Hacker News Reader

Comment by magicarp | Hacker News Reader

> I'm brand new to the software industry and while I know nothing about software...

Then why are you giving advice on how to run software companies?

agreed. It is pretty silly. When one has no experience, one should be willing to do a little more research first and talk to a few more experienced folks. There are many sales & marketing driven software companies. Sometimes it works, sometimes it is a disaster. Personally, I think that the trick is usually about finding the right balance between business, design and engineering, not putting one on a pedestal above the rest.

Giffc,

I agree it's about balance. I'm talking about ONE SPECIFIC time. That's going from $0 in revenue to $50k, without investment.

Chris

No..you aren't talking about one specific time..or at least your article isn't. If that were the case than you'd be talking about why salespeople aren't STARTING companies rather than asking why they aren't RUNNING companies.

Without a talented engineering team, a product won't be able to change or adapt to customers changing needs and opinions.

Sure you can sell a product that isn't fully developed, and outsource your engineering but in all likelihood you're going to wind up with a clusterfuck of a codebase and so much technical debt that your customers aren't ever going to see anything more than the crappy first iteration of a product.

This is all just so silly. By your logic all that is important is that you have salespeople that can sell anything, including a crap product. Is that really how you want to drive a company? Salespeople would have an easier time selling a well engineered and functioning product no?

Hey Magic Carp,

Chris Williams here, I wrote the article :) The reason that I feel I can provide advice is because I started a software company that has been profitable every step of the way, and now have ~400k in revenue in year 1.

The fact that I did not come from the software industry was A HUGE advantage, because most of the advice given is horrible.

Chris

I suppose that listening to a sales person can get you 400k revenue in a year, just rote following what one customer says can do that for you, but is 400k really worth sacrificing more visionary goals? The question that really has to be asked is "if I spend X amount of time on this one feature and that leads to Y amount of revenue, is that worth sacrificing Z revenue down the road on an engineering/product management defined feature that is more strategic? Don't necessarily sacrifice the sale of now for the lost sale of the future.

Real question, is 400k enough for you?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com