
The Three Machines - jonbaer
http://www.feld.com/archives/2017/01/the-three-machines.html
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hn_user2
I like the separation of The Company, but highly disagree with keeping The
Customer separated from The Product.

I would like to see more of what can be done as we focus more on combining
these, not segregating them.

As a developer the very rare chances I have had to go on a sales visit were
eye opening in an astounding way. Sure, maybe don't have developers cold
calling, but making product developers a part of the sales process can only
help with the feedback loop.

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beat
Some segregation is inevitable. It's a result of complexity. At a certain
point, the company becomes too big and complex for everyone to be doing
everything, and you need to specialize, not just distribute the work.

The Product/Customer divide makes sense to me, because _what you do about
them_ is different. Sure, customer steers product and vice versa, but the
"Customer" machine is about sales funnels, marketing language, customer
service, etc. The "Product" machine is about specs, coding, release schedules,
etc. Implementing a new feature and selling a new feature are different tasks,
requiring different skillsets.

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wtbob
This is pretty deep, and pretty smart, since it deals with the things a firm
is about: its customers, what it gives those customers, and itself.

One could do worse than to consider those three areas in any decision.

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jack9
How is this deep or smart? It reads like the common armchair "this is how to
run a company" without so much as an anecdote. In fact, the foundation is his
unnerving preoccupation with the number 3, not with any eye for business.

> there’s a lot of sloppy thinking on my part so far

That's from the blog post. Mistaking amateur ramblings for analysis is bit
worse than seeing someone's mediocrity as genious. What are the standards for
analysis now, 2 beers and a couple paragraphs about how the world should be?

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beat
Brad Feld is a very successful VC. Those aren't amateur ramblings, those are
_professional_ ramblings!

More to the point, he's a longstanding and well-respected business advisor,
and has an excellent track record. I may or may not agree with him on any
given subject, but I'll sure as heck stop and listen, because he knows more
about this stuff than I do, by far.

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katzgrau
As I'm making my first hires this month, I've been thinking very heavily about
future org structure - and oddly enough I've called it the "machine" too.

My machine has custom components that perform different functions but connect
together (which parallels your machines pretty well). Each of those machines
can be subdivided to an extent.

I think it's an interesting approach in that I could practically design draw a
schematic to describe how it all comes together. Every company would probably
need a custom-built machine - there's no general one-size-fits-all approach in
this way of thinking about it.

We'll see how it goes

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throwaway2016a
> I'm making my __first __hires this month

Early-stage business advice is cheap and sometime barely worth the bytes it's
stored in, but...

Speaking as someone who has done a few startups. Until you get to 50+
employees you probably don't want to spend a lot of time thinking about the
org structure. Keep it relatively flat (CXOs -> VPs -> Everyone Else)

It is less cognitive load on you and empowers individuals to help form the
company culture and workflow.

Edit: I don't really agree with the premise of this article. I think it is
critically important at early stages that everyone (engineering, marketing,
sales, customer service, etc) are exposed to every part of the business. If a
customer sends customer service a great review, engineering should see it. If
a customer has an issue, engineering should be involved in making the customer
happy. And the other way around, customer service should have a say in how the
product is built... heck, the administrative assistant that answers the phone
should even have an avenue for their feedback to be heard. Of course someone
needs to ultimately make the decision but everyone should have a voice and
feel vested in the company success.

~~~
mathattack
My read was the article was about focus, not building information silos. When
everyone reports to the CEO, the org suffers.

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throwaway2016a
Depends on the size of the company... if the company is three people that
seems perfectly reasonable.

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gargarplex
I kinda like the idea of separating the "Company Machine" from "Customer
Machine" and "Product Machine", but Customer and Product are deeply
intertwined.

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justinpombrio
They're two sides of one coin, right? Here's what we want vs. here's what we
can build. Opposing forces that should always be in contact.

Either that or it's late and I'm getting philosophical.

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gargarplex
Another reason I don't like the customer/product split is because it pits the
Customer team against the Product team. Who is the most valuable? Gee, clearly
the Customer people because they bring in the money... Product is then treated
as a cost center

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SolarNet
Or you could argue this reminds people they are on equal footing with the
other.

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gargarplex
I have never found an organization where that is the case.

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camperman
I like this clarity. But I think to make it work you need the best people at
the boundaries of the divisions. Between customer support and product
development must sit someone, or a team, with experience of both. Between the
internal company function and the engineers must be a former engineer who is
now a manager or at least a person who both understands the business and also
understands that programmers need quiet offices and decent equipment.

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xolb
As the founder of an early stage startup, everything that is not related to
product development seems that I am not actually working. I know that I should
devote myself to hone my Customer and Company machines, but I hate the feeling
of wasting time.

I am trying to transform Customer and Company as products, so I trick my mind
to evolve them appropriately.

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mathattack
Thinking through Company can usually wait, but ignoring Customer is risky.

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xolb
Indeed, but sales are difficult for a technical founder, and as a solo
founder, I need to adapt or bring someone on board, which is risky as well.

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mathattack
Very true. The hard part seems to be finding the hierarchy. Can the head of
Sales ever not be the head of Customer? (Can the head of customer success have
the VP of Sales report to them?) Having product management subservient to
engineering or vice versa seems tricky too.

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tunesmith
So if you're working on technology that enables the company to build products
better/faster, is that part of the product machine or the company machine? At
what point do those technology projects become internal enough to be
considered Company instead of Product?

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bjterry
If I am understanding his point, the Company machine is basically
finance/accounting, legal, HR, and office management. It is a common pattern
at mid-stage startups to have some or all of these people report to a CFO. If
your product is to make software to build products, the product development is
still under the Product Machine, even if the company itself is using the
product.

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mindcirkus
At a company like mine where the technology isn't the primary product this
would become "the four machines"? With one more machine handling the "main"
product. Like journalism/carpenting/engineering etc.

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dcw303
In certain industries, it's said a company is made up of three types of staff
- finders, minders, and grinders.

It's a pretty simple exercise to map this to the three machines.

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twright0
Can you explain what each of those types are and how they map to the three
machines discussed in this post? It's pretty non-obvious to me.

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dcw303

      finders (sales - those that bring in the $$$) = customer machine
      minders (admin, finance, hr, etc) = company machine
      grinders (the grunts who actually do the work - for a tech company this is the engineering dept) = product machine

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AndrewKemendo
This is hilarious because about a year ago I was scribbling on a plane about
our idealized organization and I came up with this:

[http://imgur.com/a/feJoK](http://imgur.com/a/feJoK)

CEO - Focused on managing team (Traditional definition BTW)

Product Manager - Focused on UX

Customer Manager - Focused on Onboarding and Client Management

Customer Acquirer - Focused on Acquiring Customers

Financial Manager - Focused on Managing Capital Flows

You could (or possibly should) combine The Customer roles into one and the
financial one with CEO and you'd have the same setup that Feld describes.

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tedunangst
As an aside, the actual article is not as long as the 100 pages it may seem
from the scroll bar. There are a lot of comments on the page.

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bluetwo
I've always gone with:

1) Create Value

2) Monetize Value

But I see how a third team makes sense.

3) Manage Value?

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AstralStorm
Value is a non-word.

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bluetwo
I disagree. Value is the financial impact something has, as opposed to cost,
which is what it takes to produce, or price, which is what it sells for.

Most of business is creating something that costs little to produce and can be
sold as close to value as possible.

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gohrt
Product Development, Sales and Marketing, and General/Administrative

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beat
I really like this concept. I hope to see more on the subject!

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shoefly
Love this idea. I needed the company machine years ago.

