I am good at coding, what other skills do I need to start a successful business?
Hey Fellow Hackers,
I am Mayur, an Android developer and DevOps by profession. I come from an academic background and have never done business in my life. I have a few good ideas but I am not sure if they will be successful enough to generate revenue. It seems that people who are into marketing know a lot more about the business than engineers.
I want to level up my understanding of product, business, customers etc. What other skills should I posses to create a successful business? Can someone help?
in no particular order:
marketing
sales
value creation
value delivery
finance
Coding and DevOps equates to value delivery. So it's about 20% of the required skillset and not even the most important 20%. IMO you need at least 60% overall to have a shot at a real business.
Value creation comes from customer development and research and it's the most important 20%. Without value creation there is no business.
The above list is 'the five parts of any business' from the Personal MBA and while not necessarily complete, it's a great mental model.
A counter exhibit would be Notch: A fantastic programmer, but one of the worst marketers and promoters ever to get rich. At least when he was complaining on HN about PayPal freezing millions of his dollars, I don't think he was exactly a finance guru either. He sold Minecraft for 2 billion. Ultimate Indie Hacker.
In the framework you wrote above, I'd say that marketing or sales skills can be very useful, but with one or the other you can get it done. You need basic financial sense, but nothing unusual at the beginning and both "value creation" and "value delivery" are much too abstract to be skills.
In my personal network, the most successful indie was:
bad at marketing in general, but pretty good at SEO
bad at sales
okay-ish at PHP and CSS
okay at testing and optimizing
very persistent
He built a nutrition site to 1MM uniques/month and ~15k/month in adsense. Then he got good at optimizing ad placement and doubled it. Then moved to DFP, increased earnings, finally hired a VA, grew the site even bigger, bought a better domain, etc, etc, etc
Another acquaintance I know from long ago has basically been making chess engines for each new platform for years (or porting his same one over, actually). He's not a marketer at all. He's just built the best one (on some dimension, at least) and companies keep wanting to license it.
There are lots of ways to get there, but fundamentally, you just need to
make something people want and
have some way to get distribution.
Once you have those two, you'll have both the resources and the incentives to figure out the rest.
lol Minecraft was the game of a generation. So many hours wasted playing that in uni.
To your point with 1) and 2) in principle I agree. Though to expand on my point to deliver 1) you need to have created value and be able to deliver it and 2) either get distribution through a successful marketing channel or hunt people down and sell it to them directly. And before you reach the point you have a product and can distribute it you need to finance your efforts in some way or another.
Pretty much if you have 60% you can almost always afford to either learn the other 40% or pay for it.
Your friends example fits that mould perfectly I would say.
good at SEO = marketing (as it got him distribution in a channel)
Okay at PHP/CSS = value delivery (he could put the site together)
15k/month in AdSense = evidence he has created value (the market wanted the information that he was either an expert in or spent the time to research!)
Value delivery boils down to whatever set of skills are necessary to deliver the value in the format you want to deliver it in. It's abstract but you can think it through for any specific case. Like Elon Musk is a great example right now because Tesla is struggling to actually produce the cars fast enough. That's having trouble with value delivery. Makes sense right? So if you're making a video course then actually being able to record and edit the content and host it on some platform is value delivery.
Value creation is a bit more hairy. It's not a skill itself it's either the market wants what you have produced or they don't. But you can't create value out of thin air, you either have to know something about something or you have to go and find out what the market wants and the finding out what the market wants definitely boils down to a learnable set of skills. You also may just get lucky and accidentally create value but hope is not a strategy.
Wouldn't creating and editing videos be value creation as opposed to value delivery?
I may be working with a different set of definitions than you are... in my framework, I'd see it more like this:
Would creating and editing videos be value creation instead of value delivery?
No. As it's only the process of constructing the video that will reach the end consumer. Whether the consumer finds that video valuable comes down to the contents of the video and what that consumer needs at that point in time.
If it's a 12 hour video of watching paint dry it's not likely to be creating value for anyone. If it's a Khan Academy video it's very valuable if you are a student!
