
The salesman and the developer - ColinWright
http://swombat.com/2012/5/11/salesman-developer
======
babarock
Completely off topic (or is it?) I find myself being quickly turned off by all
these blogposts which 'casually' mention Steve Jobs on every single occasion
the author comes across. Taken individually, each of these articles (like this
one) would have a prefectly defendable reason to mention it. I'm annoyed with
the trend.

I have mentioned this issue before in other comments threads on HN. Am I the
only one annoyed by that? Yes Steve Jobs was a beloved public figure and an
outstanding entrepreneur, but mentioning his name ("casually") won't add value
to just any blog post. Unless I'm reading something written by an official
biographer, or any other expert on the matter, I don't like reading Jobs name
in a completely unrelated articles.

So this is my plea for bloggers: Stop doing that. Stop mentionning 'tech
startup' celebrities in your posts; in my view it dillutes your point instead
of adding anything to it. For the record, I'm reacting to the mention of Jobs'
name because it's the trend of the moment, just like Zuckerberg's was a few
years back. It's the celeb name dropping that bothers me, not the work of
Steve Jobs.

Also, I apologize for the harsh tone. I really enjoyed reading everything else
in the article and felt that it presented a serious miscommunication issue
between builders and sales people in an otherwise very straight-to-the point
yet witty and amusing fashion. Good post!

~~~
IsaacL
Yes, couldn't agree more.

I agree with the people that say that future generations will see Steve Jobs
as revolutionary a businessman as Henry Ford. But this hagiography has got to
stop.

Let's put things in perspective. Steve Jobs made really good products that
sold at a high-margin and made a lot of money. But hang on -- another way to
see it is he focused on the features customers really did care about: nice UX,
beautiful cases -- and ignored the features they said they cared about but
didn't really: processing power, durability. That's it. He found a management
style that worked for him, and it's worth looking at how he did it, but Apple
and Steve Jobs had a bunch of flaws which are worth looking at as well.

What annoys me is that people can see the awesome parts, or they can see the
flaws, but few people manage to see both. Even people like Isaacson (his
biographer) who note both these sides don't really analyse it in a deep way.
It would be interesting to read the history books of a 100 years time to see
how Steve Jobs has been remembered after his impact has been put into proper
perspective.

(Though another thing that annoys me is when the top of HN comment threads
become dominated by an off-topic discussion. Sorry swombat!)

~~~
swombat
I only ended up mentioning Steve Jobs because the Apple II came to mind as a
piece of technology that was so awesome and beyond its time that it really
ought to sell itself. It just so happens that Steve Jobs was the sales side of
that business at the time (at least according to the biography).

I tremendously respect what Jobs achieved, but I don't think I'm putting him
on a pedestal. Are you guys suggesting I should deliberately avoid using any
of Apple's products or achievements as an example for anything because I might
end up having to mention Jobs? That seems extreme, but it's the natural
conclusion of your reaction...

~~~
gaius
_Apple II came to mind as a piece of technology that was so awesome and beyond
its time_

Well... So the last man standing from the 8-bit days tells us (I mean Apple,
not Jobs himself obv). But in truth, the C64 gave a _lot_ more bang for the
buck, esp. when you include the price of disk drives! And was just as
hackable, etc. Similarly, the ST and Amiga were much more powerful and cheaper
and more hackable than contemporary Macs. The Jackintosh was the first machine
to deliver 1Mb of memory for under $1000. I just think we need to keep things
in the proper perspective. Apple made and indeed makes some great products.
But it's also true that they smothered technically superior but not as well
commercially managed competitors. History is written by the winners.

~~~
swombat
I'm not sure how it makes sense to compare the Apple II to the C64...

The C64 was released in 1982 ( <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64> ),
a whole 5 years after the Apple II in 1977 (
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II_series> ), so I damn well hope that it
gave more bang for the buck.

~~~
gaius
Compare directly to the 64k IIe, then. $595 vs $1200, according to Wikipaedia.

Anyway, my point is not to take anything away from Apple or Jobs, but it's a
stretch to say that they were so far ahead of everyone else. If you need a
hero for rhetorical purposes, try Jack Tramiel :-)

~~~
swombat
But I don't care about what was going on 5 years later. My point is that when
the Apple II came out (not the IIe or the Mac or any other Apple product) they
were miles ahead everyone else, and it was a product that in theory could have
sold itself, but still needed a kick-ass salesperson to get off the ground.
What happened years later is totally irrelevant to this point.

