But most business competence is recognized in retrospect. How many Harvard MBAs with awesome corporate track records do you see starting awesome companys which make products you love? Like, almost none?
> to convince or he has a proven track record or he already has money
"proven track records" are what jealous people who inherit money to start investment funds look for to make business starters feel small. Tell me, based on the "track record" of Steve Jobs/Woz, Howard Shultz (door-to-door expresso machine salesperson), Richard Branson, and God knows who else, would you invest a penny in their "I dropped out of college/never went to chase my dream of beating huge, well-financed, well established companies on their own turf by doing something unproven" ideas? I bet not. But you'd be very rich if you did.
> from your perspective would you partner/hire an engineer who can't build something. you can guage who's a solid engineer by what they've built, as oppose to just what they claim...
But most people just showcase what they CAN build, which, in my experience, rarely translates into the ability to build what they've never built before.
>on another point, when u don't have a product yet does it always make sense to get someone to start selling it before it's there in every situation (as opposed to getting someone to help you build it)?
Sure. I'd gladly pick an awesome salesperson who can pre-sell it to 100,000 paying customers over 10 of the best programmers working away day and night all the time. That salesperson's ability will get me the money to tell VCs to go to hell and then have plenty left to hire the best programmers I can find. The programmers, meanwhile, don't guarantee anybody will buy it once its done.
>that's a bad analogy, considering patients are doctors' customers
Not really. Most surgeons make enough money to not have to work for the money and do it for the challenge/love. Imagine they got offended at everyone's lack of medical knowledge.