The 15 Roles Absolutely Necessary in a Startup, No Matter How Small it is

http://micahelliott.blogspot.com/2008/05/web-startup-surgeons.html

by jshajan • 17 years ago

74 41 17 years ago

micahelliott.blogspot.com

coglethorpe• 17 years ago

Points where I know I'm exceptionally weak:

- Graphic Artist.

- CSS Designer.

- Tester.

- Manager.

- Lawyer.

I'm not trying to be negative, but assessing what I need to outsource or partner to get my company strong.

djahng• 17 years ago

don't forget an accountant

scorxn4• 17 years ago

What do you do if you find yourself having to wear all these hats, while the founder forwards emails and reads FastCompany all day? I don't see a hat for that.

brandnewlow3• 17 years ago

You realize you're working for a lifestyle business; his.

scorxn4• 17 years ago

Thanks for that term, hadn't heard it before. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifestyle_business

That's exactly what it is, and I want out.

moe2• 17 years ago

Are you a 2-person company?

scorxn4• 17 years ago

Yeah. I'm employee #1.

YuriNiyazov• 17 years ago

That sounds a lot like what my ex-cofounder did. I resigned from the company.

menloparkbum• 17 years ago

I had a similar situation many years ago. It lasted about 3 months - which was about 2.5 months too many. Complete waste of time.

This actually happens to a lot of startups. Usually it doesn't happen until after a certain amount of funding has been raised (often after the series A). If the CEO has checked out and is just pretending to work, the company is doomed - find a new job.

quizbiz• 17 years ago

Have a talk with the founder. Reading about good management isn't enough.

gfodor• 17 years ago

The pruned down list seems to be missing the very important "business development" role (which generally is mixed into other stuff.) Who's calling leads, creating deals, making contacts (substantial ones, not marketing-based ones) in the local business and technology community, understanding new feature requests, and basically making sure operating costs and revenue projections are on track?

jpwagner2• 17 years ago

Agree in a general sense.

He introduces the list as "...that I see as important to making a new site come together."

Not "startup", "site."

I could be wrong, but Twitter doesn't need to focus on lead-gen...

run4yourlives• 17 years ago

Twitter also lacks an income, but I digress.

One could argue that viral marketing is business development. The main difference is that in the former, your customers are doing the work for you, while in the latter, you've got a defined role.

I'd be careful to suggest though that this role isn't being done at all.

mde• 17 years ago

I appreciate the call-out of an important omission from the article. I've learned that having a bizdev on the team is truly critical. That whacked me on the side of the head when I started thinking about Twitter's strategizing (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/13/twitter-decides-to-hire...), and thinking about the shaping of various features that customers are not getting a chance to weigh in on. I've tried to wear the bizdev hat myself but it is all-consuming. Now I have a full-time bizdev partner and it's making a world of difference in focus/direction. The XP practice of "on-site customer" is really enabled by having bizdev pull the customers close early on.

Another valuable role I've discovered is that of the incubator (I'm not YC; doing OTBC in PDX). It's another secondary role similar to Lawyer, but can be very supportive in making sure you're focused on doing all the business stuff that hackers can easily lose sight of. I'm presently being shown the value of having a solid business plan, perfecting multi-length elevator pitches, and refining the more formal investor and sales pitches. This is all possible thanks to experienced entrepreneurial coaches who really want to see you succeed.

Lastly, the "consort" is a non-obvious role -- someone who can give validation to your thinking, and exchange predicament stories with you. You may find him through the incubator, or at a hacking event, or wherever. My main consort is an extremely capable hacker and our regular discussions are gold.

So with the core team containing the right hacking, creative, and outreach balance, you can make progress. But I want to stress that the supporting people (Lawyer, Consort, Coach, et al) provide a lot of necessary elements.

oldgregg• 17 years ago

And someone to pay the bills and maintain accounting...

hhm• 17 years ago

"Uses web framework, creates functionality; knows Python/Ruby, Javascript, AJAX, Flash(?), HTML, databases."

