

Cliché of the Business Guy - shg5004

I been lurking and reading around hacker news for sometime with and without a ycombinator account. I figure I add to the discussion and see what you all think.<p>I’m a recent The Pennsylvania State University Marketing / Management graduate and I have start-up ideas, dreams, and aspirations.<p>I want to talk about the cliché of being the business guy do start-ups need us that much for marketing, paperwork, and sales; as much as they need coders?<p>One of my goals is to work for a start-up or be a founding member in one.<p>For the people reading people who have worked in or with a startup, when does the idea or project need the business people?<p>I been searching  on the jobs thing here, I seen an opportunity with airbnb.com but I was running my small business here in Philadelphia, only to have it die due to The State of Pennsylvania having a budget crisis and me realizing that was the industry for me or my passion.<p>I was working on a project with a friend who is Majoring in Computer Science @ PSU. He’s in his final semester, we were trying to get to alpha by September. Since he is in his final semester and working crazy hours at the PSU IST Help desk, he hasn’t been working on it as much as he was before school started back up.<p>As the business guy I want to get it to alpha so I can get feedback and develop marketing plans, etc. I want to go-go-go; being 200 miles apart doesn’t help (Philadelphia-to-State College), I don’t want to slave drive him because when he was coding I felt bad I couldn’t contribute to what matter most developing the site.<p>Coders reading what do you think about that?<p>Fallacy of a good idea: Gotta implement before someone else does or you will be left in the dust. I am trying to teach myself the basics, such as HTML with hopes of going to PHP so I can contribute but that will take time.<p>For you hackers reading my question is where do I start? I understand it can be a rough and rugged road to learning<p>This is my first post, I hope it isn’t to long and I am looking forward to discussion.<p>Stan
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shg5004
I have been marketing the site like crazy, LOL pitching it in my interview
helped me get my job with the real estate developer I work for not in
Philadelphia (our site is geared toward the real estate industry). Now I am on
the inner-circle of the people I want to use our site/service and pick the
people I meet brains on a daily basis. (My boss is O.K. with this of course.)
But, senior year is kicking my hacker friends behind.

To keep myself busy I’m doing little consulting aside from my day job where I
am helping businesses create and mange their online presence. It allows me to
network with owners and build connections.

I did learn my way around Photoshop and Illustrator so the UI and interface is
all me. Me nothing having formal programming skills I am looking at what
service to use to create sites for my clients, Weebley or Squarespace can
handle that.

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mbrubeck
You can and should start marketing and selling the product even before you
ship an "alpha" version.

[http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2008/11/what-is-
custome...](http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2008/11/what-is-customer-
development.html)

Learning to write code is certainly worthwhile, but it's a lot easier if
you're doing it for a particular purpose. Start honing the tools you'll need
for sales and marketing: Write a blog, buy and sell Adwords/Adsense ads,
create sales presentations, mock up interface designs, and develop product web
sites. You (and the hacker you're working with) will quickly find things you
do that can and should be automated, and then you can figure out which skills
are useful for you to learn or buy.

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johnyzee
Startups need marketing/business guys as much as they need coders and they
need them from day 1. The idea must be pitched, refined and sold BEFORE you
get too far in product development, as it is crucial in choosing direction for
development.

However, this is somewhat of a blind spot for technical founders, so you first
of all have to pitch them :)

