
Moving from programmer to entrepreneur - craigkerstiens
http://www.ianlandsman.com/2006/10/06/10-tips-for-moving-from-programmer-to-entrepreneur
======
ricardobeat
I have to disagree with the first points:

1\. Code is 5% of your business: no, it isn't. If you have a watchmaking
company, is making watches 5% of the business? Marketing, sales, and
operations are only important as long as you have a quality product.

2\. Design is everything: it can used to great advantage, but let's keep it
real. There are plenty examples of successful "gray boxes" applications, don't
confuse aesthetics for usability. We are here on HN, aren't we?

~~~
nhebb
You have to keep in mind that he wrote this after a few years in business.
After creating the product, programming takes up less of your time in day to
day operations. HelpSpot is business software, and Ian was running it as a one
man shop for a while. When you have to do the marketing, customer support,
accounting, and, well, everything by yourself, it just plain takes up a lot of
your day.

~~~
tdr
No pun intended but finding out how to "do the business" after I already
created it doesn't really bring much value. The article itself is called "10
Tips for Moving From Programmer to Entrepreneur" (i.e. how to do it, not what
to do after)

Several points are hit here (some I said in a previous comment): \- get to
know the customer (build MVP ...), see what they want, make a product not a
Software Design masterpiece \- prioritize correctly (and oftentimes -
especially after you built the product - the biz is more valuable)

Anyway, my experience is that even if one knows this theoretically, he will
_get it_ after the practical experience. Good luck building!

------
noelwelsh
This article seemed to miss what to me has been the biggest change: redefining
yourself. If you're like me a lot of your self image is tied up in being a
programmer and being very good at it. Being an entrepreneur means giving that
up. It means not knowing what the cutting edge is any more, not knowing your
way around every library, etc. Worse, it's not like you become a good
entrepreneur overnight. So you go from being excellent at one thing to
mediocre at many things. That's hard for a lot of people to accept.

~~~
john_flintstone
The biggest problem I had - one I'm battling with right now - is that when you
move successfully from being just a programmer to being an entrepreneur who
sells software, after a while the software part becomes less important. You
start thinking: If I can do this with software, I can do it with OTHER STUFF.
And then you drift away from code and software entirely, as you realise your
new entrepreneurial skills can be put to better use in other areas.

It's a huge thing to stop being a programmer, when you started out thinking it
was the only path open to you career wise, and that you would be in the
software business in one form or another for your entire career. But cutting
that cord - as difficult as it is - can be liberating. Cause face it - if you
can sell software that you wrote yourself, you can sell anything online.

------
nodemaker
As a single founder I am sort of confused about these things too.Here is what
my plan is -> Basically become a code monkey for a first four-five months and
do minimal promotion marketing.Once MVP is ready then do full time marketing
pitching and fix bugs once in a while.If you get funded hire more people and
more coding.

Anyone see a problem with that approach?

~~~
rmATinnovafy
I do.

You are wasting your time by building the product first. You have to do the
inverse. Become a marketing money for the first four to five months and do
minimal coding (that is why its called an MVP). Once you have people buying
your product, then you focus on improving it (or refactoring to rails, for
example). If you do get funding, then use the money to grow the business and
software at the same time/ratio.

Reason why this may seem a bit alien to you is because it requires you to go
into marketing mode from day #1. Something you may not be comfortable doing.

Plus, marketing a product is just not about adwords, blog posts, and link on
hacker news. It requires you to actually talk to other people directly. This
is where a lot of introvert hackers ( like me ) quit.

~~~
ams6110
Also requires you to market the thing that programmers hate, vapor-ware.

~~~
rmATinnovafy
I disagree. You would have an MVP. Something tangible to sell. Vapor-ware is
software/hardware that is sold _before_ it is built.

The purpose of the MVP is to get something good enough out of the door so you
can focus on testing. Testing sales, marketing, user experience, etc. Once the
initial testing is done, and the product has proven itself to be profitable if
not then iterate/pivot), then you go and refactor the software if, and only
if, the costs of doing so are worthwile.

I know of products out there that are complete and total bowls of spaghetti
that make a lot of money and would be re-written by most of us. But they are
profitable, and that is the ultimate test for a product. Does it sell?

~~~
wpietri
Not to nit-pick to much, because I agree with your basic point, but I think
the ultimate test for a product is _does it profitably deliver value_. Every
scam artist in the world is profitable, and I see too many people go wrong by
pursuing pure profitability. Coughzyngacough.