This is a very weak description of what a hacker is by the way.

cjc• 17 years ago

Can you offer a better one?

blhack• 17 years ago

I also just want to chime in and say that I absolutely HATE websites that feel like they're been over-designed.

perfect = hackernews

horrible = digg.com

I feel like the "uses webframework python $buzzword, javascript $buzzword $buzzword $buzzword" speaks to this. SOOO many websites have got too many distracting buttons and things to click on, and no actual <i>content</i>. Look at something like craigslist...its perfect. It's clean, and it gives you only the information that you want.

Look at hackernews...same thing, nothing but content...yes there is some of that web2.0 (i hate that term) sauce on it, but it is a compliment to the content, not the main attraction of the site.

jfornear• 17 years ago

My personal taste is similar to yours, but I've learned the hard way that your visual design should be shaped specifically for the market you are targeting.

ricree• 17 years ago

I don't really prefer one way or the other. If digg's content was at the level that HN's is, it wouldn't be that bad.

brandnewlow3• 17 years ago

Digg's design is not horrible. C'mon. They've won design awards with it and have millions of users. Hacker News has no design, which appeals to an audience that would love to think that code (a.k.a. content) is the only thing that matters in a business' success and that everything else is superfluous.

Digg's audience is more into fashion/style/cool stuff. So they should get some colors and a few gradients here and there.

I actually think Digg's design is very low-key.

dasil003• 17 years ago

The biggest mistake you can make in visual design is to be guided by taste rather than understanding how different styles work psychologically and what is suitable to your target market. Some hackers deride "design" because they've either never worked with a talented designer, or they don't understand what design does. However there's quite a bit of science to design as well, it's just not as quantifiable as code.

alabut3• 17 years ago

Summary - the blogger envisions the bare minimum of roles needed in a startup and lists them all as different hats.

The Hat List

* Visionary/Architect

* Lead Developer(s). AKA Hackers.

* Sysadmin

* Toolsmith

* Webmaster

* DBA

* Graphic Artist

* CSS Designer

* Content Creator

* Customer Support

* Tester

* Marketer

* Manager

* Lawyer

* Chef

The roles don't necessarily equally different people - the smaller your startup, the hats combine into larger multitasking sombreros.

The Sombrero List

* Developer

* Sysadmin

* Artist

* Marketer

Overall, I found this to be a useful exercise. Although I'd disagree with which hats are the bare minimum and how they'd combine into larger sombreros, it got me thinking about what my personal list would look like and it wouldn't be too different (remove Marketer & Sysadmin, add another Developer, rename Artist as Designer), so in that sense it was still pretty useful as a thought experiment.

swombat3• 17 years ago

Personally, I'd hate to be referred to as "the blogger". "The author" seems a bit less dismissive.

alabut3• 17 years ago

It's all in the viewpoint - I don't see "blogger" as dismissive at all and see "author" a bit pompous for the level of writing.

rantfoil• 17 years ago

I like to summarize it as:

1) Coders, to code

2) Designers, to make stuff people want (interaction / product design, NOT visual design)

3) Hustlers, to get the stuff to the people

Goladus• 17 years ago

That's almost the same conclusion he reaches in the blog. The only difference is that he includes the System Administrator role, for actually setting up and maintaining the platform that the code is going to run on.

strlen• 17 years ago

This particular piece of advice is something I want to highlight:

Learn about system administration. I don't have much data to back this, but I've found that many of the famously successful hackers have at one time in their careers been sysadmins. E.g., ESR, Robert Morris, Tim O'Reilly, and many more. Try browsing resumes of your hacker heroes and see if any of them don't have this qualification. Such work gives you an important practical perspectives on usage patterns, systems topologies, hardware limitations, lifecycles, automation, tool availability, user-friendliness, user-stupidity, etc.

This is very important piece of advice-- any great developer should be a minimally competent sysadmin (and any great sysadmin should be a minimally competent developer).

wvenable• 17 years ago

It's a great list as long as your startup doesn't intend to ever make any money! No accountant, no business people, nothing of the sort? Speaking from experience, the business management side is very important if you want your venture to be successful (or take advantage of success when it comes).

njharman• 17 years ago

These are/can be all business people.

* Visionary/Architect * Marketer * Manager * Lawyer * Chef

Accountant is something you rent/outsource.

ktharavaad• 17 years ago

A low cost way to handle the role of "Chef" is to outsource it the microwave and packs of raman, at least fo me.

The 15 Roles Absolutely Necessary in a Startup, No Matter How Small it is

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