------
marcusf
The main problem is when you're going bear hunting and they bring back a
stampede of wolves. Wholly impossible to kill with the gun you brought, but if
you tweak it just a little, you can kill them as well. Then the next time it's
a an antler, that you can't kill like that due to regulation, but with just a
few tweaks again.

Great sales people are a game changer. People that can sell your vision and
convince the audience that the problem you're solving is the biggest issue
their business faces. They're completely indispensable. Bad sales guys, the
type I've usually come across, bring too little domain and product knowledge
to the table, and end up selling the completely wrong thing if they sell at
all. Like Ben Horowitz said, great sales people protect your business [1],
they don't wreak unnecessary havoc on it.

[1] [http://bhorowitz.com/2010/08/29/the-right-kind-of-
ambition-2...](http://bhorowitz.com/2010/08/29/the-right-kind-of-ambition-2/)

~~~
wglb
How exactly do you tweak a gun? And what sort of gun that will kill bears
ain't gonna kill a wolf? And I am not sure that wolves stampede.

~~~
mbell
> How exactly do you tweak a gun? And what sort of gun that will kill bears
> ain't gonna kill a wolf?

Simple example: there are a number of guns that can be converted from semi-
automatic to full-automatic with very simple changes, removing a spring,
filing something down, etc. If you've got a pack of wolves coming at you the
rate of fire could certainly change the balance in your favor.

~~~
wglb
If you are equipped to hunt bear, I don't think you are using a semi-
automatic.

It seems like we are getting into further trouble here. As this pack of wolves
is stampeding (never heard of wolves stampeding, though) at you, removing the
spring, filing something down might not be consistent with the very short
period of time you have as this herd (?) of wolves is closing the gap on your,
er, person.

~~~
omni
If you are equipped to hunt bear, you are almost certainly not using an
automatic. Any caliber high enough to drop a bear in one shot (which you want
to do as to not ruin the bear) would break your arm into slivers were you to
fire it at automatic speeds.

~~~
mbell
I'm no gun expert, never even fired one, but it seems there are many guns that
would fit the bill. Example:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOoUVeyaY_8&feature=plcp](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOoUVeyaY_8&feature=plcp)
in particular, watch at about 5min point to see the (lack) of) recoil, put
slugs in it and I would think you'd have no problem stopping a bear. This
guy's You tube channel in general contains a lot of things that would not have
a problem stopping a bear. That said many are not your average hunting
equipment either, but I don't think anyone goes out with the plan of getting
close enough to a bear to use a shotgun.

------
tferris
Another silly generalization of developers and business people (here called
sales men). Maybe the drawn stereotype matches many folks out there but this
view is aged and not valid anymore.

Both the pure biz guy will die soon in the woods without any technical mindset
and the dev will die soon when just waiting and hacking at the campfire. And
together they won't be stronger. The picture the OP draws is from the past or
taken from large corporations.

Successful entrepreneurs are both sales _and_ technical. Non-technical people
are considered illiterate nowadays and won't achieve anything as people who
can not hunt. Best proof is Instagram founder Kevin Systrom. And that's what
is so great about Hacker News—here you find the highest density of tech
founders both business-driven and technical.

So, if anybody still wants to talk in stereotypes then distinguish between
hunters and non-hunters and not between tech and non-tech.

~~~
dean
" _Best proof is Instagram founder Kevin Systrom._ "

Ouch. I hope we're not going to start saying that the extent of Instagram's
success was planned and inevitable due to the great founders. Let's be honest,
it's a great app, but they won the lottery. It's not every day a super-rich
guy decides he needs your app, and is willing to stunningly overpay for it.
(I'm sure Instagram would have jumped at $50 million if it was ever offered.)

I don't know Kevin Systrom. I'm sure he is as you say, a great 'sales and
technical' entrepreneur. But Instagram's success in terms of their sales price
is not reproducible. It's random. Like the lottery.

------
chriszf
Two things.

You can build a product but until you manage to sell your product to someone,
it's not a company.

'Salesmen' are not the only way to get people to buy your product.

I think it's important to start making a distinction between sales and
marketing. At one place I worked, the marketing team resented being lumped in
with sales and were actually in direct competition with them: organic signups
nibbled away at a salesperson's commission.

