April 9, 2005 spout

Geeks Rule and MBAs Drool

Eric Sink takes a long, long time to say the following (learn to let go, Chris [1]…):

The following is an example of one of the most common questions I get from developers who are creating a brand new software company:

Where can I find a partner to be a co-founder and handle the business side of things?

My answer: Don’t.

Do all that stuff yourself. You need the experience anyway. If you really want a partner, don’t find an MBA, find another geek like yourself. Don’t be afraid to allow your company to be very developer-centric for a very long time. By doing it this way, you’ll avoid a lot of problems and you’ll learn a lot.”

Like agile programming, Eric has just given us permission to do what we want to do anyway. Wahoo!

[1] One of my favorite duties at MSDN used to be developmental editing on Eric’s writing. I used to love how he’d work certain things into his piece, e.g. the thing my 9-year old son posts on his door, modulo s/Geeks/Boys and s/MBAs/Girls.