I’ve been involved in a startup where my task where restricted to the “accountant”, and it seems the tech guys did alot of wheel spinning. One of the 1st questions that needs to be asked is “How is the biz going to make money?”…Whats the product? How’s the audience ?

As a business guy, it amazes me of the increasing number of tech startups that obtain millions of VC funds, only to answer the “How am I going to make money” question later.

Although I’m a not a MBA, (i’m an accountant) and I can see how they seem overrated, due to the fact that of whats taken place in the “internet space” is changing at pace faster than the textbooks they learn from can be updated.

What evolved into Microsoft won’t happen today, w/the acceptance of open source, etc…

I hopefully has studied the internet space, enough to be able to define a business model for my upcoming launch.

So I think the biz guy and tech guy, are both important. and should be valued equally..

Last thought- With the improvements in finding freelance tech guys,and outsourcing, open source, etc.. ….Will the value shift more towards having a Biz Guy first, followed by finding a component outsourced tech solution.

Does a business guy have a place in the first 3 month’s of a startup?

Yes. He has a place on day 0. If you look at those fortune 100, and EVERY single other successful company ever there has been a thing called Vision. It might not have been perfect, and it may have changed over time but this Vision is the beginning of the whole process.

The skills of a techie can identify a market need simply by being out there and saying “Hey what if I could do X?” He then might say to himself “Oh thats how I would do it” and then he could start designing/coding. In the early stages (First hours, days of work) he will start to form a vision of what it will look like and why it has value. He can then go on to develop a product which provides this value.

The skills of a business person can identify market need in a different (but often more effective way) by being able to analyze needs and gaps. He in some way has to be out there however. A sales guy for example could very easily spot an opportuniy for a spin off, know how to add value, know why people would buy it, and form a vision about what it would look like not from coding some stuff, but from how a customer will take value from it.

There are both bad business educated people which you all seem to refer to as Idea Men. And there are also glass tower techies.

I think the Fortune 100 list is misleading, because a start up today is not what a Microsoft was in 1980. And I strongly believe Google is an exception to the general rule.

When it comes down to it, I think it depends how you define what a business guy is. Is a techie guy with guts and some pick it up as he goes know how a business guy? Not to me. He might be a great entrepreneur turned CEO. Is Bill Gates a business guy? Absolutely, and he always was, from the very first day. Why? Vision.

I think alot of technical dismiss the body of knowledge that is required to be successful as a business person, manager, etc. It is a brutal task as a company grows, but not particularly cumbersome in the early stage. When I say business person I mean Executive Visionary, Strategic Leader. The old HR manager is clearly not needed, neither is the director of finance. They are needed later, sure.

So does a startup NEED a business person at the start? Yes. A start up is a business. Do they need someone with a business education. Not necessarily. Business students can seem frustrating because we are taught from cases about McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, blah blah blah. They have no sense of what a start up is so they come in and start getting to administrative work, which in the beginning is unneccessary.

You have all gained great consensus on the Sales issue, which is beyond crucial. As one poster said “Techie has product, idea man presentation” Let me tell you that you are far better off with a presentation that took a few days to slap together and a chance to learn what the market needs, than you are with 3 months of useless code.

A start up needs technical know how, and business leadership. What form that comes in is not important. I would suggest that a strong techy with a good technical competency in a niche area, and a business educated entrepreneur sales person, as partners, could very well be quite a formidable duo because after those 3 months elapse, there will be no holding back, roles will be defined, market will be known, and you will be off to the races, and have a distinct advantage over idea men with craigslist hackers, and techies who are still hiding in the garage.

Competitive Advantage.

A bizguy on the payroll waiting for the product to go to market, a consultant, and additional not optimal used techguys are cost you cant afford.

So I believe its not a matter of a bizguy vs a techguy. its about weather or not the resource is needed. if not, off with his/her payroll!

What I question is whether a business guy has an significant part to play in the earliest stage (the first three months) of MOST startups, unless he is the “idea guy”. And if he is, I’m saying that when the idea guy isn’t part of the team who actually builds stuff, the company and product usually suffers.

I think if we look at the startups who have “made it”, they tend to have hands-on founders (coders/designers) who also led the charge on the vision and NOT pure-play idea guys.

I’d say “how could you possibly not” and expect to be more than marginally successful. Products generally don’t sell themselves. The occasional anecdote to the contrary is not a good business plan. Also my reasoning comes from my first start-up which didn’t pop because we didn’t delegate enough which affected both the business and the technical quality. I haven’t made that mistake since.

But also I don’t automatically attach as much meaning to degrees (or schools) as most people seem to. I see all degrees as simply Bayesian proxies for skills I’m looking for with a inevitable rate of false positives. The MBA degree has an especially high rate of false positives. In fact, there are some schools that set off loud warning bells. Stanford MBAs are the worst and most lethal tech-oriented MBA, IMO. Harvard MBA are scary also.

You *do* have to be very careful before you delegate the business role though. I recently advised a “hibernated” start-up on re-start strategies. The primary reason they had to hibernate was that all their VC money was squandered by an “Idea Guy” CEO who was brought in by the VC (you’d know them if you heard the name – one of the reasons I encourage bootstrapping).

Apparently this bozo wasn’t even able to create a business plan or pro forma in the 2 years he was there. He was able to burn through nearly $8M. On what the founder still isn’t sure but it seemed to include a lot of purchases, expenses and perks that ultimately didn’t get the product out the door. You ought to *at least* get one lousy business plan and pro forma from a hired CEO, BTW. I created first pass drafts of both that afternoon while I was talking to the founder.

We had a bubble in tech in the late ’90s. Bubbles draw in a lot of bottom-feeders and money-chasers. Thus, the tech industry is littered with businesspeople who just want to have a tech company and who want to find some hackers to “do it for them.”

I have personal (and miserable) experience with this phenomenon. I got sucked into such a startup for a while, and ended up wasting a lot of time.

Okay, I’ll fess up. I have an MBA, and yes, I consider myself an idea person. However, that doesn’t mean I’m not a doer as well (strategist, writer, trade show planner, chief cook and bottle washer, willing to leap tall buildings in a single bound). They’re not mutually exclusive. In fact, the two sides inform each other. Just like ideas and dare I say marketing (and sales, which is part of marketing), and the technical, must inform each other. It seems to me the most successful companies find a way to make these work together, not as opposing forces. For how can tech alone understand how to create a product/service the market wants, and by the same token, how can tech marketing exist without someone to build it? It’s not a black and white thing. Sure, it’s possible that these talents exist in the same people, but in my experience it’s extremely rare for a whole host of reasons. That’s why it takes a team that respects each other for the talents they have — whether that’s technical or (god forbid) non-technical.

All you non-technical people out there, please stop making excuses for the talent and hard work you do. It just makes it harder for the rest of us.