Spherical startup

Disclamer: I did not create a startup, but I had to be both from the inside and from the outside. So the thoughts below are purely subjective and addressed to those who still want to launch their project.

Imagine such a very original situation: you are up to thirty, and you decide to make a startup. Mmm, the word “do” - somehow sounds rude, right? This is hi-tech, this is innovation, this is the triumph of human intellect and diligence, which should change the world only ... Or bring you millions of money. Let it be - "create".

Let's not breed demagogy on the topic “how to drink coffee with investors correctly” - let's imagine a phantasmagoric situation: you decided to create everything really from scratch. Without any help. And you have a pool of people from which you can choose a team. And they are all the same, like you, crystal-clear idealists who adore their work, dream of realizing their talents and are constantly ready to learn new things. So how to maximize the use of all these wonderful resources?
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As the fish rots from the head, so we will start from the very top - with you, dearest, with the ideologue and mastermind, the IT revolutionary with a warm heart and a cool head. And if in a simple way, then you are a product manager and are fully responsible for the quality of your product and its position in the market. Except for you, by and large, no one is interested in it, and no one will eagerly catch every word of yours and instantly translate it into the perfect code behind a brilliant design. So - you need to clearly set requirements. Business requirements. It means - to write a lot, a lot and qualitatively, so that functional requirements emerge on their basis (which, by and large, you also need to write, but so be it - regret it). At a minimum, you need to know the difference between a DBMS and a programming language, to be a talented and shrewd leader and to hear every rustle in your team, without looking at it over your shoulder - they don’t like it. Based on the initial conditions - they will write anything, just set a clear task. And your project manager will take care of this.

In addition to the subtlest sense of time required for the rational iteration of your brilliant plans and braking your flight of thought (if you can save yourself after performing your duties), in principle, he can write the above-mentioned functional requirements. That is, it is not bad for him to know what UML is, at least to guess that architecture is not only something related to houses, and, again, to be inconspicuous so as not to interfere with the Creators of your nick of a brilliant plan.

We’ll move on to them, because without them, you'd better continue to take a hipstagram and consume your stormy young energy to a more socially beneficial direction: open a shawarma stall near the subway or go on a Red Cross mission somewhere to Indonesia. And so too much has already been spent on operating expenses.

Designer. Not so long ago, representatives of this profession were treated almost like warlocks in the Middle Ages, considering their craft (I emphasize) to be something charlatan. Nowadays a diametrically opposite image has taken shape in the minds of the masses. And the design should solve quite specific tasks, moreover, the most diverse, often rapidly changing, therefore, it would be nice for the designer to work, and not to stare at the window in search of inspiration. Fifteen years ago, the designer was both a usability player, a designer and a layout designer, and the crown didn’t fall from the head from copywriting.

And finally, the heart, hands and brain of your project - the developers. In no case can one regret their number (by and large, and indeed quality, but, unfortunately, there are not too many crystal-free mess-free ones among quality programmers), but the minimum number is two. The minimum is four. The pair is working on the next iteration, the second is debugging the current one, then changing. Developers have nothing to reproach - they really write the code and put design on it. If they came to your project - they don’t care what color and from which side the “Use” button should be. And even if they are against it, they will not insist much. But if there is a question, write a kernel in PHP or Django - it’s better to immediately go to a meeting with an investor to analyze competitors in order not to have time to feel like a mediocre handless man-unit. If not cheating.

Four is for the kernel only. We also need mobile applications, infrastructure ...
The last goalkeeper is mistaken. At the gate you will have a tester (a tester is a device for measuring electrophysical parameters). In a creative impulse, developers may well forget about the 49th paragraph of functional requirements, or 27 pixels to the left to complete the notorious “Use” button. The first user of your system is an evil genius and guardian angel who lowers to the ground and protects against tragic falls.

This is all to the fact that when you start a startup you may not need employees that “everyone has” - there are small companies that do not have operating expenses at all. As soon as it starts to smell like money, there will immediately be charlatans who will speak long and beautifully with long speeches with an abundance of English-sounding words in order to appear smarter. Throw such in a neck from a threshold. A professional will do his best to be understood, otherwise his knowledge is worthless.

In general, if you can not write - do not write. If you want a lot of money - go to work in a big company and plow, plow, plow. If you want to change the world - close the house, curtain curtains and plow, plow, plow. True, there is something in common?