| TL:DR - You pure development guys are more likely to have success if you realise you have a need for people with other complimentary skills, and you need to have respect for them, their intelligence and their role. I've seen this so many times its tragic, and it comes down to largely one thing IMHO... the arrogance of extremely intelligent people with specialties in maths/physics or other numeracy focused backgrounds over other people. How about an office move where developers sat around and bitched because network cables hadn't been moved across yet? Young office admin girl shows initiative and drives to old office and gets all the network cables. They now see her as their runner as they know that she's paid less so therefore its optimal. Its crunch time and a ScrumMaster who goes and gets coffee for the team before a release so they stick to working is then perpetually told "We're busy, coffee needed", and is slowly reduced to Team Mom, or worse Janitor. A startup's CTO and part shareholder overrules the Head of Marketing and lead designers on their design choice because he's read an article saying how Arial is optimal for reading, and then gets involved in every decision. Only once the CTO is moved on does the sales and marketing team really start performing and the company is saved. I've seen numerous friends who are extremely technically capable Java developers create excellent technical solutions in the finance space to problems that people won't pay for, or don't need solving, or that they don't know how to market or keep running 24/7. They see MBA's as a waste despite their MBA friend saying "Look at the market segmentation, and consider your positioning to see if you can compete" - A valid point that could have answered the question before the £80K in lost wages. I've had conversations where I've quoted a previous stand-in lecturer who was worth £110m from 3 different startups who told of the importance of a well rounded team including sales, finance etc. to young developers who think that DHH is basically a prophet, they only need tech guys and if you build it they will come, and their answers to me were words to the effect of "I disagree because HN said so". I'd rather put £1000 of investment money in the hands of a proven sales guy's startup than a proven back-end developer, as I've seen first hand that a great sales guy can sell crap and make money. |