Also, you're right, money and value are only loosely coupled but consider the non-monetary benefits bestowed upon those who create value. Often that is at the very least social capital! Salman Khan's place on the social hierarchy shot up massively as a result of Khan Academy. So it's not always rewarded with money per se.
I like how specific you got (point abt value creation being too abstract and your example about the most successful indie you know) and your willingness to consider counterexamples. Even counterexamples to your original point.
Example of Notch to counter the necessity of learning marketing and sales.
Example of the most successful indie you know who is quite different from Notch and yet also bad with marketing.
@from_30_to_greatness
Great post, James.
the Personal MBA is a gold mine.
I keep hearing about this book. Adding to read list. Soon as I’m done with Homo Deus.
Soo.... what are the best resources for learning marketing? ;)
How much money is recommended when starting off (in your opinion)?
If you can code you can most certainly build out the entire product without needing capital.
If you need marketing and sales chops, you don’t really need money for that either!
Just start practicing talking to people about your product.
Realistically; once you have a product you won’t likely need too much money up front to get going, you can spend a few hundred dollars in ad spend and take it from there. See what works and what doesn’t.
To add to @from_30_to_greatness from above. If you have 60% or greater of those skills you should be able to grow a solid product to a decent bit in MRR all by yourself without much marketing dollars.
Money is only like fuel to the fire. Start the fire first.
As far as personal runway, if you quit your job it's good to have 12+ months of savings
From someone who is 6 months into that... only quit if you are already have a demonstrated track record in at least 60%.
Well you don't have to but I think I started with about 15% on the value delivery side (back end/DevOps are ok, but front end is shitty) and of course (limited) finance. So 35%. So far it's not going fantastic. But I've learned a lot about the value creation side of things which I never would have if I didn't quit. So whether I make it or not my minimum goal is gain as much value creation and marketing skill as possible so that if I get back to working then income from job provides the finance. I think eventually I'll crack it.
20%. I have a long way to go. I think it's better if I partner up with professionals from other domain and learn how to they do, what they do.
in my experience, partnering up is a time for execution. whether you learn will not be due to them teaching you but you picking up on things here and there. they won’t have the time to teach you. and if they are experts, much of their decision making process may not be something you can plainly see. there could be a lot of important nuance lost.
I’d say the best way to learn is to take classes from experts while you’re building your own business so that you can apply what you have learned, or get a mentor who can help you improve the skills you need to get better at, or both. get a proven advisor (who isn’t just a has-been that’s now out of touch) who has the skills that you don’t have and give them the opportunity to contribute to something where their input is valued and appreciated. Meet with them often, take them out to lunch or dinner, etc. Go over your current problems with them. And you shouldn’t have to give them money or equity — of the successful people you’re eyeballing to be your mentor (maybe they are a Founder, Board member, C-level, VP, or Department-head of a business not in your industry?), there will be enough in that group who either aren’t in it for the money, or can’t be doing it for the money due to their agreements. It could be an opportunity for them to step out of their boring industry and help flex their acumen, etc.
I wrote an article about this. Essentially you need as a business man to be able to answer three questions:
1.) How do we make money – what’s our business model? (advertising, products, fee for service, subscription etc..)
2.) How do we get customers – do we have something people want and how do we spread the word?
3.) The technological question – how do we build and implement something people want?
The link to the full article is below.
Yet there's something else I've begun to realize:
When you work in a job, you don't realize how much structure and organization is provided for you. This even extends to the social arena, where the need for human interaction is provided in an environment of peers. As a an entrepreneur you are now responsible for structuring and organizing your life: what a challenge this is. Indeed self-management becomes the key business skill: staying on task, being organized, and seeing the bigger picture. When starting solo, loneliness and isolation are other factors to deal with; not the loneliness of not having friends, but rather the lack of those informal human interactions, the significance of which you only realize when you no longer have them.
https://www.indiehackers.com/@webapppro/why-start-ups-arnt-really-about-the-tech-c9a228dfc4
👏👏👏
Nicely summarized! I ll definitely check out the article.
error breeds sense. you gotta jump right in. flip a project a month for the next 6 months. you'll probably fail every time but its all about the information you'll get.
