Startups

Does a Business Guy have a Place in Software Startups?

[edit: I should probably have made a stronger point that I am talking about early early early stage startups. 2-5 people, pre-funding. Carry on!]

There is a tremendous amount of venom loosed towards so called “business guys” or “idea guys” (as I’ve called ‘em) in the startup community. They can’t catch a break.

A big part of the reason is that we’ve all had that hellish experience with the MBA. The guy who has his “big idea” and “just needs someone to build it”, presumably why he stands back and waves his hands a lot (and occasionally plays golf in space). You can find CraigsList littered with ads by biz guys, incredulous that hackers aren’t falling all over themselves to execute on their ideas.

It doesn’t take a lot of hunting around to learn that great technology startups aren’t generally built on the shoulders of a great business guy. Here’s a gem of a quote from a gem of an essay:

If you work your way down the Forbes 400 making an x next to the name of each person with an MBA, you’ll learn something important about business school. You don’t even hit an MBA till number 22, Phil Knight, the CEO of Nike. There are only four MBAs in the top 50. What you notice in the Forbes 400 are a lot of people with technical backgrounds. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, Michael Dell, Jeff Bezos, Gordon Moore. The rulers of the technology business tend to come from technology, not business. So if you want to invest two years in something that will help you succeed in business, the evidence suggests you’d do better to learn how to hack than get an MBA.

Take a look at the genesis of your favorite startup and find me the MBA. Find me the program manager. They just aren’t there.

So your startup doesn’t need a business guy. In fact, there seems to be pretty compelling evidence that having a business guy in your software startup has a reverse corrolation with success.

So, take a walk, biz guy. We don’t need you.

Or do we?

It turns out that it’s not so simple as that. Startups are diverse– each startup has different needs. How do you think SalesForce.com would’ve done if it’d been started by a bunch of hackers? How do you think Zappos.com would have fared if it wasn’t started by a zealot for customer service and support? There are plenty of examples of great software startups with a critical founder who wasn’t really a technologist (arguably, Apple is a great example of this). And there’s no denying that for startups that have something that they intend to CHARGE for, a business guy is incredibly valuable– so long as he actually can dive in and do sales largely full-time. Most business guys I know turn there nose up at cold-call style sales– which is really what you need.

So what does every startup absolutely need?

Startups need BUILDERS. People who make stuff. Absolute animals, as Paul Graham puts it. People whose output is positively awe-inspiring.

But startups also need a product genius. Someone who has great instincts about what people want and need.

So what’s to stop a business guy from being a product genius? Not a darn thing. Sure, there are plenty of biz guys who are stupid about products, but it certainly doesn’t take much work to find a hacker who has a truly awful idea for a product.

It’s just not so simple.

But I’ll tell you something that is simple: a hacker or designer’s output is strongly correlative with their sense of ownership. Here are a pile of modifiers that can effect a sense of ownership:

  • The builder *IS* the “idea guy”. It’s his idea. (+50)
  • The builder isn’t the “idea guy”, but has the problem that the product is trying to solve. (+40)
  • The builder isn’t the “idea guy” and doesn’t really have the problem that the product is trying to solve, but can really empathize with the problem. (+30)
  • The builder is a principal author of HOW the solution is built, even if WHAT is being built isn’t entirely his baby. (+20)
  • The builder stands to make truckloads of money if the product takes off. (+20 * the number of truckloads)

In a world where startups are beset with endless challenges and frustration, anything you can do to heap on a feeling of ownership among the people who are actually building stuff is critical.

If there’s any indisputable advantage that startups have over big business, it’s the insane amount of sheer output that a startup can generate. Part of this is just being lean and bureaucracy-free, but a huge part of it is the motivation that comes with a sense of ownership. I think it’s pretty safe to say that the bigger a company gets and the more pure-play “managers” that get hired, the farther away the builders get from this feeling.

For all the startups out there who have a biz guy playing golf in space while a collection of hackers and designers slave away on the idea that they don’t really love…. Well, I don’t think you are necessarily doomed to failure. But I think you’ve taken an uphill road that’s a bit too steep for my tastes.

Reading the Lines, Not Between Them (PG & Coding Horror)

There’s quite a flap over Paul Graham’s recent essay.

The attacking author quotes a comment on Reddit (always a good sign) as a good summary of the essay of why we should all be terribly offended.

“I work with young startup founders in their twenties. They’re geniuses, and play by their own rules. Oh… you haven’t founded a company? You suck.”

I kinda feel like there is a reading comprehension problem here. Paul added a “Cliff’s Notes” version of the article to clarify, but I’m going to boil down what I got.

The point I got from the essay is:

“I work with young startup founders in their twenties [note: he works with me and a mess of other founders who are also in their thirties... at least 1 or 2 are in their forties]. They seem stressed, but they seem happier and more alive. I think it might be a socio-biological thing– human beings are meant to be working in smaller groups, with clearer goals, and more ‘on the line’. Small businesses and startups seem like the best place to find this environment.”

