Why he is there and I am here | Hacker News Reader

Why he is there and I am here

thestartuptoolkit.com

64 pointsrobfitz25 comments

In general, I've found it a bit more helpful to think "Where do I want to go and what is the clear next step to a place closer to there than where I am today?" rather than "Why am I not like this other person who I am not like?" It's less disempowering and more actionable.

Bully for the gentleman who lives in Costa Rica. His success in no way makes you worse off. If you presently do not have a software business, and you want to some day have a software business, there's a very short list of things I could recommend to you. Writing software and selling software are at the top of the list.

If you want to run a software agency, your two tasks are stuffing the pipeline and delivering engagements. If you don't have an engagement yet, find an engagement, preferably one which will provide you a client/project that has citation value in dealing with new clients. You then go on a cycle of stuff pipeline to bursting / hire new employees to deliver engagements / stuff pipeline to bursting / etc.

Well... sorry, but without more details, that's just fluff.

* How did they handle the stuff they weren't good at?

* Was this tested with other people? Is it possible to apply the method to people who were previously doing stuff they weren't good at and see results?

* With a startup, that does not have much money, the founders are responsible for doing everything. Presumably, they are not good at all of it. What should they do?

I think he means the general field of the startup catered to his skill set, not the entirety of the project.

Also with X amount of founders presumably if one person cannot say design the site, maybe another once can. I would assume not all of his cofounders have exactly the same skill sets, but complimentary ones.

Well I'd rather not make assumptions and guesses, I want to read about how things worked out.

You are right, and my comment was fairly speculative. I see it more as a motivational piece though.

* Delegate the stuff you're not very good at. (As a consequence, get good at recognizing the delegates' quality.)

* That man wasn't doing that for the first time, and he had partners (if that qualifies as "other people"). The man also did stuff he wasn't good at and only gradually changed his habit, the results are what inspired the post writing.

* Chose your enterprise wisely.

Yes, focus on your strengths. I like this quote:

"For years I have urged managers to concentrate their efforts in areas in which they are strong and to waste as little effort as possible trying to improve the areas in which they don't have much competence."

Peter Drucker (1909 - 2005), Austrian author of management-related literature

This is in contrast to a lot of recent advice on improving cognitive skills, which tells us to do things that are hard, not those we are already good at (basically the old specialist vs. generalist debate).

I think that the rationale is that if you are already good at something, you probably like to work in that area, and it won't be a chore to become even better at it, you can become more "naturally" better.

I heard in recent coaching/leadership training that, as human beings, we have a tendency to focus on our weakness or negative feedback, even if you got some positive feedback at the same time. So it can cloud you judgement on how to improve because you miss the big picture.

But it is more in an overall development sense, and is rather orthogonal to develop cognitive skills or brain training.

Comparative advantage[1] would be reason enough by itself. Why invest in becoming a good programmer if you're bad at programming if you'll probably never be as super-great at it as someone who found it easy and does it all the time? It would make more sense for you to work on something you're already really good at and trade with them to get the code you want.

In terms of the generalist vs specialist thing I'm reminded of the idea of T-shaped people. Broad general competence to allow you to meaningfully be part of the system, and deep specific competence to allow you a comparative edge.

Always end up wondering what the trade-offs are on how deep the tail of that is compared to the height of the top though.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage

One may have "improving skills not already good at" in his agenda, but then shouldn't expect the resulted performance to be the same as with "being already pretty good at". That was the underlying idea of the blog post - the performance comparison.

Another quote that comes immediately in my mind:

"97% of advice is worthless.".

Honestly, I can't think of any reason why a person must not extend his / her scope to different activities.

Or "A witty saying proves nothing" (Voltaire).

Taking myself as an example: I like programming, and I am good at it. I don't like administration. So I don't try to become a manager, or a project manager or similar. I am sure I could if I tried, but I would not be very good at it. So for me it works out really well to focus on my strengths (making sure I am as good of a programmer as I can be). The result is that I program every day and enjoy it.

> I like programming, and I am good at it. I don't like administration. So I don't try to become a manager, or a project manager or similar.

I like programming and was quite good at it. In fact, people bugged me to start a company based on a website I'd built until I gave in. 13 years later I've been a "manager" for all this time, still rather bad at managing people, but successful enough for 7-figure dividends. I can't say I regret trying it and not focusing on my strengths instead (I'd probably be a somewhat highly-paid employee in tech somewhere if I had done so). Also, I can still program every day and enjoy it.

Yet you won't know what you're really good at until you've tried it.

And that takes time - basically, the 42 year old just had more time to figure out what he's good at.

This is somewhat impotent advice, you don't just magically make money by giving up everything you're no good at. There are two reasons for this:

1) I'm good at making things. I'm bad at sales, marketing, hiring and delegation. I concentrate all my efforts on making things. Where's my 5 million?

2) You have to give it a reasonable punt. For example, there would be no professional musicians if everyone followed this advice. No one picks up a guitar or bassoon and declares themselves "good" straight away.

1) Partner up with people good at sales, marketing, hiring and delegation.

2) You're right, «nobody is "good" straight away», there is a constant self-improvement required. Yet, one might have inclinations which would make more sense to invest in instead of stretching oneself thin all over.

Except 90% of jobs want to pidgin hole you. People have very little control over what they end up doing in their jobs. The market dictates. You can't just stop doing the stuff you don't like, and do the other stuff.

I don't know too many circumstances where you can take a $5 million payout when you're working for someone else.

Author assumes he's just as "good" as the guy he was talking to. Such optimism may be wrong.

Great quote: "Raw talent is wasted if it’s busy doing the wrong stuff."

The key is figuring out what one is good at. Some people believe they are good on something, trying to prove that to peers, but they are not.

Um... Strengths Finder? http://strengths.gallup.com/110440/default.aspx

Only doing what you're good at seems at odd with running a start-up, where almost by definition you need to fight through stuff you don't like or excel in.

If you're persistent you will eventually get to "design" your own job, but that's some years down the road. If you want to concentrate on the things you are good at today, look for a nice 9-to-5 job at a company that matches your values and don't look back.

This part is a little too ambiguous:

> I wanted to know why he can pull that off and I can’t. He’s 42; I’m 29. I asked what changed for him in the last 12 years. Was he always this good?...The first thing he said was this: Yeah, I was always this good. So were my cofounders...[but] I was also doing lots of stuff I wasn’t good at. The only thing I changed in the last 12 years is that I stopped doing those bits."

I think it's possible to think that part of being "good" is knowing "good" from "bad", or, "wisdom" as others might put it. I don't think it's necessary to think of "being good" as different from "being experienced"...as the two qualities are so tightly co-dependent in something like programming/designing/business-building.

It's an important distinction to make because I don't think we have to attribute the success of young hacker/entrepreneurs to plain raw talent. Did Facebook become the biggest network because Zuckerberg was the best PHP developer in all of Harvard? I think the young people who hit it big do so because they're in a phase of life when trying big risky new things is encouraged, and these provide opportunities and insights that are less available to a middle-aged person of the same raw talent.

So, if you believe in karma and a purposeful universe, there's a nice balance here...young creators have growing/hungry minds and fewer shackles...older creators have more wisdom...and so there's a great number of avenues to success for young and old.

(I'm leaving out luck/connections/privilege in this discussion, but they are obviously factors for young and old)

Regarding luck, this was here on HN recently: "What if successful startups are just lucky?" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6794612

And the top comment (by pg): All successful startups are lucky, but they're never just lucky.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com