[cletus]

> What I learned when I came of age was that I am a Starter.

The more accurate way to put this is "I am not a Finisher". The argument here is that starting and finishing are two equally valuable skills that are somehow equivalent.

A "Starter" is a fairweather friend. It's easy to start things. Most people like starting things. Note this is different from networking and so forth, which is really a separate skill altogether.

Employers, business partners and investors will look at what you've finished and don't care what you've started. When something is 80% done or when times are tough or it's time to soldier on and run the last mile of the marathon, nobody wants the guy around who says "well, I started, that's my skill but I'm done now, I suggest you find a Finisher".

Not being a Finisher isn't a different skill--it's a character flaw.

[nostrademons]

That's not entirely true. I get called on all the time, within my department at Google, to start things. Usually I'm explicitly forbidden from finishing them (even when I want to), either because they're "good enough" unfinished or because they can be handed off to other people who are not good at starting things.

The ability to look at a vaguely specified problem and say "Okay, here's how we're going to attack it, and here's what we need to build to have something that works" is a very valuable skillset, and not everyone has it.

Now, remember that "finished" is not the same as "launched". Usually, my responsibilities continue up to the point where we can get a product into the hands of users and train the people who'll be maintaining it after me. But there's a fairly large role for maintenance programmers, people who are responsible for little tweaks even though the system is mostly working as desired, and if you're a Starter, there's no reason for you to do that work yourself.

[mydnite]

I think that your job sounds like a prototyper, which to say that your mandate is to develop to a level where others can rebuild it with a point of reference. Hence you're a starter and a finisher.

I have had a similar position.

[peteforde]

You're welcome to your opinion, but I respectfully disagree. Frankly, I wouldn't be employed if anything you said was absolutely true.

My firm is hired to implement concepts as working products. I first help the clients decide whether their idea has legs and help them refine the vision. My team builds out v1 over a period of months, and then we generally hand off to an internal team or another firm that will provide ongoing support. We maintain a pool of excellent resources that excel in maintenance projects but don't have the capacity or interest to be architects.

http://jacquesmattheij.com/The+Starter+the+Architect+the+Deb... was pointed out to me as another recent and good article on the same subject.

Finally, I assure you that successful Starters are excellent networkers and communicators. They have to be, or else the project will never leave the gates.

[sfk]

I'm not talking about you or your company, but a lot of Starters are excellent bullshitters. They have an idea that is the equivalent of "Lets go to the moon" and leave it to others to build a Saturn V rocket. The latter of course is just an implementation detail.

[andrewflnr]

That's a separate problem from that of the OP. We're getting into definitions here, but I wouldn't call your bullshitting Starter a Starter at all. They're just a bullshitter. A Starter worthy of the name should at least draw up some detailed blueprints for the Saturn V. :)

[richardw]

Then they have to finish at least the detailed blueprints, which I imagine is quite a big project in itself. In the end, you'll need someone to finish the 'start'.

I'm a starter, but I know about finishing and I think it's a good skill to learn.

[lusr]

Are you suggesting that the same people need to start and finish? Was Steve Jobs a starter and a finisher? If so do you really believe he could have built the hardware and finished the technical aspects of the project? Or is he a clever starter who found a good finisher - Steve Wozniak? Do you think Woz is both starter and finisher? Based on what I've read in iWoz and Apple Confidential, I think they had two very distinct personalities -- which could be summarized as "Starter" and "Finisher", and were co-dependent. Same thing for Bill Gates & Paul Allen. I would say there are some cross cutting concerns here: (starter vs finisher) vs (technical vs business minded).

In both scenarios you see the same pattern: once things get off the ground, the co-dependency relaxes because the starter can always hire finishers, but not vice versa. Look at who you hear more about: Jobs or Woz? Gates or Allen? There's definitely a difference in their levels of success, and definitely in their personalities. (Not saying it's the only factors, but certainly important.)