People are becoming more comfortable with the idea of purchasing a product
without ever having spoken to a human being in the entire sales cycle, and
that's a marketing job. For some companies, it obviates the need for 'sales'.

Having made that distinction, I would not go to war, so to speak, without a
great marketer by my side. A salesperson, on the other hand...

The problem with traditional sales is the pay structure. For mediocre
salesmen, working on a commission means "any warm body will do as long as they
don't churn before I get paid". This translates into having problematic
customers who will thrash and cause you grief before inevitably cancelling
your service or returning your product.

------
ericHosick
Reminds me of the joke that goes:

What is the difference between a salesperson and an engineer? An engineer
knows when they are lying.

------
msmamet
Great post. I thought it was going to be a "builders rule, sales jocks drool"
post - until I kept reading till the end. At the end of the day, it's
important that founding teams recognize the obstacles of every person's job,
and keep the common goal of team success above else. It's not about how many
bears he lures into the cabin using himself as live bait, not about how
heroically the builder slays each monstrous bear. When everyone is celebrating
getting to the fur market (?) in one piece!

------
FuzzyDunlop
There's something about the story that, in its telling, feels a little leaky.

The developer is getting the cabin in order, the salesperson is out bear-
hunting, and we assume the bear is the potential client.

While the developer is still building, the salesperson is trying to find
bears. He then lures the bears into a cabin which, from its description, was
not built for the purpose of capturing bears.

So why was the salesperson hunting for bears when the more appropriate target
might have been deer? Or other hunters needing a place to stay? Oh... he got
bored before it was even finished, so doesn't know who the ideal client is.

By the same token, why was the developer unpacking everything nice and tidy
when they were going bear hunting? Shouldn't he be at least partly aware of
how the salesperson works, or what he's going to do? Did he know to prepare
the cabin for a bear, or for themselves (or other hunters), or just make the
assumption?

There's a clear problem with communication, that has led two people, aiming to
do the same thing, down two very different paths. The trip was bound to fail
right from the start.

~~~
swombat
_So why was the salesperson hunting for bears when the more appropriate target
might have been deer? Or other hunters needing a place to stay? Oh... he got
bored before it was even finished, so doesn't know who the ideal client is._

Looking at it from a "Lean startup" perspective, you could say that the
salesperson bringing that bear in enabled the business to figure out that
actually, it should be targeting deers instead. I think we're both pushing the
metaphor beyond its useful limits though :-)

~~~
FuzzyDunlop
Good reply. We could likely refactor the story based on all manner of
different startup and corporate perspectives. One might involve the developer
pointing his bear-rifle at the salesperson out of sheer frustration! (Personal
experience perspective.)

------
Auguste
This story sounds familiar. Are the names of the salesman and developer Bear
Claws and Jeremiah Johnson? :)

<http://youtu.be/FcsXC2xFis4?t=2m50s>

~~~
damiongrimfield
my father used to watch that movie at least once a month, usually with a
bourbon in his hand, and alway a shit-eating grin on his face. i'm positive he
wishes he could have been a mountain man when he 'grew up'.

------
kator
Developer's need to stop thinking "If I build it they will come".

Even the "dream" companies like Dropbox mentioned here had someone on that
team who knew how to sell even if they were working as a developer.

Selling doesn't always mean knocking on doors sometimes it means figuring out
how to make the first couple of deals with investors or working with a smart
person who can help you develop a viral referral model etc.

Thought experiment: Today think about all the physical items in your life and
how they came to be in your life. Beside the people most of those items were
sold to you by someone or you bought them because you saw marketing about
them. Very few of them did you buy because you woke up one day and said "I
have to fly to LAX and buy a Widget".. You had to know that Widget was there
and realize you wanted it before you could take the first action.

------
pbharrin
This statement is pure gold: "I now believe that having someone whose job it
is to go and find clients willing to give you money from day one is so
important, that I would not start any company without such a person."

------
sparknlaunch12
Enjoyed reading the story and appreciate the challenge to balance out sales
and development. They are both important but need controls to ensure 1) money
comes in and 2) you develop and focus on the right product.

The point that stood out was the final lines on the importance of sales. This
almost promotes the mantra of building sales first, product second; and
ensuring you are having money arriving in to pay the bills (and/or investors).

Having recently heard profitable entrepreneurs speak, the common story is how
when they spoke with potential customers about their idea (even pre MVP) and
customers paid them. Yes, paying customers suggest you are on to a smart
product. Maybe some merit in this approach.

------
MatthewPhillips
There's nothing worse than a company where the sales department has too much
power. Especially if they are able to hand off the project once the sale is
made. It makes it impossible for the rest of the company to innovate on
products.

