

I'm not an enterpreneur, I'm a dirty hack - maxklein
http://maxklein.posterous.com/im-not-an-enterpreneur-im-a-dirty-hack

======
adriand
Perhaps this got traction on HN just because it's against the usual grain
here, which focuses on high standards, good design, and taking pride in one's
work. But I still don't really get why this post is deserving of the upvotes
it got.

Is it really any surprise that you can make lots of money if you use cheap
labour, if you're okay with releasing - and perhaps even selling, though I
hope not - garbage software ("Release a really crappy version", "I don't spend
money on design"), and if you're content without innovating or trying to break
new ground?

The world is full of people who do that, and yes, many of them get by just
fine, and some make lots of money. But there's far more to life, and work,
than that.

For me, that's what's so great about HN: it is full of inspirations for a web
developer like myself. Inspirational companies and inspirational people who
don't rest until they get it right. Who push the envelope. Who care deeply
about the experience of using their software.

This post contains nothing inspirational like that. I've worked for people
like this before. Never again.

~~~
10ren
As far "release a crappy version", it's just a blunter way of saying _release
early, release often_

And the following part "No response, abandon. Complaints, improve" is just the
concept of the minimal prototype; also used in "Discovery-driven planning".
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_driven_planning>

You seem to be speaking from a professional mind-set, which is
perfectionistic. An entrepreneurial mind-set is a little different: why
perfect something if no one wants it? Or, as pg says "build something people
want". Find out what they want first, _then_ perfect it.

------
zaidf
If anyone is looking for tips on working with offshore programmers, read Max's
few but timeless points!

He nails his experience about getting designers from Romania. They have really
great taste! And Russians for math-related complicated programming. And India
for cheap average quality programming work(btw, Indian designers are in
general _pathetic_ ). These have been my experiences too over 8 years of being
on both sides of the outsourcing market(as a freelancer and as someone who has
hired folks offshore). It is an art working with people offshore and if you
can manage it, it can give you a real edge especially in starting phases.

Curious, are you deep into affiliate marketing?

~~~
shakedown
A company I worked for used a relatively big web company in Romania, hiring a
few developers over there to work full time on their site.

The HTML and CSS they wrote were generated using Dreamweaver, and their PHP
was a mess with tons of copying and pasting. It was impossible to get the
company's higher level management team to understand why continuing to use
these guys was bad idea, because they saw the front end 'just working', yet it
was so hard for us to modify and understand any of their code.

If you intended to have a site that one day has skilled programmers working on
it and is actually maintainable, be careful about things 'just working' with
outsourced code.

~~~
bad_user
Hi, I also live in Romania.

> _relatively big web company in Romania_

Little quiz ... what should set your alarm on? The "big" size of that "web
company" or its location?

For me it's a no-brainer ... simply because for a consulting company to scale
to that "big" factor ... you need to hire a lot of third-rate, cheap code-
monkeys ... that's business 101 ;)

Second of all ... your company should've asked for a portfolio of the actual
developers that ended up working for you, simply because the quality of the
employees varies greatly even in well-respected organizations.

Or was there some kind of manager acting as a proxy between you and those
doing the actual work?

And out of curiosity, in your country there aren't any "big software
companies" that are doing consulting work of dubious quality?

This seems to me that it was more a problem with your management. Blaming it
on "outsourcing" is not really accurate.

BTW ... in my small company that does consulting work, we aren't taking
outsourced projects very often. We don't do it simply because those kind of
clients that would outsource to us are of very poor quality, leading to poor
communications, unmet deadlines, unmet payments and generally disastrous
results.

~~~
shakedown
To clarify, by 'big' i meant not just in size, but in number of highish
profile clients.

Towards the end of me being there, they added a more senior developer/manager
to the Romanian team -- his code was much better (i.e. not dreamweaver
generated HTML/CSS) and was easier to communicate with, but still the code
quality from the others on the team was very unmaintainable.

I apologize if it seemed as if I was generalizing the entire country of
Romania's programming abilities -- definitely not what I intended. If all the
developers were as good as the senior developer added on later, I'm sure it
would have went much better.

