If Steve Jobs were starting out today he would struggle to get funding

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/foremski/if-steve-jobs-were-starting-out-today-he-would-struggle-to-get-funding-hes-a-marketeer-not-an-engineer/2010

by azal • 15 years ago

10 7 15 years ago

zdnet.com

drcode• 15 years ago

...especially if it's for a new computer with a 6502 CPU running at 1MHz :-P

Shant2• 15 years ago

Steve Jobs had a technical partner (Woz). If he didn't, he probably wouldn't have gotten funding (he wouldn't have had anything to necessitate funding).

What this article should have said is that there needs to be a better way to connect creative non-technical visionaries (whose primary skillsets are having an empathic understanding of the customer, product design, and an ability to build passionate followings/movements behind those products) with engineers from the start, rather than having startups/accelerators treat them like an afterthought (ie, post Series A, let's hire a marketing intern to do some A/B testing).

What Jobs proves is not that people like him should always run things, it's that they need to have a better seat at the startup/accelerator table than they currently do. Identifying them and plugging them in earlier in the process would help the startup scene as a whole.

amorphid• 15 years ago

As a domain expert and non-engineer myself, I've found it incredibly hard to get taken seriously by investors. Recruiting a credible technical co-founder has been tough, too. I agree that there is no well beaten path to capital for some like myself to follow. On the bright side I figured out how to just make my own money, and that's probably a healthier path to follow anyway.

rphlx• 15 years ago

As a technical founder - it's equally difficult to find a good sales/marketing guy. How are you supposed to interview them? Take four to a bar and compare how many friends they make?

serge2k• 15 years ago

Fortunately he had an engineering genius as his partner.

I think a team like that would be fine today. Marketing genius/perfectionist and engineering genius.

flocial• 15 years ago

This is absurd. Steve Jobs would definitely get funding. He's persistent, persuasive, and full of ideas. He'll eventually convince an engineer to join him by any means necessary. He'll shine when it comes time to present to VCs. He made many of the initial inroads with Apple in the early days raising money, getting manufacturing components, and employees as a shoeless, unbathed hippie with long hair. He made initial investors believe in personal computing when there was no such thing. I think that's much more difficult than convincing venture capitalists looking for the next hot thing in an overheated market.

If Steve Jobs were starting out today he would struggle to get funding

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