90% doing. 10% consuming.
learn on the job. don't just start reading a rando marketing book.
also, build an audience. its the no1 priority
100% learning by doing, making mistakes and collecting real data is a solid path to skills.
smarketing (Sales and Marketing) - doesn't matter how good your product is if no one buys it.
On the other side if it's not perfect but you can market and sell it you will make a profit.
Good, that's an advantage.
Keep an academic perspective. "Skills" that are being described in this thread are just tools that were built based on past experience (and in business, often very limited research). Many tips/tricks are anecdotal, and the large majority of books on these subjects are purely subjective and filled with confirmation bias.
If you try to absorb them all (w/ the goal to get a sense of the bigger picture), you'll only get conflicting information and ultimately feel confused.
To understand how to actually get clients for any business you make, stick to the essence of what sales mean.
Don't become "a businessman". Instead, stay yourself and apply your academic perspective to enrich your clients' lives. Use it as a tool to make something that others w/o your perspective can't make. Because "a businessman" is just someone who learned to do this well enough to be successful - it's a result, not a goal.
It's all about listening to, and understanding, your end client. Always put your ideal client first, and you'll inevitably build something with them that is worthy of them paying you money. Anything else (e.g. assumptions, your own dreams) you shouldn't be building anyway if your primary goal is to make money.
Microeconomics, game theory, psychology, persuasion, ethics, mathematics and computers.
Hello @mayuroks,
Marketing without any doubt.
If you have a good marketing strategy, you can sell even if your product is not a top product (as long as the produt meets a need ...)
However, without any good marketing strategy you could not sell even if you have the best product over the world.
This is so true.
I worked with a bunch of startups and when I some of their sales-funnels, it was crystal clear to me.
10k people saw the ad, but only 200 clicked on it.
I was shocked. Most people wouldn't even go to the page that asked them to download and install the app.
Most people wouldn't even see the app to tell if it is good or bad...
I agree 100%. This was something I learned through experience. I regret myself not knowing the potential of marketing earlier.
You have saved me a good chunk of regret :D.
How does one learn marketing. I believe there is so much bullshit on the internet.
Yeah of course.
I think there are the experience and the theory. You will need to time to adjust your strategy it's not like a magic formula :)
@Adel "Marketing without any doubt." That's interesting! Lots of startups and companies talk about their tech, communities etc.
Nobody says "Marketing is the secret to our success." :D
Yeah when youre reading their Medium post talking about their secret sauce, they never actually tell you that your eyeballs are right in the middle of one of their marketing campaigns ...
Direct sales
Do you practice it?
Yes
Don't get stuck in analysis paralysis regarding your own skill set. All you really need to do is 1) make something, and 2) sell it.
When you come across a problem you need to solve but don't have the skills for, you'll figure it out/learn it faster because you won't have the time to ask a million people what they would do.
The best way to 'level up' your business skills is to start running a business now. The bonus skill that you'll get by jumping into this now is that you'll eventually get comfortable not knowing everything you want to know... which will always be true.
Do. It. Now.
Since you're a developer I assume you're very smart. If you're smart, nothing should stop you.
Speaking from experience. I'm a great developer, but not necessarily a good salesman, at least not in person. Hell, you can ask me to sell you my own product and I would probably fail when face-to-face. Behind a keyboard though, I can do just fine. I've sold my product (a subscription-based one) to over 1,000 people all over the world in the last 2-3 years.
If you build a great product, you won't even have to sell it. Customers will come to you and not vice versa. If you have the resources, of course it wouldn't hurt to have at least a sales person.
The only think I have mastered besides programming, is customer support. We developers tend to be cocky. We sometimes think we're the smartest people on earth. If you do, keep it to yourself!!
