But, to discuss your idea a little bit: There are plenty of professions
that are dominated by women, and I'm not sweating that. If someone was
talking about nursing and was talking about the “gals at the nursing
station”, for example, I don't think I'd be bent out of shape as a fella or
worried that men wouldn't feel welcome in the nursing profession as a
result.

If people don't FEEL welcome, that sounds like an internal problem. If they
aren't welcome (or are purposefully treated badly), that's a problem with
the individual who is treating them badly that deserves correcting.

Where we differ is whether using male language counts as treating them
badly. Most of the women I hang out with would shrug and say, “It's because
the english language is borked and inventing words/conventions isn't going
to change that. Who cares, really? Judge me on my merits or fuck off”. My
wife is in senior management, loves to fish, worked at Planned Parenthood
for years, now works for a land conservation non-profit, and once gutted a
dead moose– not a stereotypical woman by any measure– and I think she'd
feel trying to change these conventions is not a great use of time or
energy.

Of course, there are all sorts of theories of why women are more rare in
software circles. For all I know, it's biological. There are delightful
differences between men and women (http://www.newsweek.com/id/49232 -
interesting stuff) that are both biological and cultural. I'll never be
purposefully hurtful to a woman or a man who chooses an uncommon path, but
I'm also not going to treat them like a delicate little flower… And if I
joined the nursing profession, I'd hope that people wouldn't treat me that
way either.

Interesting topic, to be sure… I agree with you that the english language
is borked, but I don't think I'm willing to help with the sisiphysian task
of fixing it. I'm going to float this discussion past a few women who I
know/respect and get their thoughts. Who knows, maybe they'll agree with
you and I'll change my ways!

But, to discuss your idea a little bit: There are plenty of professions
that are dominated by women, and I'm not sweating that. If someone was
talking about nursing and was talking about the “gals at the nursing
station”, for example, I don't think I'd be bent out of shape as a fella or
worried that men wouldn't feel welcome in the nursing profession as a
result.

If people don't FEEL welcome, that sounds like an internal problem. If they
aren't welcome (or are purposefully treated badly), that's a problem with
the individual who is treating them badly that deserves correcting.

Where we differ is whether using male language counts as treating them
badly. Most of the women I hang out with would shrug and say, “It's because
the english language is borked and inventing words/conventions isn't going
to change that. Who cares, really? Judge me on my merits or fuck off”. My
wife is in senior management, loves to fish, worked at Planned Parenthood
for years, now works for a land conservation non-profit, and once gutted a
dead moose– not a stereotypical woman by any measure– and I think she'd
feel trying to change these conventions is not a great use of time or
energy.

Of course, there are all sorts of theories of why women are more rare in
software circles. For all I know, it's biological. There are delightful
differences between men and women (http://www.newsweek.com/id/49232 -
interesting stuff) that are both biological and cultural. I'll never be
purposefully hurtful to a woman or a man who chooses an uncommon path, but
I'm also not going to treat them like a delicate little flower… And if I
joined the nursing profession, I'd hope that people wouldn't treat me that
way either.

Interesting topic, to be sure… I agree with you that the english language
is borked, but I don't think I'm willing to help with the sisiphysian task
of fixing it. I'm going to float this discussion past a few women who I
know/respect and get their thoughts. Who knows, maybe they'll agree with
you and I'll change my ways!

I noticed you used the word “guy” here, instead of “person” or something else gender neutral. I think using gendered terms like that is one of the things that contributes to a vibe that all developers are men, which is part of a general climate that makes women feel unwelcome in tech circles.

I'm assuming you're not deliberately trying to exclude people, and you just didn't think about it much… but I think it would be totally rad if you'd change it to “person”. What do you think?

All the best,
Erik

The early success of Gates and Jobs comes from a time where it was ok to fumble around for a couple of months if not a whole year before coming to that realization that you need to evolve to that next level of thinking.

Today, the transition process can be very unforgiving to many due to the pace of the startup environment.
Now days, if you are the Product guy you really should have a strategy ready for when you believe that Business guy needs to make an appearance and that plan / point in the cycle needs to be decided upon at the beginning.

Evolve to late and you risk missing valuable opportunities, market share and possibly everything by falling victim to excessive feature creep.

Evolve to early and depending on your product you risk among other things not connecting with the consumer and not making it as efficient as mark 1 can be.

(Sorry if i am a bit out there, first time posting in this space)

Right on, Jared! I actually think early sales/bizdev smarts IS crucial for more moderately-goaled businesses.

Lots of semantic challenges in this discussion! The technology piece, for example. For me– it's all about PRODUCT (of which technology is a subset). If you can nail the product, you are way upwind of success and oftentimes just need to throw up your sails for biz success. But you really can't nail your product without really understanding your problem/market/space. That's why I've always contended that entrepreneurs are best served attacking a problem that they have themselves.

If the hackers don't grok the market, then a biz guy who does (or who has the chops to go out there and analyze it) is certainly crucial.

You mention that the approach you've discussed isn't really valuable for small businesses looking for moderate income or lifestyle businesses…but I would argue that too many web startups, regardless of their goals, miss the value of business or marketing people. And thus they never get to the point of moderate success and instead fail outright.

Technology is an important piece, but I think all of us, as our products become more mature, need to think about the next direction, which is often more of a business than a product decision.

He makes that point that I'm talking about a SALES person, not a biz person. In truth, I guess I sorta am (or more of a sales/marketing/bizdev generalist). In an early stage software startup with 2-5 people(pre-product), I'm hard-pressed to envision a valuable business guy (in the earliest stages of software company) who doesn't largely focus in these areas. I guess there's fundraising, as well….?

He also makes the point that what I'm really talking about (but didn't say) is FUNDED software startups. Fabulous point– my post is DEAD wrong for a bootstrapped company, a lifestyle business, or any other business that is aiming at a more moderate outcome.

Quoth the Rafer (nevermore!): “Finally, if you want to build something big, please note that I’ve specified three necessary roles before a startup finds its way — business, product and tech. Almost no one can do any two of those well at the same time. If you think you can do two of them, then you’re taking unnecessary risks that radically lower your probability of success.”

Exactly my point! In the earliest stages, though– I think most critical part of the company that needs to be absolutely KILLING IT is the product/tech team. That gets you “upwind” and leverages you for business success (having kickass sales/marketing/bizdev/pr success early doesn't not similarly leverage success for product).

http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9886549-7.html

Bootstrapping means getting customers early– which can certainly keep you
from dying, but it also might keep you from seeing attacking a bigger
opportunity in your market because your product is already tuned to those
early customers.