

The Dark Matter of a Startup - edw519
http://learntoduck.com/startups/startup-dark-matter

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jbyers
I've never had a positive experience with a co-worker or employee who "just
kinda does stuff." I have had the pleasure to work with a number of people who
do many things well, and adapt in rapid succession to the kinds of situations
startups find themselves in. These are the people you want to be surrounded by
when you're really fighting it out early on. Need a coder to wear a sysadmin
hat for a few weeks? Done. Need a designer to crunch a spreadsheet? No
problem. Need a technical founder to fix an HR problem? Handled.

Over the course of a day or a month or a year, a key person might do all sorts
of tasks, with their variance in role inversely proportional to the age of the
startup. But what they do in the short term is clearly identifiable. No dark
matter to be found.

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rs
I have to agree with you.

Having an all-rounder is good for short term goals. Ultimately having clear
responsibilities and goals is better as the scope should be narrowed down to
achievable goals, whether its a startup that's bootstrapping, or gone really
successful

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sid
Hmmmm, i dont actually agree with this very much. In the early days its quite
important that you know what everyone is doing. Maybe when things are 1-2
years along there is the position for the guy that does the job that everyone
else _kinda_ doesnt want to do (setup vanilla os's on machines so the unix
admins can get to the real configuration, do different types of data entry for
things that cant be automated basically mechanical tasks) that yes contributes
to the success of the company.

But in early days there are 2-3 people and none of them can be dark matter
otherwise this person evolves into a vortex or blackhole for your
capital/profits.

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hapless
The dark matter of a startup: mysteriously absorbs money without emitting
product.

~~~
stevenjames
e.g. middle management

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eagleal
Well, I can run an IT startup (as I'm doing) only by myself. I do pretty good
at everything (coding, HCI, Design, Management/Law, PR/HR, etc).

I think a employee like this can partially hurt an early-age startup (as also
sid says).

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octane
Give me a fucking break, this is the kind of shit that led to the first dot
com bubble.

You either sell or develop in a startup, if you're doing neither or these,
you're useless. Pick one and do it.