You will have to deal with all kind of customers, even with those ones you can't find the "X' button. Be patience with them, just like you're patient (hopefully) finding that missing semicolon. They will appreciate it more than you think. Even if your product is not that great, they will still talk about you if you treat them well.
I've had customers leaving Hootsuite and Buffer only for the customer support I personally provided.
All the best!
You need less than you think! You do not necessarily need to be good at sales, depending on what you make. Programmers with very poor sales abilities have been making money on the internet just about since its creation.
You need to be good at sales or be good at marketing or be good at getting distribution on some channel (e.g. WordPress plugins or Amazon or Android, etc)
Honestly, @from_30_to_greatness's suggestion about reading the Personal MBA might help you, but I'd try not to do too much reading or studying or preparing. Get your hands dirty and build something. If you already know Android, then why not launch an Android app? If I were you, I'd launch something trivial like a wallpaper to get comfortable with the process, then launch 3-5 free games or utility apps and then try something ambitious.
Most importantly, be willing to suck. holding back and trying to be perfect on the first go will waste years of your life.
@alchemist is right on the money. Learn by getting your hands dirty.
In my experience it's only possible to learn 10% from reading/watching/listening. The other 90% of your useable knowledge will come from experience.
Think about it this way @mayuroks - I spent years listening, reading, watching to business related stuff and coding, coding, coding. When I finally quit my job to go indie hacking full time what I read, watched and listened too was nice background information but it didn't help me. Shipping the first product taught me more than all that learning combined. I'm currently shipping https://habit.fm and I'm learning more still.
Listening to success stories of how other people did it tells you a lot about what worked for them and nothing about what will work for you. When you do things you get real feedback that's relevant to you and informs you of which direction you actually need to go in. It's the highest possible quality information.
Yeah. I watched something like 100 Mixergy interviews and then realized that the returns were diminishing and it was turning into a time sink. A bit is great for motivation and getting a sense of what's out there, but after a while it makes more sense to just consume content specific to the challenges you're facing (and maybe a few of the super highly-recommended books, videos, etc).
Just don't learn other than what you are good at. Bring in co-founders/partners who are good at that.
If you try to move beyond what you are good at, it'll take time and that'll not be efficient.
Stick with coding, bring partners who are good at other things.
that's very bad advice, more than 60% of startups fail due to founders disagreement. It is the way better to build something sustainable and generate profit yourself. After that, you can find co-founders or investors to scale. But it is really not necessary, because it takes a really long time to find out if that person really fits as co-founder.
Interesting! Can you provide sources for the 60%?
ok, according research wrong team is the reason for 23% of startup fails. But what I mean to avoid other mistakes such as "Lack of market need", "Lack of cash" and "Poor product" is all about your team and you. So bad teammate can be a reason for lost motivation and other mistakes.
I guess it depends on how one categorizes the reasons for failing. Founders disagreement doesn't typically mean the same thing to me as wrong team. But I'm sure there are cases where they're the same.
A lot of good answers here, but I just want to add another thing.
It's extremely good that you have the technical capabilities to build stuff on your own without help/courses/etc but this can be a downside when trying to launch something in the wild. You are an expert at technical solutions and most likely this turns you into a perfectionist when implementing features, choosing the tech stack, designing an architecture and so on.
Be very picky with your MVP planning and don't create an architecture thinking that you will have 100k daily users from day one. Just get stuff out of the door and test with users...and get $$ asap
Add to that, take a basic book-keeping course. You don't need to be a whizkid accountant (financial planning, tax planning etc.) but you should know the basics of how to recognise revenue, expense costs and perform cash flow analyses so you know the difference between cash at bank and revenue and you have a rough idea how much to set aside for personal / business tax purposes.
Courses need not be expensive. This one, picked entirely at random from a quick Google search, is only £25.00 .
https://www.highspeedtraining.co.uk/business-skills/bookkeeping-for-small-businesses-course.aspx
Note that book-keeping principles are the same the world over. The differences lie not in book-keeping principles but in accounting rules and regulations as set out by national and international bodies. So, as a simple example, charitable donations can be offset against business profits in the US but not in the UK.