Period.

Saying stuff like “happier and more alive” (which PG did not– I’m paraphrasing) does not mean that everyone else is miserable and dead inside.

Anyways, this isn’t a wild idea. There are piles of studies out there that have found a correlation between self-employment and satisfaction/happiness. Incidentally, there’s also a strong correlation between self-employment and making less money (but that’s good news, because there are ALSO studies that show that money doesn’t do much for happiness once you manage to have enough coming in to cover the necessities)

#1 Mistake by Coders who Are Doing UI Design

I think that common sense goes a long ways in UI design… But not all the way. It’s a learned skill like any other. I was reading up on calendar controls today (which I’m obsessed with, by the way) and caught a great post by the curmudgeonly Jakob Nielsen. Here’s the snippet I like best (he’s describing the top application design mistakes):

“Affordance” means what you can do to an object. For example, a checkbox affords turning on and off, and a slider affords moving up or down. “Perceived affordances” are actions you understand just by looking at the object, before you start using it (or feeling it, if it’s a physical device rather than an on-screen UI element). All of this is discussed in Don Norman’s book The Design of Everyday Things.

Perceived affordances are especially important in UI design, because all screen pixels afford clicking — even though nothing usually happens if you click. There are so many visible things on a computer screen that users don’t have time for a mine sweeping game, clicking around hoping to find something actionable. (Exception: small children sometimes like to explore screens by clicking around.)

Drag-and-drop designs are often the worst offenders when it’s not apparent that something can be dragged or where something can be dropped. (Or what will happen if you do drag or drop.) In contrast, simple checkboxes and command buttons usually make it painfully obvious what you can click.

Common symptoms of the lack of perceived affordances are:

  • * Users say, “What do I do here?”
  • * Users don’t go near a feature that would help them.
  • * A profusion of screen text tries to overcome these two problems. (Even worse are verbose, multi-stage instructions that disappear after you perform the first of several actions.)

When I tested some of the first Macintosh applications in the mid-1980s, users were often stumped by the empty screen that appeared when they launched, say, MacWrite. What do I do here, indeed. The first step was supposed to be to create a new document, but that command was not shown anywhere in the otherwise highly visible Macintosh UI unless you happened to pull down the File menu. Later application releases opened up with a blank document on the screen, complete with an inviting, blinking insertion point that provided the perceived affordance for “start typing.”

Exactly Why 37Signals is So Arrogant

Don Norman recently wrote a fine piece entitled “Why is 37Signals So Arrogant?“. As a student of link/click bait, I have to applaud him. Bravo! It’s right up there with Jason Calacanis’ post about firing anyone who isn’t a workaholic (his followup is a bit more measured).

So I’m going to do one better than Don Norman, and tell you exactly why 37Signals is so arrogant.

But, first I’m going to tell you that they’re not. At least not in the way that Norman is saying. 37Signals listens VERY HARD to their users. It’s amazing to note that up until recently (correct me if I’m wrong) Jason Fried read (and sometimes responded to) every single support email. In light of this, to say that 37Signals doesn’t listen to their users is absurd.

Norman and Nielsen have always argued that the best way to understand users is to watch them use your product. I tend to agree- but dealing with support yourself as a product developer is a close second– it’s an amazing way to feel the pain and confusion of your users. Most product developers hire a cheap support staff as soon as they can manage– to get themselves out of the muck. These guys didn’t.

But, come on. Read their blog. Take a look at DHH’s (in)famous “Fuck You” Slide. These guys are clearly arrogant.

Here’s why.

Take a look at the people that most people envy. Hell, start in high school and work your way up. How many times have you said, “why is that girl dating that absolute JERK?” Look at all of the people who are successful in this world and you’ll find a fairly common theme. There is a decided absence of humble and self-deprecating people. There aren’t a lot of people on top who are frequently saying, “I am wrong and you are right”.

So it’s easy to say that as software geeks we are above that. We grew up on the wrong end of “nice guys finish last” and we’re going to be bigger than that. But look at the giants of our world. Steve Jobs. Linus Torvalds. Paul Graham. Joel Spolsky. Bill Gates. Jakob Neilsen. There are certainly degrees of it in this collection of stars, but every single one of them speaks and acts with near-absolute assurance and authority. They embrace controversy and sometimes provoke it. Every single one of ‘em has been called arrogant.

As masters of marketing, the fellas at 37Signals are (either consciously or unconsciously) lumping themselves in with the guys at the top of the food chain. They are the high school equivalent of the insensitive guy in the letterman’s jacket who always gets the girl. They are talking the talk, stirring the pot, saying surprising things, pissing people off, and daring the world to prove them wrong.

You might not like them, but you’re looking at them and listening to them– which is more than you can say for the thousands of other 10-person profitable software companies out there.

I would like to finish by saying that I’m better than you. I’m right. You’re wrong. My [insert language/platform/dev tool] is better than your [insert language/platform/dev tool].

Thanks for listening.

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