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Comment by true_religion | Hacker News Reader

I've been through 3 start ups from fruition to close, with the highs and lows in-between playing merry hell with my blood pressure.

At this point in my life I'd kill for a smart business man. Nerds, I do not need. I'm a nerd, I know plenty of other nerds, and if I needed to I know where to go to hire nerds and how to evaluate their performance.

What I need is a good business man. I need someone who is an absolute genius at PR, brilliant at direct selling, and knows how to wheedle her way into the appointment book of a Big-Co CEO when we need to make a product deal.

Where can I find that?

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You can't make a good General in boot camp, but a lot of business types today rush into startups armed with an MBA or BBA. Wars produce Generals for the next wars. What you're looking for is somebody in a startup (not necessarily a founder) right now who won't be ready to be your co-founder until they have gone through a big war on their own. Get to know a few of these people and one day over beers and "would have", "should have", "could have" stories of their current or past startup you will find your business co-founder.

This is an amazingly insightful comment.

Everyone here should read this a few times through.

"rush into startups armed with an MBA or BBA"

Let me add to your excellent comment this from my experience at Wharton. There are people who go and get their MBA or BS etc who were liberal arts majors or who never thought about business until they decided one day to go to business school. Then there are people (and I'm sure you know these people) who have lived and breathed business since they were 4. In many cases they came from business families and it's part of their makeup. They were always angling to make money in high school and college and did things on the side to earn a buck whatever way they could. Those are the types that you should try to have on your team if possible. They have a seat of the pants feel for business and it's in their blood. Going through business school I was absolutely amazed at the number of people in the classroom (with 1600 SAT's at the time the highest score) who didn't understand some really basic business concepts.

This is not to say in any way shape or form that it doesn't exist in someone who decided one day to pursue business of course it does and there are many examples of those that are super successful. But normally they are not successful out of the box without, as you would say, a few wars under their belt. The person with a business upbringing has a head start.

Larrys,

I left commercial real estate to enter an MBA program thinking everyone would be "like me", extremely interested in business. I was shocked when I got there and found just a small group who got it. Then I went to a major tech company in the Valley (finance internship) and was even more shocked at how few of them got it.

I got an offer but turned it down to work at an asset management company. Finally for the first time in my life I am surrounded by people who get it. (60% don't have MBAs)

An MBA doesn't mean anything except that the person has gone through a 2 year degree and knows a lot of random business stuff (supply and demand, being a monopoly is good, knows how to model a DCF etc.).

That being said, an MBA doesn't mean the person is terrible either. In general, an MBA allows the person to grow a lot, gain some great relationships and helps them communicate with other business people. Lumping all MBAs together is like lumping all programmers together.

Most business people are not great, most programmers are not great. see 20/80 rule.

"Lumping all MBAs together is like lumping all programmers together"

People do this with most things (they think all doctors carry around information about everything in their profession and every specialty).

This is why I get a laugh when I hear from someone (people who chuckle about their computer stupidity) that someone, a friend, "knows so much about computers". I mean how do you know how much someone knows if you don't know about it yourself?

MBA programs are not meant for people with a business background or business undergrad degree. The courses are entry level fundamentals courses which are probably easier than the undergrad equivalents. The degree is most useful for people from non-business fields.

I love this little snippet: "wars produce generals for the next wars." It runs contrary to the idea that we may have in tech of producing a "general" by graduating from an elite MBA school, for example. Look for the quiet achievers and the track records, not for bombast and elitism and silver tongues alone.

Exactly. Business people are what make a business go around. It's not always about product, but also about being able to sell the product. Programming is becoming ubiquitous and available around every corner of the world. If I want to build a real business...not just a lifestyle business, I need people who can sell the crap out the product. People who negotiate killer deals and high profit margins. Those are the people who make the difference in a startup. Yes, the product matters...but if you have a business person who can sell icicles to eskimos, your business will be far better off in the long run. Not to mention, they will be able to find the capital so your business isn't underfunded while you watch your competition crush you.

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