Why did IT professionals despise startups? Why is launching your own product stressful for a developer and how to deal with it? Where does business begin and the pleasure of product development end?

Preface

The first part of my article “Illusion of a startup: it is better to appear than to be” caused an active discussion on Habra (gained 94 comments and 4K views) than on vc.ru, so references will be often to comments from Habra.

In the first part, I tried convey to the audience and closely consider the idea that launching one’s own project for an e-tishnik into the world only after full implementation is often the killing of hundreds of hours of time and loss of motivation for further attempts to launch a project that will shoot.

As an alternative, I proposed a fairly clear, in my opinion, concept – the concept of an IT illusionist who makes the user believe in the existence of the product and, in this simple way, checks his idea for viability. It seemed to me that there was something missing between an idea (hypothesis, if you will) and even an MVP – something that was less resource-intensive, but would provide faster feedback, while at the same time, this validation would not require an IT person to have marketing and sales skills , because soft skills are not his forte.

And this is where the fun begins…

Straightness

Aitishniks speak the truth straight to the face – in comments, in personal messages, in Telegram messages, to the management or to their team leader. They don’t know how to decorate, they don’t know how and they don’t want to not to tell the truthand any misunderstanding is considered lying. Aitishnyk is about the correspondence of facts and words.

Is the project half implemented or half not implemented? You can predict the answer of the IT person, although they cannot be classified as pessimists, because they have incredible faith in their own product, when they want it and are able to achieve its realization only through faith, bringing it to the state that their imagination paints.

Do you know who people dislike the most?

And this is quite enough to understand why the majority of products, released only by the hands of an itishnik, remain in the same “Completed projects” folder and do not see the light of day or the first users.

Let me quote a comment from a Habra user to convey the essence of the attitude towards those outside the code and development zone, but at whose expense and in whose long languages ​​a quick test of a hypothesis or idea can be done:

I’m not the only one who has this attitude towards swindlers, rascals and upstarts. And the cultivation of the “startup spirit” only increases the number of such “specialists”.

Categories of people who have an idea, the strength and desire to implement it, should look at alternative sources of funding, instead of the heavily compromised current venture capital and startup bubble economy. You don’t have to go to scammers, hoping that they are interested in a fair game.

You have now listed the same category that shames real IT professionals and creates the image of the average person as a show-off smoothie maker with a Macbook at Starbucks. It’s quick, although not always low-tech, to do bullshit, spread the word and run away with the money.

This directness gives us food for thought and discussion. Not everything in these words should be taken as the truth in the last instance, but it is worth keeping your nose to the wind… and this, my friends, is the smell of disgust and contempt for the startup community on the other side of the barricades (or galleys, as it is customary to call the places of work in certain circles).

Straightforwardness is more difficult to work with than the next manifestation.

Disrespect and contempt

Straightness – this is a consequence of the manifestation of a deeper internal characteristic of the personality. disrespect – This is a manifestation of a conscious desire to humiliate the other side.

It is not easy to work on the straightness of the work ethicist (just listen to how recruiters trumpet from all sides about the need to develop the same soft skills), you can not always count on success in smoothing the corners in relationships, but disrespect… disrespect is a sign of presence thoughts about their superiority in something.

I will not do without quotes this time:

Real IT specialists, at least, do not dream of quitting IT, lying in the Bahamas in a sun lounger, giggling at the remaining “losers”. They are interested in doing their work, constantly developing, contributing to the overall development of technologies and bringing not a fictitious benefit from a magical application chip, but benefit from a contribution to real returns from the products of their work.

I may have written somewhat pathetically, but I have already watched a lot of such jumps. It didn’t take off – we give it up and run to a new project.

The reason is that at first the wrong strategy was chosen to get something quickly, get success and escape. In such a strategy, it really does not make sense to mess with a doomed direction for a long time. If you have a love for IT, you should choose something that will bring you work and pleasure from it for a long time. That is, not dummy projects, but work in the real sector.

Maybe startups deserve this attitude? Maybe the general trend in the startup crowd has changed from “make a real product” to “make a presentation, make money and sell”? Who is to blame for this?

You can throw stones in someone else’s garden for a long time – on the one hand, we have investors with their own goals and money, on the other hand, IT professionals who barely know how to use soft skills and sales, but complain that money is given to everyone, but not to them. their products.

Do you know why e-tishniks release only the product that they can show – the finished product in their personal opinion, but is it not missed through the prism of reality and the target audience? Because they are straight-forward and cannot imagine what can be said in the presentation about what has not been implemented and treat those to whom these projects are shown with contempt.

But it is for those who cannot fully classify themselves as IT specialists or entrepreneurs that intermediate steps – MVP and product illusion – were invented. It is this intermediate step that makes it possible to go with minimal costs on the way to the ideal product, without losing touch with reality. It is this step that allows the IT person to sleep soundly at night, and his entrepreneurial essence – to use his personal potential to the maximum.

To the final.

IT specialist or entrepreneur

It is difficult, difficult to combine these roles in one person, and I know this firsthand. It is difficult for such people to get along with their second nature, because “entrepreneur” is the opposite of “IT specialist”.

An IT startup is a personality with this kind of bifurcation. This is a person who, during project implementation, balances between two sides of the opposite and tries to keep himself in his hands – not to despair if the project architecture does not correspond to the ideal picture in his head; do not give up if there are more users than expected and the servers are down; not to give up under the pressure of negativity and the first feedback; be ready for opportunities that open up in the process.

There comes a time when you have to make a choice – an entrepreneur or an IT person. Sooner or later, a choice will have to be made, because the second entity, which is straightforward and relentlessly inclined to perfectionism, will begin to accuse you of not growing as a professional.

Those who remain on the side of the IT specialist and continue to adhere to the appropriate pattern of behavior may look with envy at those who chose the side of the entrepreneur, but you should not do this … you should not be jealous, you should not blame and treat with disrespect any which side of this triangle, because, in essence, all this means is that everyone ended up there and in the role of the role to which they were most inclined.

Is it possible to change this role, you ask… Apparently, yes.

The right choice of personal role has a simple indicator – the power with which you will be tormented by the conscience of the choice made. Losing satisfaction from your actions (within your own project) – you lose yourself and this is a clear sign that it’s time to look for a partner, employee or enlist the support of a person who can cover the competencies you lack.

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I would sincerely like to build bridges in the form of mutual understanding and mutual support between those who start the same way but end up on different sides of the barricades. Someone starts with an IT specialist, but then takes an intermediate step in the middle of startups, and then moves (or not) to the last degree – entrepreneurship.

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For those who are looking for development opportunities for themselves or their startup, there may be an interesting project that we will soon launch with a partner – Speakup.business (blog on vc.ru), and for the desperate – a Telegram channel.

Good luck!