

Ask YC: Entrepreneurs vs Builders - davidw

This is an ill-formed question/debate topic that I've wanted to broach for a while.  Sorry if it's not as clear as could be hoped, but it's sort of a vague notion.<p>One of the things I've liked about PG and his writing is that I get a sense of a hacker figuring out enough business stuff to make a go of it, and consequently flipping the company: as a hacker, he was never going to want to stay on the business side anyway.  PG strikes me as a "builder" - someone with lots of technical ability who goes out and creates things.  Incidentally, I also see myself as being more along those lines than a "business guy".<p>"Entrepreneurs" on the other hand, are those "wheeler dealer" type of guys who are really good at putting together various people and other aspects of a business.  They are kind of technical, but not the guys who go out and build something really cool themselves.  They're the classic business starters, in my opinion.<p>So - what do you guys think of "builders" vs "entrepreneurs" in this day and age?
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dennykmiu
I think what you are proposing is a false choice but I understand why you want
to frame it this way.

Having been an entrepreneur for the last fifteen years, I have come to learn
that my __job __description as an entrepreneur is simple, "if I could
__describe __it, it ain't my job".

In other words, in the beginning of the startup, you have to do whatever it
takes (be an engineer, be a salesman, be a negotiator, etc.) but once the
company gets off the ground, then you need to give that responsibility to
someone else. But by then, there will be other tasks that are not well defined
that require your attention. And the cycle continues until the company is no
longer a startup and the entrepreneur has lost his/her place in the company
(or he/she matures into a manager).

At the end of the day, an entrepreneur's job is to connect the dots. It is a
deceptively simple description of what we do.

~~~
pg
Historically the distinction was far from false: it's Watt vs Boulton.

Perhaps it's getting falser as techies increasingly don't need business guys
as cofounders.

~~~
Alex3917
"Perhaps it's getting falser as techies increasingly don't need business guys
as cofounders."

The reason the barriers to starting a business are falling is because the tech
side is getting easier and cheaper. The business skills one needs remain
unchanged.

~~~
dennykmiu
I agree. My own experience is that entrepreneurs tend to greatly underestimate
the difficulty of selling. Particularly on this forum, we talk a lot about
"making something people want" as if that's all it takes for a startup to
succeed but we don't talk enough about "making customers pay for what they
receive". My own experience is limited to selling to enterprise customers. In
that case, the necessary condition is to provide a solution that puts out a
fire that is burning someone's butt. But it is far from sufficient. In the
end, it all comes down to convincing someone to risk their career and the
financial future of their family on an unproven product from an unproven
startup. Having a killer product is only the first step.

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webwright
I think it totally depends on the business, and the core problems that need to
be solved for the business to win. Some businesses require only technical
genius. Some really just need an innovative UI. Some need dealmakers.

A lot of builders attack problems whose core problems aren't technical...
Which often leads to failure.

Either way, in the earliest stages, specialization is oftentimes a really bad
thing. If you can't sell your product to co-founders, employees, partners, and
customers, then you might be too specialized to be a successful entrepreneur.

Entrepreneurs (whether they are builders or not) get shit done. PG did sales.
When he was starting up, he aggressively recruited great team members. Great
entrepreneurs don't silo themselves... They stack rank the most important
problems they should tackle (whether they are building-related or not) and
then they try to destroy 'em with whatever means necessary.

So, in short: Make sure your teams' skills match the core issues of the
product you're attacking, but know that every team member is going to have to
get out of their comfort zone and attack stuff that needs attacking.

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mooders
I think I have a slightly different spin on the difference. I tend to see,
rightly or wrongly, a Builder as someone who is going to see a job through to
the finish - a details person, in essence. A Hacker, in YC parlance.

I see Entrepreneurs as those that create the ideas, or see the vision of how
an idea could be used, implemented (on a broad level), or sold. I feel an
Entrepreneur's skillset lends itself to creating the team, inspiring the
vision and making the deals necessary to establish the company as a viable
entity.

I also tend to see Entrepreneurs as quickly bored (perhaps that is just how I
see myself) and eager to move onto the next thing.

I guess that's why I feel a startup generally needs two co-founders - a
business person and a techie person. Ideally, they'll each have a degree of
appreciation for the other's domain.

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edw519
I believe that there's an inverse relationship between "building" and
"wheeling and dealing". The more and better you build, the less you need to
wheel and deal.

I've always noticed that commodity type products needed great promotion
people. Examples: insurance, real estate, some industrial products.

I think this happens less with great products that address a real need and
have captured their place in the market. You don't see many telemarketers for
Apple, Volvo, or Google.

I focus on building so I won't have to wheel and deal as much. Might not be a
bad idea for most people here, too.

