How One Business Guy Earned the Opportunity to Co-Found a Tech Startup | Hacker News Reader

How One Business Guy Earned the Opportunity to Co-Found a Tech Startup

jasonshen.com

53 pointsjasonshen19 comments

Jason, this post sort of illustrates the unfortunate arrogance some technical founders seem to possess. I've read so many of these holier-than-thou stories about how business founders need to supplicate before the technical guy. It's unhelpful.

I understand that in a technical startup, you absolutely need technical talent. But what so many people forget is the sheer amount of technical projects that simply go nowhere. I'd argue that quality technical and quality business people are equally invaluable. To argue otherwise is to create toxicity by imbuing the technical culture with a sense that they are superior to their business co-founders.

Hey dataisfun - I really believe in the importance of quality business people (after all, I'd like to think that I am one)

However, the fact of the matter is that most technical people can, over time, "figure out the business stuff" to a far greater degree than most business people can "figure out the technical stuff".

In Silicon Valley and tech in general, engineers are in incredible demand and opportunities to learn how to develop entrepreneurship/business skills are everywhere. The point of the story is to illustrate an example of what "business guys" need to do to establish the trust and respect of someone who is technically skilled.

Also, I have run into very few arrogant, holier-than-thou developers in my time. Perhaps that would change my perspective to be closer to yours.

I get your point. But I'd argue that a shortage in technical talent doesn't logically imply great engineers are more abundant than great sales/business people. It's just that there are probably just more mediocre business people than there are mediocre engineers.

At the pure idea phase, some degree of technical talent, however minor, is huge leverage, esp. if whoever it is can prototype something to a point of raising seed capital. At this point, incredible engineering skills aren't needed, but some solid technical background is important. That said, the degree to which engineering talent is required is really product dependent (as well as space dependent--i.e., consumer v enterprise).

Historically, technically minded folks have been exploited by business minded folks far more frequently than the other way around. While the most recent bend towards "engineer supremacy" may be objectively unhealthy, in the overall scheme of things, I think it is a positive development that will eventually lead us to a more balanced frame of mind than before the engineer supremacy phase started.

(and this is coming from a business side guy)

Jason - I thought this was a great story and a lesson to be learned for hustlers who want to know how to stand out from the wannapreneurs. But I also felt it implied an assumption that technical people don't need to prove anything. It gets very tiring reading articles that imply that tech people are all highly valuable, and that business people should feel lucky to be chosen as their partners. At our company, Yotam and I accomplished mountains of work while our first 3 tech-founder candidates produced nothing and wasted our time.

It's also terribly inaccurate to say that "most technical people can, over time, "figure out the business stuff" to a far greater degree than most business people can "figure out the technical stuff". If "figuring it out" is akin to having a basic understanding, I think many great business founders have proven they can learn to code on a basic level. Similarly, developers may also learn the basics of business development, sales or fundraising by reading some articles. And, maybe one more than the other. But just as figuring out the basics of coding does not make you a valuable developer, learning the basics of business does not suddenly empower a person with the ability to ask the right questions, communicate clearly, create mutual value between partners, close a sale, negotiate terms, save a furious client, and so on.

Being moderate at any of these things does not a great founder, or company, make. Implying that techs can somehow become good at these things in droves, or easily at all, is drastically underestimating what a true business leader is capable of.

Most of the holier-than-thou devs I've met, and I've met a few, are weaker developers. Anybody who has built something with a business-facing constraint knows how valuable the right kind of bizdev/hustler/whatever guy can be. Invaluable.

In fact, I'd say these people are rarer than competent devs, but their skills are applicable in fewer arenas and are in lower demand overall. And these people don't always fit in well within a traditional corporate environment, but they can sometimes will a startup with a merely decent concept to success on the back of their hustling.

Again, the traits that define such a person are hard to define and not nearly as marketable as somebody with, say, a solid Ruby background, a fact that produces a small group of devs who, frankly, overestimate their worth to a startup, although they're eminently employable at large, lame companies. There's no room for mediocre engineers at a startup focused on building well and building fast.

I don't know how I would feel if I pitched my side project to someone and they then went and cold called 40 companies discussing the project without my knowledge. This time it worked out great, but what if one of those larger companies had decided to run with it? I realise that it's good to share your ideas, but I would at least like to have had an input. Thoughts?

There are a couple different views out there with this. Some people I've found are willing to give up just about any information about their company aside from the stuff investors wouldn't like to get out, and then there are others who protect ideas like it's the next big thing. I've seen both sides be successful, but I guess it depends on the project and people. Obviously here it was a little different because the guy went out and did some selling without the original guy agreeing to it, but it ended up working out.

The guy took a chance and in the end it paid off it looks like. Your results may vary. :)

Exactly the point that jumped out to me as well. A random guy taking my idea and pitching it to others without my consent. It's not about whether it'll work out or not, it's about getting permission to do what the guy did.

If the Biz guy had said "Hey, let me run your idea through some people I know and see if they're interested. Sounds good?" Then it'd be totally fine. (Maybe that's what happened but over looked in the article?)

It is either great or the lesser of two evils.

Great because If the guy can sell my product after only a 15 minute snapshot of it, then they must be the right guy I should have in my sales team. But I don't know how much you can control someone like that.

Lesser of two evils because if he is able to get 30 companies interested, then he is probably good enough to pitch any engineer and give them a smaller percentage. So he seems to have some ethics.

I feel uncomfortable with the level of arrogance that is becoming commonplace (and encouraged) among technical founders these days.

On the other hand, I think the underlying vetting mechanism endorsed by this post is good. In many situations, the technical co-founder has more "hard skills" and is expected to do more work in the first few weeks (or months) of a startup's existence, and even if that isn't true, most technical co-founders probably perceive it to be true. Any "business guy" who proactively hustles before the product is ready will stand out from the crowd.

So the answer is "he did a ton of work for free and without authorization or permission to speak on behalf of the company"?

Come on. I know we worship technologists and hate businesspeople here, but that's not an answer for anybody. Business people provide value and you can find out how much by asking them the right questions. If you don't even know the right questions to ask, then that speaks volumes more about the relative worth of a "business guy" to your latest social-mobile-local-cat-pic-pinning-geofenced network.

I remember watching the Kevin Rose foundation interview with Dennis Crowley and he said how they were hiring and one guy went out and got a number of mayor deals with businesses in his area.

While this may be an awesome way to got about getting hired, some businesses may not react well to such 'guerrilla' tactics.

Edit: Foundation interview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijOIibM4L7I

And that mentality right there is the number 1 reason why companies like Microsoft make money with buggy software and the start ups on HN are mostly all to do apps, productive apps, facebook apps, etc.

Nobody understands the "corporate", and yet there is a lot of money and inefficiencies to fix there.

Just saying.

Can't we know the name of the startup?

Sorry, I asked and the team isn't interested in having this story out there under their name right now. If they choose to reveal themselves in the future, that's their call.

Can we assume it's a Chicago startup?

You can if you want to. =)

Seems pretty clearly Urban Airship to me. If it's not, it should be, they're a great example of a startup that is a brilliant idea driven by a clear need. If I were a tech-savvy business guy I would have eaten my own foot to get in on the ground floor of UA when they were a garage project.

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