~~~
rmATinnovafy
Agreed.

Now Zynga, well, they are a bunch of good intentioned developers being led by
people with a focus on short term money and not long term value.

------
j45
Regarding the 5% number, it might be closer to 20%. We spend more time reading
about tools that benefit technologists than strategies that create value and
convert into paying customers.

Most startups don't solve technically complex problems, except how the
technologists are making their own lives easier through the latest language,
tool or framework.

Building a project is different than a product. A product is not just the
code. We see proof of marketing ruling with garbage products getting into
customers hands and they have no idea of better solutions that are available.

The most important part of this journey is absolutely finding the customer,
finding their need that they're willing to pay for, finding how to reach them,
and then part addressing their need through code.

You need all of those to have a business that makes money, other wise you have
a project you want to try to make money with, not a strategic approach to
establishing a business.

Focusing on making money is terrifying to too many technologists. The only way
you get there is realizing the product itself is 20% of your business and you
will inevitably spend 80% of your time learning to get it traction and paying
customers. Of course, it's easy to just code some more to add some "value". If
that value doesn't reach customers, it's not realized value, just more
potential that will sink.

I agree with the entire article except for the last point: read everything
possible.

It's an epic waste of time to read about things in detail that you aren't
looking to implement right away. Reading articles, especially if you don't end
up acting on them is too often a waste of time because you have to come back
to them later and re-read when you're ready to do something with them.

I use a slight tweak on the rule: Only read in detail what I need to do right
now, or my next step. Only read things in general to understand where I am on
the overall project.

------
dkb
I agree that code is not the only thing that should be worked on. Loving
customers, treating them with respect and listening to them is also essential
to me. I am currently working on an idea and have a lot of questions on
different aspects and don't even know where to look for answers. Is there some
online resources related to the different aspects of an online business?
(understanding a service that you pay for and use online, such as BaseCamp
from 37signals). For example, should you start to give a service for free at
the beginning and then monetize it when you have a lot of users, if you do so,
is there some legal issues following this way? Another example, the
disclaimer: how do you manage this, does it really protect the entrepreneur? I
feel like there is a lot to considered out of the code itself and the
marketing.

~~~
franzus
> should you start to give a service for free at the beginning and then
> monetize it when you have a lot of users

Are you VC backed and can live without positive cash flow? Ore are you trying
to build a real business?

~~~
dkb
I do not have any fund and have a job, but I was thinking about starting
something aside of my job and try to make it known. The biggest problem for me
now is not technical, I could write an app to develop my idea and put it
online. The problem is that I don't know what I am allowed to do or not
allowed to do as an owner of a website/webapp that I put for free online. If
you take for example the case of Craiglist, someone will put an ad to sell
something, and potential buyers will contact this person. How does the website
discharge itself from being responsible from any failure in the process? Every
law related question are pretty hard to find an answer to.

------
happypeter
>Treat it like you are learning to program all over

I really love this part, diving into the bigger world of building sth real and
serve people directly, with the same passion and curiostiy for coding itself.

------
Void_
> bring your design all the way up to the level of a 37 Signals type app

What? 37Signal apps are usable and all, but just open Dribble..

------
zengr
"Code is 5% of your business"

Really? Of the business yes, but for the product too (beautiful code is
reflected in a beautiful product)?

~~~
malandrew
Stating how much of your business is code, design and hustle is extremely
relative. The relative proportions of each are a lot like fertilizer numbers.
Some plants require one ratio of nitrogen, potash and phosphate and others
require a completely different ratio of each. The ratios are a function of
things like audience (awareness, inertia), competition and the status quo of
your market.

------
Estragon
Is his rss feed broken for anyone else?

~~~
ralph
I get 500 Internal server error with some command-line HTTP fetchers, not
wget(1). And [http://www.rssboard.org/rss-
validator/check.cgi?url=http%3A%...](http://www.rssboard.org/rss-
validator/check.cgi?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ianlandsman.com%2Frss) is unhappy.

------
franzus
> Design is everything

I don't think this is true. Features are far more important than shiny
buttons.

Custom design is a problem too as it fragments the user experience. People
want software that looks and feels native .

~~~
wpietri
You're arguing with something he didn't say. Nowhere did he advocate non-
native UI widgets. He's just saying that in the eyes of your audience, your
product should look better than the competitors.

