from Hacker News

Going from engineer to entrepreneur takes more than just good code [audio]

by cborenstein on 11/4/22, 6:56 PM with 10 comments

  • by Oras on 11/4/22, 7:38 PM

    I'm a software engineer, left my job 18 months ago to make my startup solo.

    Reflecting on all the learnings I had during the journey, the hardest part was the context switching. I've been experiencing coding, user interviews, demos, business development, making marketing materials, posting online and engaging with posts, thinking about the next step, expanding my network, sales follow ups, support, learning about the market.

    All these things happen during the day, so it is really hard to focus on one thing.

    The other parts, mostly the first time founder's mistakes. Focusing on building instead of marketing and channels. This is however about to change as I learned the hard way from my mistakes.

  • by knodi on 11/4/22, 8:23 PM

    Yes, it does. After 5 start ups and 20 years later. Know your market and how to reach them. You can have the best engineering if no one knows about it they can’t use the service/buy the product. You can have the worst engineering/product in the market but with good marketing and sales you can still be profitable.

  • by gjvc on 11/4/22, 8:02 PM

    From the department of the bleeding obvious

  • by yawnxyz on 11/4/22, 8:18 PM

    Do tech companies hire for engineers who write good code, but completely ignore their entrepreneur skills? (And does this depend on company size)

    Why the heavy emphasis on leet code; why no also add a "leet entrepreneur" aspect to it as well?