~~~
aspir
I assume you're referring to BigCo, or even just a non-startup. If you're
referring to a startup, I have to disagree with you -- revenue in the door
when you're starting out, even if you have to alter your product, is
invaluable. In fact, you'll likely have to alter the product from the original
vision to get revenue in the door period :)

~~~
MatthewPhillips
So what if you have to alter your product in 5 different, possibly
incompatible, ways because 5 sales reps all sold something that you don't
have? And you have to have it done by the agreed-upon delivery date (between
sales and the client)? You wind up with a gigantic, unmaintainable hack.

~~~
aspir
I see your point, but if you have 5 sales reps with the authority to green-
light extreme features, you're not really a startup anymore. You're officially
a full-steam ahead business, or you should be.

It also comes down to the amount of money these guys are paying as well. If
you're selling to say, banks, insurers, or some other larger player, you
should me bringing enough revenue to justify the added expenditure. If you're
selling $200+/month software tools, there had better be more customers for it
somewhere. But if you're selling anything less than $100/month, you nailed it.
There's a problem.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
Even if it's not grand new features it hurts innovation. If you have to
sideline a product that's being worked on because sales sold a feature that
doesn't exist and you have to hack together a solution quickly, by definition
of it being a hack it probably isn't going to scale well to other customers.
And even if it does, you are not building a cohesively product at this point,
you are creating a product that caters to the wishes of a specific clientele
who, by the way, probably wouldn't have a problem up and leaving your business
if someone else is willing to cater a little more.

------
ryancarson
Awesome post. So true.

------
jpwagner
The thing that sucks about this story is that at the end, the customer is
DEAD. Every great salesman I know cares deeply about the continued
satisfaction of the customer. It's why they sell in the first place!

------
nadam
developer and salesman: I miss the marketing guy from this story. (Or at least
either the developer or the salesman should also wear the hat of a marketing
guy.)

I think the rule of thumb is this: if you sell to the 'masses' you need great
marketing, if you sell to only a few clients you need great sales.

I think of Steve Jobs more as a marketing guy than a salesman.

~~~
corin_
I agree with your rule of thumb except I look at it from another angle. Jobs
was a salesman because while he sold to the masses, he did it on a 1-to-x
level, it was about speeches, etc. He basically did what any salesman does, he
just did it to huge audiences.

Marketing is about pulling the strings to promote something, not being the guy
who actually persuades people.

~~~
arethuza
I personally don't view sales that way. For me sales is a narrowly defined
role whose job is to close individual sales - so you can't really do it "to
the masses".

------
WalterSear
Were they worse off after the salesman did his job without knowing what they
actually needed?

------
debacle
This is just a terribly bad analogy.

~~~
swombat
Care to expand on why?

~~~
debacle
It just breaks down on so many levels. So the client is a bear, and the
developer is setting up camp, and the salesperson draws a bear into the cabin
which destroys all of the developer's hard work.

So the real-world analogy would be that the developer is setting up an
architecture (which performs similar to a camp - as a staging point for
reaching goals), and the business guy brings in a client that then...what?
Destroys the architecture? Invalidates it in some way?

It doesn't follow. A better analogy would be that the developer is digging a
pit to catch a bear in, and the business guy finds a bear that's too big to
fit into the hole. In that case, you have an instance where no one is at fault
and there's simply an unshared assumption about the limits of how big the bear
can and can't be.

But that doesn't make for as exciting of a blog post.

~~~
swombat
That's hardly the point I was trying to make... What do you think of the rest
of the article, which has nothing to do with architecture or whatever, but to
do with the importance of sales in a business?

~~~
debacle
You don't touch on the crux of the problem - good sales is about building
client relationships and account management, not one night stands (which is
usually what the analogy you're describing devolves into).

Dropping an swaddled and basketed infant sale on the programmer's doorstep is
not what sales is about.

------
moron
Wait, why is finding a bear in the woods the hard part? It's the woods, it has
bears in it. The hard part would be actually killing it, and then all the
skinning and dressing.

