back to article Building your own storage startup: Whatever you do, don't let lead dev be CEO

You like the idea of “doing” a startup, but what about actually starting a startup? You can see the end point - success, hopefully - but what of the hoops and hurdles? In part one, I looked at funding, executives and staff. But now you’ve got the money and the people, what happens next? What about team composition and product …

  1. Mage Silver badge
    Happy

    Whatever you do, don't let lead dev be CEO

    OTH the CEO needs to follow the strategy of the visionary founder, who may or may not be the lead developer. Same applies to R&D Manager, a person that on any size of team needs people skills more than development.

    But the managers / CEO etc must not be "mere" Accountants, MBAs, Lawyers. They need to truly understand the technology even if they don't have the talent and skills to develop it. They can even be moderately poor programmers, engineers, scientists as long as they understand what the good ones are talking about and only manage people, marketing, supplies, resources, money etc and not the technology itself.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Whatever you do, don't let lead dev be CEO

      Oddly, it turned out OK for Gates and Ellison, not to mention Brin & Page, Zuckerberg and no doubt plenty of other examples. So I'm really not sure what this guys problem is. Perhaps he got burnt by some startup he invested in or worked for where the CEO was a dev. Who knows. Either way its BS.

      "But the managers / CEO etc must not be "mere" Accountants, "

      DEFINATELY not accountants. They know the price of everything and the value of nothing. They're the absolute worst sort of people to be making long term decisions as their myopic vision only extends to expenditure and the next tax year. If they had any originality or insight they wouldn't have gone into book keeping. Sadly in here in the UK they seem to flock to CEO and lesser posts with the end result that good companies get flogged off to foreign buyers to "add shareholder value". Or similar weasel words that essentially mean the board wanted a windfall so they could retire to play golf in spain.

      1. Matt Bryant Silver badge

        Re: boltar Re: Whatever you do, don't let lead dev be CEO

        ".....it turned out OK for Gates and Ellison....." Those are the two examples that do spring to mind, but then they were opening new fields rather than entering and competing with established competitors. From my own experience, the startups that I have seen actually get out of startup mode and make some money all made one key decision - they put one actual businessperson in charge. Far too many startups, and small companies, especially those created by groups of friends, fail to install a single person with overall authority. And whilst they may all start out agreeing, it seems common for partners to start diverging in both expectations and actions, and then it dissolves into acrimony, finger-pointing and disaster. And the simple truth is, IMHO, hard-core devs make poor businesspeople.

        Another key point I'd suggest is make sure the startup you join is going to be a business, not a hobby. I have seen startups where the staff think they are signed on for the next Microsoft, only to find out the CEO is simply looking for something to fill his days until his pension matures. I had a friend who realized this after he had poured three years of his life into a startup and nearly stuffed his marriage, only for the CEO/owner to then refuse to go the next logical step and seek capital investment because the CEO/owner was worried about "losing control and direction of his baby".

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Is Bryan Cranston auditioning for Ming The Merciless there ?

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'm a competent developer with a lot of good ideas, so naturally I've given consideration to a start-up in the past. Having said that, I'm fully aware of my lack of business acumen. I can comprehend business implications whilst working on projects for clients, and evidently this is regarded as a valuable asset, but I am the first person to admit that I am no businessman - for one, I loath marketing and advertising.

    Don't get me wrong, I'd really like to be involved in an exciting start-up, but I'm not arrogant enough to assume I'd be any good at running one - which does bum me out a bit.

    1. Hans 1

      >Don't get me wrong, I'd really like to be involved in an exciting start-up, but I'm not arrogant enough to assume I'd be any good at running one - which does bum me out a bit.

      1. Find the idea

      2. Find a gladhander to push it

      3. Find a tech writer

      4. ...

      5. profit!

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What's with El Reg and the obsession with storage?

    Another day, another article about storage. Is it me or is El Reg crazy 'bout it? I seem to see far more stories on flash storage, Violin, Nutanix, DellEMC per week than I do on any other technology.

    1. Anonymous Blowhard

      Re: What's with El Reg and the obsession with storage?

      Don't worry, soon it'll be thrown out to join DevOps; like yesterday's jam...

    2. Matt Bryant Silver badge
      Boffin

      Re: bobajob12 Re: What's with El Reg and the obsession with storage?

      ".....Is it me or is El Reg crazy 'bout it?....." Storage is still a central problem for IT and is one of the few areas where growth is not just consistent but actually increases with each advance in IT. It's also a market were you can enter as a startup or small company with a new idea and be very disruptive. Therefore the focus on storage and startups is not just logical it is also of interest to many ITers.

    3. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

      Re: What's with El Reg and the obsession with storage?

      We've been writing daily computer storage stories for >5 years. It's a huge component in enterprise IT. As storage and compute merge, our coverage will go in the same direction.

      C.

  5. This post has been deleted by its author

  6. SnapperHead

    LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL !!!!!!!

    Someone please tell me that this dummy, Jabba the Pott, is not handing out startup advice.

    Those that can, do. Those that cannot, work for those that do. Jabba the Pott is neither. Someone stick a fork in this guy, he is done.

  7. Matt Bryant Silver badge
    Facepalm

    Re: Snapperhead

    "Someone please tell me that this dummy, Jabba the Pott, is not handing out startup advice....." Whilst Potty does have his faults (especially his rabid anti-Yankisms), it would seem stupid to ignore his experience and viewpoint, especially as your "critique" of his piece reads like that of a spotty teen from Reddit. Please elaborate on why you consider Potty's piece incorrect and you might be taken a bit more seriously.

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