No, no, no, that's not the way you do <...> in this industry. You do it this way. And you sell it this way." - Our customers' industry contacts. You gotta be opening doors for us while we're busy coding. - Analysis, design, testing, implementation. You should be very proficient at all the stuff on the Systems Development Life Cycle that's not coding. - Operations. You should good at running the business while we code. This could include many things like accounting, marketing, selling, order processing, help desk, legal, etc. We programmers are not dummies. We are working on the critical path, but we recognize that a whole lot of other stuff has to happen in order to be successful. And we want to be successful, which is a primary driver. Can you do that other stuff? Great. If not, you need to find some way to add value. And don't forget, ideas != value. We all have a million of them. What else ya got?

kirubakaran 17y ago
I agree with your points and would like to add this: > "No, no, no, that's not the way you do ... in this industry. You do it this way." This would be great especially when the next sentence is "And here is why: ..."
- Confusion 17y ago
  There isn't always a 'why' that makes sense. A lot of ways in which things are done are determined by their history, not by what one would expect to work best. Moreover, business/selling is not an exact science, so you should not expect the salesman to provide reasons that make rational sense. So, from the other side of the fence, you need to make sure your engineers understand that.

by edw519 17y ago

kirubakaran 17y ago

I agree with your points and would like to add this: > "No, no, no, that's not the way you do ... in this industry. You do it this way." This would be great especially when the next sentence is "And here is why: ..."

Confusion 17y ago
There isn't always a 'why' that makes sense. A lot of ways in which things are done are determined by their history, not by what one would expect to work best. Moreover, business/selling is not an exact science, so you should not expect the salesman to provide reasons that make rational sense. So, from the other side of the fence, you need to make sure your engineers understand that.