

Do it yourself first - rantfoil
http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1296-do-it-yourself-first

======
SwellJoe
I've always done this...but sometimes to an extreme that is unhealthy (for
myself and my company). I come from a DIY family. My dad never hired anyone to
do anything: plumbing, car repair, electrical (he was an electrician and
electronics repairman before becoming an engineer, so this was obviously
sensible), roofwork, ductwork, painting, landscaping and yard maintenance,
etc. So, when I run into a problem, my first instinct is to do it myself. And
a lot of times, I end up doing it myself...and spending a _lot_ of time
learning how to do it.

But, I'm (finally) beginning to learn that there are simply some things that I
will never do well. And some things that, even if I can do them, it makes me
ill to do them because of how repetitive they are (like bookkeeping, filing,
accounting, etc.), or how much practice it takes me to get to proficiency
(like web design), or how my natural and very strong introversion fights
against success in the area (like cold calling, or LinkedIn "warm calling",
for market research and business development). I'm also beginning to realize
that by focusing on these tasks, which can be very time consuming, I'm missing
out on other opportunities to grow our business. So, I'm interviewing
bookkeepers this week (craigslist is awesome for job postings, by the
way...I've been amazed at the results: 200+ applicants for a part-time
bookkeeping/filing office management position), and I hired a friend to do
some light business development and market research for us.

The thing is, when I add up the numbers (for example, $400/month for a
bookkeeper), I realize how stupid it was for me to try to do this work for so
long. There _is_ certainly value in knowing the position well enough to hire
well. I can choose someone based on their intelligence and enthusiasm rather
than purely on the resume and experience, since I can train them in the
specifics, if needed. But, I think I waited too long to hire this position.
It's one of the aspects of the company that has been weighing on my mind for a
while, and keeping me from being as enthusiastic about getting to work each
day.

So, as with most things DHH says, I agree...but with caveats. Don't take it to
extremes.

~~~
timr
_"I'm also beginning to realize that by focusing on these tasks, which can be
very time consuming, I'm missing out on other opportunities to grow our
business."_

Opportunity cost is such a stealthy killer. Like you, I've spent a lot my time
doing things like car repair, painting, moving...even simple (but time-
consuming) things like taking stuff to the dump. The immediate reasoning is
always something like: _"why in the world would I PAY someone three times as
much to fix my brakes, as it would cost me to do myself?"_ , and it usually
made sense at the time. But then I realized that I was far less productive at
the things that I _wanted_ to do, because I was spending so much time on the
cruft.

I've learned a lot by doing things myself, but this habit has also left me
with a less free time to do the things I _wanted_ to do, or to _excel_ at the
important things. So now I try to pay people to take the uninteresting things
off my plate. Still...that's a hard thing to do when you're the type of person
who is inclined to find nearly _everything_ interesting, so it usually boils
down to setting firm priorities.

------
tdavis
I have a tendency to follow the "do _everything_ yourself" mantra, where
_everything_ refers to things I actually enjoy doing but may include an
excessive number of tasks for a single person to do with great efficiency or
skill. Did you ever watch "Jack Of All Trades?" Well, I'm Jack, but not as
awesome as Bruce Campbell. Man that show rocked. Where was I again? Oh, right.

So I'll code, design, sysadmin, and all this other stuff. I'd be a genius if I
weren't so average at all of them. The problem becomes, though, that since
I've been doing all this stuff for so long I'm very reluctant to actually let
someone replace me. What if they're incompetent? What if they're really smart
but lazy? How do I manage them when I can't even reliably manage myself? What
do I do about the fact that I've become so used to being in complete control
of everything?

I think there's something to be said about just finding someone smart and
talented to do something you have no idea how to do. I definitely take this
approach with all business matters as they are forever deferred to Dan; I have
no desire to gain more than a cursory understanding of how that stuff works.
Sometimes I'll want to learn a bit more about what caused the financial crisis
or what some business term is and I'll ask, but it's only out of curiosity,
not because I want to actually use that knowledge for anything.

A prerequisite to buying a microwave isn't knowing how it works, at least for
me. I only care whether or not it _heats shit up_.

------
rewind
This is way too general for my taste. I'm a creative guy when it comes to
solving problems, but when it comes to graphic design, for example, I suck. I
don't need to try it myself because I don't even know where to start with that
kind of creative process. My mind just doesn't work that way. Don't always do
it yourself first. Besides, I'm too busy writing code and that's what I do
well, so there's no point for me to try to be a jack of all trades.

Also, if you want to do everything yourself first, I hope you're not in much
of a rush to get your overall project finished. There are a lot of things that
you can easily understand and appreciate without having actually done them
yourself.

If you need to do everything yourself first, you're probably not going to be a
great manager or boss. A good manager should have a good sense of what his/her
employees are doing and be able to get them to communicate the most important
parts of the job without actually having to do the job. Sure, you'll have a
better sense if you do it yourself, but that doesn't mean that's a good trade-
off in terms of how to spend your time. There are a lot of tasks that you can
intelligently analyze without actually doing them. Are there a lot of crappy
managers out there who have no sense of the jobs their reports are doing?
Sure. But they can put some effort into understanding them without actually
doing them. It's more of a communication issue, not an execution issue.

Finally, I'm assuming the post is in the context of getting a project
finished, not running a company. But if it's the latter, then I think it's
especially bad advice: taxes, legal, accounting, etc. should NEVER be done by
anyone other than an expert unless it's at an EXTREMELY basic level (and even
then it's still usually a bad idea). I'm sure founders with limited financial
resources fall into this trap sometimes, but it can really bite you in the ass
down the road.

~~~
davidw
I think the idea comes across as "you should have taken a stab at it to know
what it's about". If you're smart, you'll appreciate even more the work of
someone you hire who is truly talented in the given field.

A bit I wrote down from Growing a Business:

"Be a hands-on learner, and get involved with all aspects of your business, so
that you know exactly how they work down to the details."

<http://www.squeezedbooks.com/book/show/4/growing-a-business>

Which is a good book - it's like "getting real", but an actual, real,
published book with an ISBN number, rather than a "let's see how many pdf's we
can sell to our followers before we release it for free" type of deal.

~~~
raffi
An ISBN doesn't mean much. Anyone can get one for free from createspace.com. I
liked getting real and bought a hard copy on a recommendation even with the
free PDF available.

------
wayne
People are obviously opposed to a bad manager assuming he can do your job
better than you can. But I think DHH's point is to avoid the opposite extreme,
small companies that over-hire into positions that an existing employee can
easily perform. Having an existing person do "marketing" or "business
development" probably won't be an awesome as an industry veteran doing it, but
it beats hiring a full time person to do it without really understanding what
that person does, and regretting it later.