My main point remains the same though, and I think is one that we can both
agree on - that hiring inexpensive labor with only focusing on the front end
user experience, without any respect or idea of how well the back end is being
constructed is a bad idea. I'm sure outsourcing can work, but only with
careful attention to the behind the scenes backend code quality, to ensure the
project is not being held together by duct tape.

------
mattmaroon
"After a while, however, the feeling disappears. Seeing your daily revenue go
from $1000 to $2000 starts to mean nothing. It's all just business. That's no
longer where the excitement is."

Not true at all. It never gets old watching the average daily profit rise.

~~~
SwellJoe
Folks are different.

I find I have to make myself care about those numbers. I tend to fall into a
comfort zone, where my brain has decided, "Yes, we have enough money coming in
to keep us in food and houses, so we're OK. Think about more important things,
now." I've made myself stop dealing directly with our technology lately, and
begun to focus more on the money side of things. I've only recently started
doing regular bookkeeping and monthly revenue reports and such. And, it is
satisfying to watch the numbers increase, but it's not as satisfying as
building something new, to me.

~~~
bemmu
After the first $1000 / month I started caring a lot less, because I could eat
and pay rent. After $2000 I stopped caring some more, because that is enough
for budget travel, which is the biggest "thing" I want. Now I've found my next
motivation to be "for each extra $2000 I make, I can have these things some
month in the future when I've lost my revenue source".

------
yannis
>I don't invent shit. Look at what is invented already and make it a bit
easier to use

This is great advice!

~~~
vibhavs
He also says:

>I stay 2-3 years behind the trend. After the early adopters have left, there
is this gap that can be filled by people who are willing to learn from the
failures of the early adopters

That sounds great in theory, but can anyone expand on that? What are some
specific examples?

~~~
tewks
Do pardon me if I'm being obvious or not addressing your question, but the
following examples spring to mind:

pets.com, etoys, et al. -> zappos,

altavista, goto, yhoo, et al. -> goog,

broadcast.com, real media, "quicktime TV" -> youtube

These examples were all established a few years after the original players
came in fully loaded with cash, hype, etc yet failed to solve or even identify
underlying problems.

~~~
yannis
One way to get ideas is to visit your local library and go through all the
technology magazines of +- 3 years ago.

~~~
TheSOB88
+3 years ago?

------
ErrantX
_You see, there are lots of enterprenuers out there_

His description of entrepreneurs is, I think, not very good.

Im sure there are lots of people like he describes who would call themselves
entrepreneurs.

But every good one that I've met or "seen" doesn't even half fit such a
stereotype. In fact I suspect most really good entrepreneurs are hacks just
the same :)

Dont mix pretenders with the real thing!

------
robotrout
$12K/month, but unwilling to quit his job to start a company. Must be a sweet
job.

------
nzmsv
Very nice. Someone who outsources all his work to poorer parts of the world
boasting about judging people by the country they come from. Sounds just a
little bit like picking your new "employees" at a slave market.

~~~
catfish
It's not slavery if you pay an amount that is fair for the foreign employee.
In the Philippines, $275.00 USD is equivalent to a 2k job here in the states.

That's not slavery. As far as classifying quality of work effort by country,
try it yourself and in a short time you will learn that different cultures
deliver different types of workers, and thinking, and creativity. I know that
sounds strange, but it is true.

And here is the funny part of the entire deal. If you suddenly found yourself
transported to Russia, Romania, India, the Philippines, or China, good luck
getting work as Americans are mostly viewed as fat, lazy, complaining do
nothings, who barely understand the concept of a hard days work for a fair
wage.

Ask every foreign employee that works for me and not one of them would agree
with your comment. They are grateful to have the work, to work at home, to
raise their families well, and to do so by using their brains.

I don't feel the least bit bad for outsourcing either. Americans are the
hardest employees to manage, and rarely deserve their high cost. There is a
huge downside to working with the ME generation. Most think that a job is an
entitlement. Ugh...

