For those who prefer to read, the lecture has been put into an essay. Pretty good advice, not just about startups.
"You don't see a lot of running instructors, but you do see skiing instructors" -I enjoyed the analogy about how startups, like skiing, are often counterintuitive. You don't need to be an expert in startups. What you need to know to succeed is to be an expertise in your own users. -Makes sense. Q: What does the non-technical partner do? A: Sales, and fetches the programmers cheeseburgers.-Graham just described me. He's an interesting and entertaining speaker. I'd love to have a beer with him someday. Without him, Hubski likely doesn't exist. mk used an HN clone to build the first iteration of Hubski.
Don't forget that it's a course for Silicon Valley-like startups. That doesn't mean all of the advice applies to starting your own business, and it doesn't mean you're useless at starting one. Like he said, it's all about building a great product, which in the Y Combinator world means either a software product or a tech gizmo, and outside of that bubble means anything you can sell to people. For example, do you think you've been less useful at helping hubski because you're less technical than the rest of the team? I don't think so.A: Sales, and fetches the programmers cheeseburgers.-Graham just described me.
Thank you for the kind words, I was just being self deprecating for the sake of humor, I'm not actually insecure about what I bring to any business teams in either the traditional or startup space. I've realized that it takes a team of individuals with unique and complimentary talents and a singular, unified vision. When you have those things, good things happen. Thanks for the shout-out, I enjoyed the video.
That's great to hear. Sometimes, when people are self-deprecating, they are talking about their truth. I was hoping this wasn't one of those cases. :)Thank you for the kind words, I was just being self deprecating for the sake of humor, I'm not actually insecure about what I bring to any business teams in either the traditional or startup space.
However, my strengths tend to be the things that programmers would not be strong at: Business development, customer relationship management etc. It takes a team, that's what makes starting and building businesses fun. It's not a solitary effortSometimes, when people are self-deprecating, they are talking about their truth
For sure, and there is certainly a part of me that would like to be more helpful on the technical side, if nothing else because I want things to get done more quickly than they do sometimes, but even if I worked hard to become somewhat proficient at programming, I would just slow people down. It's not my strength.