What Kinds of Jobs Exist At Startups for Non-Technical People? | Hacker News Reader

What Kinds of Jobs Exist At Startups for Non-Technical People?

jasonshen.com

27 pointsjasonshen16 comments

Sales! Oh my god we'd kill for a great sales person. In our case we deliver exactly what so many of our clients were looking for and could not find [see my profile], simply because selling yourself properly, standing out of the crowd, separating signal from noise in your own sales pitch is ha-a-a-a-ard.

My question is when do startups begin to add Product Managers?

From my experience in the early stages the company hires as many engineers as possible, esp after funding.

Should PMs have to make a case for their position? Do founders mostly act in this role?

All things considered, it I understand it varies from startup to startup, I am just trying to understand my best place as a PM in the startup community.

PS- Another Great Article by Jason- http://www.jasonshen.com/2010/things-ive-learned-in-three-we...

It's not unknown for product managers to be a part of even very early stage startups, but they need to be able to wear many hats/work for equity.

I think most early-stage startups have founders driving the product development. Most product manager positions I've seen on job board are for larger, more established companies - often it's like "Product Manager for Mobile" or "Product Manager - Search" so specific pieces of the product. I'd also imagine that a lot of PM's come from inside the company.

Also thanks for the shout out.

You mention product managers here, while I certainly agree with you that this isn't a technical job per se, most job ads mention a CS-related degree as a requirement. I'm always looking at PM positions in the valley, but I can hardly find a job opening that does not require a BA in CS.

What would you suggest to do as a non-technical person trying to get into PM? Could anyone share a story/some tipps here?

Looking at some of the comments you've made on HN its seems like you're not totally tech-ignorant. What do you do now? I would say that if you don't work at a startup now, join one where it's small enough that you can actually talk to/interact with developers. Get experience communicating things to them and understand the development process - then try to make the leap within your firm or perhaps to a different firm as a PM.

While there is always room to create your own role depending on what you bring to the table, in my existential struggles on this topic recently I have come to the conclusion that there isn't really a very satisfying role to be had unless you're able to really fill a niche well, or have excellent timing.

People for non-technical roles for startups seem to be much more fungible -- still hard to find great people, but a much larger pool to search from than just for developers.

So would you consider designers as non-technical people, in a similar role as product managers? Or take the Steve Blank view and lump them in with engineers as the "solution team"?

Personally, I'd lump them with the technical people, especially given how common designers/front-end developers are.

I was not sure what to say about designers. I had considered putting them with even a bigger caveat than with product managers, but decided that no - designers that are worth their salt are highly technical. They don't necessarily BUILD FEATURES but they are doing things that require advanced technical skills.

I would add to his definition of BizDev:

- Responsible for assisting in money raising rounds.

- Finding potential buyers / aquirers.

- Working with CEO (if not the CEO) to define hard line business objectives.

Secretary

What people will say: read the comments in this section. Reality: Mail room.

Startups don't usually have mail room jobs.

Precisely.

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