~~~
nzmsv
OK, outsourcing does not equal slavery. That said, we all do stereotype all
the time. For example, you probably thought from reading my comment that I'm a
fat, lazy American teenager with a sense of entitlement :)

I lived in Russia in the 90s, and I saw exactly the opposite effect from the
one you describe first-hand. There were people coming from English-speaking
countries who could get management-level jobs mostly by virtue of coming from
an English-speaking country. I knew some personally, and I don't hold it
against them at all. They were seen as having an understanding of how the
capitalist world works, and this was valued (whether or not this was true).

After a decade, the people were not seeing the quick returns from the switch
to capitalism that they were hoping for. As a result, the general attitude
towards the West in Russia has changed. You can read all about it in the news.

I also have friends back in Russia, who work for an outsourcing company. The
majority of programming jobs there that pay a livable salary are outsource.
There are few Russian companies that work on original products of their own
(Parallels comes to mind).

I hold no illusions. As long as the US market remains the largest, that's
where the money will be, and outsourcing will remain a viable strategy. Does
the idealist in me wish that the people working outsourced positions could
access this market directly, without effectively paying a middleman? Or better
yet, have a thriving local market? Yes, but I realize this just won't happen.

------
robryan
The dropbox comment sounds a little cheap. Making $12k and going out of your
way to avoid paying $10 for a quality app?

~~~
maxklein
The only webservice I pay for is DabbleDB. Dropbox I can live with the
restriction, but you absolutely need a database when you need to track a large
amount of items.

I'm REALLY suprised that there are not cheaper alternatives to DabbleDB - if
there had been anything a bit cheaper or a bit more ajaxified, I'd have gone
for it.

Also, the main reason I don't pay for dropbox is that you need to pay for EACH
user! So at just 5 users I'm paying $50 a month. That's crazy wasted money!

~~~
domodomo
If you are only sharing a subset of folders that are under the free limit, I'm
pretty sure the other side can still use the free account.

I'm doing this with a friend right now, I have the paid account and am using
30+GB, he has a free account, and we share just the folders we need to.

------
krakensden
What is his business? I can't find a link anywhere...

~~~
antidaily
"niche sites" according to his twitter.

~~~
zaidf
Usually code for affiliate/seo/ebook business.

I have a few friends making a killing doing this. It isn't as easy as it
sounds. And it isn't as scammy as it sounds. When done right, it can make good
money.

~~~
wallflower
The classic Parrot eBook gold mine:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=516215>

------
rms
Can you share one of your sites? I think we're all pretty curious to see. We
won't make fun of you.

------
prgmatic
Certainly being a web entrepreneur is considered "not following the herd", but
within the "not following the herd" there is also two paths, and one is indeed
another herd. I love his philosophy, do not follow the herd. Do your own
thing.

------
scootklein
what is the point in separating the two, can't you be both?

i would be willing to bet that the majority of people here that consider
themselves "entrepreneurs" or are working in startups would identify with
almost every single one of those points.

are we all hacks? or is there one point on there that makes you a NON-
entrepreneur compared to everyone else who thinks they are?

~~~
maxklein
I'd put it this way: Some people are born to be independent businessmen. They
read the theory, they talk the talk, then they take the step and start off in
business.

There is the other way - just making money on the internet, and there is no
grand plan behind it. It's more of a thing that just develops itself without
some type of enterpreneurial drive or theory behind it.

~~~
ekanes
Max - what's with the picture above your post? Not sure I understand what
you're trying to say with it.

Edit: Nevermind. It's late and I skimmed your post too quickly.

------
jorsh
"I make about $12k a month, which is not very much in the global scale of
things, but it's fine."

I'm sorry, what?

~~~
jeremyw
Hmm, 12K/mo was 8K/mo a few days ago. Not that this particularly detracts from
his points, but .. grain of salt included.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1014220>

~~~
maxklein
In that post, I was just talking of one particular income source, which is the
main one I am doing now. I'll write another post in a few days breaking down
exactly where I make the money from. It's not standard landing page crap -
it's actually a bit more unexpected (for standard web ppl) than that.

