What we web folk can learn from plumbers
This morning I found a link on the front page of delicious titled: 6 reasons why my VC funded startup did fail. Do you know what the main lessons from the failed start-up attempt were?
- The customer is the most important thing in your business
- The best business plan is to sell people the things they want
- Your business is successful if your earnings are higher than your spendings
Back to basics then! I have worked in big technology companies. I have worked in small technology companies. Along the way I have met and worked with some unbelievably smart people. And I find myself saying the same thing over and over and over.
“The best start-up CEO is the rare marketer who also understands technology deeply”.
Not the smartest technologist in the world who will add marketing later in their business plan.
In this business we tend to like to spend a lot of time thinking about how things are going to get done. We get caught up in the nuance of the project and all the little technical details that will “allow the app to scale”. If I hear one more person talk to me about how they built an app so that it “can scale” I’m going to throw my iPod at their head or kick them in the toe. Forget your scaling. How about trying to find some customers? You think scaling is hard? How about getting people to give you enough money to pay your bills every month. I worry about it constantly.
Our business is full of people who are pretty smart. Maybe too smart for our own good. We leave Microsoft, Amazon, Real or Google after years of “working with some of the smartest people on the planet” and then we’re ready to conquer the world. Quite honestly, I think sometimes it would be a good idea to work as a restaurant manager or a plumber for a year first. Ok, I’m joking but it would certainly force us all to stay focused on the REAL basics. The kind of basics where you drive your deposit envelop from the day’s sales down to the bank each night after work. The kind of basics where you don’t have some secret plumbing process unknown by other plumbers so you have to instead resort to great marketing, longer hours, great advertising and incredible customer service.
In this technology business there are two kinds of “smartest people on the planet” (a phrase you’ll often hear in tech circles). There are those who are really, really smart and whom can build anything. The other “smartest people on the planet” are the ones who can get anything built one way or another and convince people to give them money for it. Steve Jobs seems like one of those latter guys.
Because our industry is primarily full of Type A over-achievers, we’re often perpetuating a feedback loop that is perhaps works against us sometimes. More specifically, we don’t spend enough time up front asking ourselves “what do I really suck at?”
Success is sure hard to come by. If my next start-up doesn’t work out, I want to write a really mind-blowing blog post about why it happened. In any case, I promise I won’t say that it was because I didn’t know I needed to sell something. I think what I’m going to do is pause for a moment and ponder. “What am I not very good at which might be preventing my start-up from being successful today.” I like to think I’m a fairly smart guy so naturally my list won’t be that long 
See…there we go again.
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Funny, all comments on other blogs to my post make me look bad. Not sure why that is. Because essentially it’s a hard to solve problem to sell enterprise software to fortune 50 companies on a limited timeframe and with an exploding venture capital market around you.
Looking at the investments to the right there doesn’t seem to be a enterprise software investment – only websites. But I’m sure you’re very knowledgeable in the enterprise software market.
“Someone smart enough to get a degree in computer science figured out that the reason his business failed is because they didn’t sell anything.”
I’m even smart enough to get a degree in philosophy
Peace
Stephan
Stephan,
I’m not trying to make you look bad.
I’m poking a little jab at all of us.
I’m not likely to get involved in the enterprise software market only because I don’t know it. But, for those who get involved in anything and fail I hope it isn’t because they found out late that they need to start selling and fast.
However, your comment has me re-reading my post and I think it does sound unnecessarily harsh. I’ll probably re-write it.
i like this article and stuff its good and i think we can learn alot from plumbers i try to treat my clients like gold and they appreciate it i think
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