lrobb

An American businessman was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellow fin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them. The Mexican replied only a little while. The American then asked why didn't he stay out longer and catch more fish? The Mexican said he had enough to support his family's immediate needs.

The American then asked, but what do you do with the rest of your time?

The Mexican fisherman said, "I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos, I have a full and busy life, senor."

The American scoffed, "I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds buy a bigger boat, with the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats, eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution.

You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually NYC where you will run your expanding enterprise."

The Mexican fisherman asked, "But senor, how long will this all take?"

To which the American replied, "15-20 years."

"But what then, senor?"

The American laughed and said "That's the best part. When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions."

"Millions, senor? Then what?"

The American said, "Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdotal_evidence The expression anecdotal evidence refers to evidence from anecdotes. Because of the small sample, there is a larger chance that it may be unreliable due to cherry-picked or otherwise non-representative samples of typical cases.[1][2] Anecdotal evidence is considered dubious support of a claim; it is accepted only in lieu of more solid evidence. This is true regardless of the veracity of individual claims.[3][4][5]

The plural of anecdote is not data.

http://uptownalmanac.com/2012/10/nerds-gone-wild-day-san-fra...

"""

Something doesn't work right, so you add a call to fmt.Printf to help debug it. Compile error: "Undefined: fmt." You add an import "fmt" at the top. It works, and you debug the problem. Remove the now annoying log. Compile error: "imported and not used: fmt." Remove the "fmt" knowing full well you're just going to be adding it back again in a few minutes.

"""

Which is just slightly more than average pay for baristas.

IME your limited resources for targeting hair dressers / law firms / etc... is still the old fashioned way: footwork, cold calls, trade shows, etc...

Not that it can't be done, but it sure feels like spitting into the wind.

Uh, yeah, probably.

Nick Bradbury Ramblings from the creator of HomeSite, TopStyle, FeedDemon and Glassboard Android.

Not my experience at all(1), and I've had one foot in the system administration field and one in the programming field for the last 12 years.

You mention IPv6, but that was an incremental change overall... Pretty much if you knew how to admin a cisco switch back then, you're doing the same stuff now, same for your linux boxen, aside from a few tweaks here & there the basics are all the same.

Maybe 20% changes, tops (compare the first edition of RHCE with the latest), 80% remains the same.

Programming though, every few years something becomes "must have/do"... C++ gives way to Java gives way to PHP gives way to Rails gives way to Node...

(1)This doesn't really apply to the Microsoft stack, which apparently comes out with a new paradigm every few years.

When do you work on your sales pipeline?

I've experienced the "irreplaceable" business person as well, though not on that scale. I was at a startup where a guy was almost singlehandedly bringing in a few million in revenue, which was crucial to our survival.

I don't even know where to begin... Such a gross misunderstanding of what a competent business development person can bring to the table. I know a couple of guys that I would gladly sign up with for equity, knowing they can take a product and bring in millions of revenue.

It's called "Minimum Viable Product" now, but 15 years ago we called it vaporware.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_viable_product

The canonical MVP strategy for a web application is to create a mock website for the product and purchase online advertising to direct traffic to the site. The mock website may consist of a marketing landing page with a link for more information or purchase. The link is not connected to a purchasing system, instead clicks are recorded and measure customer interest.

That is how you get sales before you have a product... Or at least know that you'll get sales.

1. Writing code. 2. Not committing.

You should never write a single line of code until you have a customer lined up. Not in theory, in reality. Not a friend that says it's a great idea, and they'd use your software. A list of verifiable people that you don't know that want to pay you money. Someone that can write a check at BigCo. Someone that is beta testing your product live.

On commitment, cue the joke about pig & chicken opening a ham & eggs restaurant: The pig says no thanks, he'd be committed, the chicken would merely be involved. This kind of ties in with #1... If you don't have an actual paying customer lined up, it's really easy to get involved in "side" activities... I'll just bust out this contract real quick... Sounds like a cool company, I'll go interview (especially bad when it involves samples).