Once you understand the principles of book-keeping, you can build up your taxation and accounting knowledge over time but the principles are what you need to understand now.
I'd advise all entrepreneurs to acquire basic financial skills. Most businesses fold within 5 years. Of those, many fail because their owners simply do not understand their own numbers or make provision for the taxman.
Here's an interesting infographic re. US small businesses.
http://uk.businessinsider.com/why-small-businesses-fail-infographic-2017-8?r=US&IR=T
In fact, I think I'll make a separate post with the link on it!
A SaaS business is 35% technology, 65% sales - can you do both? No sales, it's over.
65% has nothing to do with price. This is effort and skill, 35% technology and 65% sales and marketing. Dont belive me , try it?
Wow! 65% is a lot for a SaaS product. And I am guessing, plenty of users people won't pay. They might wanna just stick to the "free plan". Is there an effective way to do such sales? or should I get a partner who has good sales skills?
There are many factors involved (pricing, audience size, market saturation, acquisition cost, churn) so definitely worth finding someone with experience from whom you can learn. IH has a lot of posts on the topic as well.
I can definitely confirm that the hard part will be to get your product to the right market. A good advice is from Stephanie Hurlburt who said something along the lines of "if you know you can build your product, focus on selling it first".
My best advice is to go and listen to @MikeTaber's last interview (listen to the Podcast rather than reading it as tone will convey a lot more meaning). At some point he said something along the line of "if you want to build a company, start by selling something small online". The idea (as I understood it) is that doing so will expose you to a lot of the other stuff that you'll need to learn in marketing, sales, logistic, admin etc. The whole podcast is a gem and covers pretty much everything you'll need to validate your ideas (no need to do all of it, but def worth using a few techniques).
Communication - You have to be able to explain your product to people who have no idea what it does. It would be nice to peak people's interest with the possibilities of your product.
Organisation. Time management. Decision making. Prioritisation. Delegation. Saying 'no'.
If I could choose only one, I would choose marketing (I did actually :)).
A simple way to look at a business that works for me is to divide all of the tasks into two basic categories - product and users.
You are a developer, so product - checked.
You are a developer, so users - not even remotely checked :). I'm kidding of course, but that's usually the reality for solopreneurs who are primarily developers. You want to get good at promoting your product.
As you will soon discover, that's actually the hard part. Making the code behave is predictable, human purchasing decisions are not. So you'll need to start learning about marketing as much as you can afford. And you'll need to devote some serious time here, it's a highly dynamic, highly competitive field. But you're probably gonna love it, it's actually as much fun as coding :).
Good luck.
Open-mindedness and the desire to keep learning and evaluating yourself every day.
Perseverance.
All the business skills can be learnt as/when you have problems in those areas, as long as you're a relatively quick learner. The trouble is that you'll be learning them under pressure, and you'll make plenty of mistakes.
What's tough is sticking with things when they're hard, long enough to learn the lessons. You'll never find out whether your ideas are good enough to be successful if you give up on them at the first sign of conflict.
You don't need any other skills to start a business.
But you will need to learn more skills as you go along to make it work.
Sales
Marketing
SEO
Content creation
Lead gen
Accounting
Project management
Social media
Product management
etc., etc.,
Starting a business is probably the most efficient way to learn the basics of all of these skills.
If you want to hear the skills in layman's language:
learn to recognize a solvable problem
get a grip on finding and defining your target market
learn yourself to fix the problem as simple and effective as possible
get experience on showing others what the value of your solution is (why they should pick yours)
learn (by reading, online resources and going for it) to get your solution on the radar for your target market
Having a technical background is extremely useful but you should also consider getting trained as a product manager who can take the product from 0 to 1. For that, you need to learn:
User research
Product market fit
Marketing and Sales(channels to use)
Analytics
Customer support
If you are looking for a 5 week PM training, I can share more details. You can find me at www.jinaldalal.com.
obviously sales and/or marketing. I guess these 3 one are the most important skills to master in order to get a successful business.