~~~
davidw
> The more and better you build, the less you need to wheel and deal.

I think that that is actually a common mistake for 'builder' type people.
"I'll make something that kicks ass, and everything else will sort of work
itself out".

~~~
edw519
"the less you need to wheel and deal" != "everything else will sort of work
itself out"

Big difference

~~~
davidw
Ok, I think I used 'wheeler dealer' while thinking of something more like what
Denny describes. Not a shyster, but getting out there, promoting your stuff,
doing deals, meeting people, and otherwise getting people on board. And I
think that you absolutely have to do that, even if you've built something
fantastic. Where would Woz be without Jobs? You need someone who can get out
there and schmooze/sell/hype/etc.. your product.

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ratsbane
I think that's a really good question. There are (at least) two distinctly
different skill sets or personality types essential for a successful
entrepreneurial business - one is the thinking-of-new-ideas-and-making-them-
work track and the other is the bookkeeping-and-keeping-up-with-routine track.
I'm not very good at the second; switching back and forth between coding and
bookkeeping makes me want to sit in a corner of a dark room and rock back and
forth slowly while reciting Kipling. Some people, though, are really good at
the second. I know a few people who manage both and I'm rather in awe of them.

Perhaps there's a third type, too - the guy who goes out and sells the idea,
like Jobs to Woz.

How do you solve this problem? What am I doing wrong?

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Mystalic
Entrepreneurs are defined by their characteristics: Willing to take risks,
able and willing to learn and execute on multiple areas of business starting,
and most of all, adaptable: able to change course based on what he or she sees
in the market.

All entrepreneurs are builders. They build both the idea and the business.
What separates them from builders is their ability to adapt and their
willingness to branch out into a lot of different areas

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aitoehigie
Would you classify Steve jobs as a "builder" or an "entrepreneur"? i think for
any would be successful startup founder, you have to swing both ways. just my
2 cents.

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aneesh
Jobs is not the "builder" in any technical sense of the word. But he's a
brilliant entrepreneur nonetheless.

~~~
aitoehigie
Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were the main brains behind the Apple computer
although Steve Wozniak was more nerdy, Steve Jobs also had his input. He is
seen as a business or idea man today because of his charisma and flamboyance.

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ideas101
People who can run the day-to-day operations, dealing with many dept. (sales,
marketing, technology, HR etc.) may or may not be an entrepreneur because my
understanding is entrepreneurs are builders because they create something from
scratch.

Many people start their career with 9 to 5 job and keep getting promoted to
the CEO level, but they may not have ability and courage (at least in the
beginning of their career) to build a new business right from the scratch.

While entrepreneurs/builders are the people who start and build something (or
help others to build something) from nothing.

Serial entrepreneurs (and builders) are always on the move - from one project
to another as they are not interested in doing the same thing over and over
again on daily basis - they get excited to build something from scratch and
once it is built they find the right person to run it (or they help others to
build it and move on to the next project).

Serial entrepreneurs (and builders) to me are like King-makers, they are not
interested in becoming a king them self and run daily operations. They are
like a Guru who has many disciples (kings) who achieve success with his/her
skills and knowledge. It is well known saying that a Guru is equal to a 1000
libraries - they know which book is for whom, and when and how to use it.

~~~
davidw
> entrepreneurs are builders because they create something from scratch.

Yes, the two types of people aren't _that_ far apart, but the entrepreneur is
the guy that can tie things together and make things happen, whereas the
builder is the one who creates a beautiful, well done product - or maybe not
even that, just a brilliant idea that no one has ever done before. Perhaps
"pure" builders aren't suited for startups - they're the brilliant type of
people who just don't want to be bothered with organizational or marketing
details, and would be happy in the R&D department of a company big enough to
give them all the resources they need to create really interesting things. At
least that's my mental image...

Some hackers who strike me as not wanting to deal with the business side, and
have still prospered might include people like Andrew Tridgell (who is a
seriously smart individual), Linus Torvalds, Guido van Rossum, Alan Cox, and
so on. Not that they don't have some good organizational skills and people
skills too, but they are not the kind of people I would describe as
entrepreneurs.

