John's Blog

David, a member of my Twitter community, recently asked me for tips on "How techies/vision-types can best find business people to join forces with". As someone who has spent time in a few start-ups I found this question intriguing....

Too many of my fellow engineers choose to live in a world where they focus entirely on the technology, learning additional computing languages, reading technical blogs exclusively, etc...  While many of them are truly brilliant they often spend their lives entirely focused on solving complex technical problems in larger companies, never having, or taking, the opportunity to own a larger share of their work. 

While this list is not intended as a roadmap, I wanted to share a few things I have done along the way to find these opportunities:

• Network internally.  Work as closely with the Product Managers, Marketing Managers, and Sales Managers you have access to.  Understand their motivations, lessons they are seeing from customers.
  • You must, of course, network and find technical mentors.  However, look for a mentor on the business side as well.  This might be difficult within your company, depending on the culture.  If you cannot find one internally, look on twitter as there are plenty of people willing to help you out.
  • I have focused on learning as much as I can from all business units and it has paid off.  I have learned a lot about marketing campaigns, sales processes, and key financial and operational business metrics.  Things you will not learn if you only write code all day long.
  • The learning alone makes this worthwhile, but you may also meet someone who will later be a business partner.
  • These encounters have placed me into positions to be a true team player, having run support organizations in times of need, making sure my company succeeds and rounding out my background.
• Network externally.  Attend conferences, local events.  There are tons of these in major cities, take advantage of all you can.
  • Find time for these local and national conferences.  Ensure they provide a mix of technical and business classes and try to attend both (as much as is feasible).
  • Attend local networking events.  If you do this push beyond your comfort zone.  If you go to an event like this and speak to no one you wasted your time.  If there are product demonstrations, ask the presenters (a business person most of the time) about the product, about the market it resides in, about the marketing strategies they are employing.  As the answers are given, explore them, as much as possible.  Again, you will learn and you will be meeting someone who may remember you down the road.
• Take business classes.  This is critical for any tech type to understand.
  • Over the years I have taken internal and external classes and seminars.
  • I try to split the classes about 50/50 between business and technology.  Early in your career this will be difficult, but try to at least take one business class for every three technology classes you take.
  • Again, use these classes as an opportunity to meet other people.  Bring business cards; learn about other companies and the roles of the people you are meeting.
• Go social.  Blog, Tweet, etc..  Reach out for business types, follow their conversations, ask questions to learn more.
  • When I started on twitter I tried to be strategic (somewhat), in who I followed.  A mix of technologist, CEOs, co-workers, and friends.
  • Take time to read the links people send.  Leave comments on their blogs, ask questions, take time to build relationships, you never know where they will lead.

This is my short list.  Do you have anything to add to help David out?

John