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by n9com 5157 days ago
You talk like you already have a successful startup of your own. Do you?

Do you know how many great products backed by an amazing development team fail because they lack the skills in sales/marketing/design and/or strategy?

If programming was the only thing that mattered, then why aren't all competent programmers millionaires?
1 comments
kaolinite 5157 days ago
He didn't say that programming was the only thing that mattered. Of course it's not. However, there are tonnes of business people and not enough talented programmers.

I think this sums up a lot of business types and why technical people are somewhat hostile towards them: http://s3.amazonaws.com/theoatmeal-img/comics/websites_stop/...

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adrianhoward 5157 days ago
However, there are tonnes of business people and not enough talented programmers.

What I see is:

* Tons of business people, not enough talented business people

* Tons of developers, not enough talented developers

... the thing is that it's hard for talented developers to spot talented business folk among the throng. It's also hard for talented business folk to spot talented developers.

I understand rants like this. I meet a lot of folk who don't have much of a clue about how much effort is involved on the development side.

The thing is - if you go talk to the business folk - they have just as many horror stories of developers letting them down, not putting the work in, producing shoddy work, etc. Developers that come to them with what they think is a wonderful product - with no idea about their market or channels. The folk who think "sales" are just idiots who cold call people. Etc.

Just a couple of months ago I was helping with a group who had spent £50k with what, to them, looked like a reputable development agency - and they essentially just threw that money away.

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kaolinite 5157 days ago
Yeah, true. I spend too much time on Hacker News and not enough time on thedailywtf.com I guess :-) It's easy to think everyone is skilled or, at the very least, interested - and forget that a lot are just monkeys slinging code.
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n9com 5157 days ago
There are not enough talented business people either.
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