startups

Pricing is a funny thing. It depends a lot on psychology -- how can you convince your customers that they are getting a deal while charging them the highest reasonable value? You've heard people say "differentiate" before, but I bet you haven't really thought deeply about whether you're really different. Here's a test: are you an alternative, or are you your own category? If you didn't exist, what would people use instead, and how would they feel about it? Are you a category leader or are you a small player that tries to be better than the leader?

I believe that the world of tech entrepreneurship is definitely in a bubble. But more than a startup bubble, we're in a coder talent bubble. Take a minute to read 2012 is for buying startups. Companies are getting bought not because they made anything of value or with a revenue model, they're getting bought more and more because the acquirers need more engineers. Have you looked at the list of sponsors for any hackathons lately? Huge companies (Google, Yahoo!, and Facebook come to mind) have sponsored several small hackathons reasonably close to the Philly area in just the past few months. They're not doing it mainly because it's a good thing to do, they're doing it because it's a recruitment tool and they desperately need to find engineers. (But keep doing it! Hackathons are awesome!) And then there's this phenomenon:

I talk to a lot of startups. I have a lot to say about what (not) to do if you are on the hiring side of this exchange, but for now I'll cover the minimum set of information you should be prepared to discuss if you want to hire a developer for your early-stage company. This is the first real interaction you'll have with a potential coworker. If you struggle with convincing someone to join your company, you can bet you'll struggle with convincing someone to buy your product or service, so you should be prepared with the information a potential hire will want to know. These are questions I will pretty much always ask you about your startup in an interview, and they're pretty similar to what a VC would want to know. When I say "I" below what I really mean is "any developer" but it's more convenient to write in the first person.