Ask HN: Would your startup hire an MBA?

[xfax]

I am currently get my MBA from one of the top 5 business schools and am pretty much solely focused on working at a technology startup during the summer and post graduation. I have over six year of development experience at a very large software company under my belt.

Hoping to reach out to startups in the next few months, I am trying to figure out exactly what startups need that I can help fulfill with my background and current education. I realize that roles might not be clearly defined, but surely there are needs to be addressed.

HN: What would you look for when making a business hire?

[kls]

One thing to remember, start-ups cannot waste resources on theory or idea men which a lot of time in corporate American management ascends to. They need people that are useful at getting things done. Hard skills like sales, marketing, development, creative, legal, accounting, SEO, and usability to name a few. If you have a hard skill that you can do, you are going to be a lot more valuable to a start-up than a pure management or visionary role. If they have to opt for a doer vs a manager with limited resources, they are going to opt for a doer, but a doer that can ascend to management is going to be far more attractive so with that you can offer a competitive advantage. My suggestion, if you are interested in the development of products, learn usability. Not how to put pixels on screens but true usability, or the psychology of how people interact with interfaces. Pick up some books like don't make me think, and the usability of everyday things and learn how people think and how to arrange workflows in that manner. These are easy to learn hard skills for an intelligent person and a lot of designers never take the time to learn them but you don't have to be a designer to apply storyboard proper worklows. Being an expert on it, is going to help you bring a value proposition to your candidacy.

[xfax → kls]

Thanks for the insightful response.

I certainly want to be in a position to bring more than just ideas to the table. I am hoping that with my background of doing things will help in that. But you're right, as a career switcher, I need to build a specific set of skills that I can confidently talk about and deliver. I'll work on that.