Last week I discussed what it's like to work at a start-up. This week in my presentation to C.S. students I'll discuss what a start-up looks for in you (and next week what you should look for in a start-up). These are two very different questions and both need to be a good fit to insure your success. Both!
Be Professional
Before anything else you need to be dependable and collaborative. Success comes from people working well together creating a team where the total is greater than the sum of the parts.
I have seen cases where there is a brilliant programmer that is the hero on the white horse there to single-handedly be the hero. In some cases they're no better than anyone else which aside from the big problems, also makes them super-annoying.
And sometimes they are an amazing talent. But they're also poison. They poison the culture, they poison everyone's motivation, in some cases they drive others out. In every single case I've seen this situation, the company eventually let that person go because in sum total they were harmful.
The first question is not how brilliant you are, it's how well you can plug your talents in to the team. And how much you can add to the success of the team. And don't worry, if you do this well, everyone will see that you're brilliant. (It's fine that you have an ego, what's key is you don't let it drive your actions.)
Communication
Second is how well you communicate. You may have the greatest ideas in the world. But if you can't get them across, and argue their merits persuasively, then in a collaborative environment, they won't ever see the light of day.
The best way to excel at this is practice. It doesn't have to be anything involved with technology, it's the raw skill of communication and persuasion that matters. Find something you're passionate about and find a way to communicate about it.
In my case I used to blog about politics a lot. And I spent most of my time on a site that had a balance of liberals & conservatives. I put a lot of effort into trying to write in a way that would make compelling arguments to people who disagreed with me. And I took great joy when they said I had a point. Just as I'm sure they took great joy when I agreed that they made a good point.
Where/how/what isn't that important. What's key is to get lots of practice laying our your arguments in a logical and compelling manner. And being able to both write and speak to it because the decision making process generally is the proposals are written up, and then discussed.
UX
My UI design skills are mediocre. My UX skills are merely ok. And that hurts me a lot. I can be handed a design and implement it well. I can do some minor tweaks. But when it even comes to improving the colors used - I am not your guy.
And this limits what I can do well. (In my defense, the select wizards I came up with for Windward have stood the test of time as better than anything else we've seen.)
Take some art or design classes. Steve Jobs said calligraphy was his most useful class. I think painting and drawing are also useful. And there's a ton of graphic & web design classes.
Key to this is a class where they will help you learn how to make the UX, not just the UI but the entire UX good. The code under the covers is irrelevant if people won't use the system. Or try to and become frustrated.
Programming
And third, yes finally!!! How well you code. And to quote Mies Van Der Rohe - Less is More. The fewer lines of code and the more straightforward the code, the fewer bugs it will have and the faster you can get it written.
I can't stress enough how important it is to write elegant code. There is a large amount of create the minimum viable product (MVP) as quickly as possible. Putting in 36 hour sprints writing a giant mess of spaghetti code that delivers a MVP is valuable. Very valuable.
But a lot more valuable is delivering something clean and elegant, in the same amount of time, that delivers that same MVP. And critically, is architected so that the program can extend its functionality easily. Having to rewrite the code version after version is both brutal and time consuming.
Delivering a MVP fast is appreciated early on. Delivering the same that can be extended easily is super appreciated over the following months & years.
Ideas!
You're a brilliant person and you have a ton of amazing ideas. That's wonderful. So does everyone else.
Everyone who has ever taken a shower has had an idea. It's the person who gets out of the shower, dries off, and does something about it that makes a difference.
-- Nolan Bushnell
If you run around at first spouting off a ton of ideas, no matter how brilliant, you're going to annoy people. And they'll stop listening to you. Hold on to them, think them through, and then bring them up when appropriate.
Having a good solution to problems encountered is appreciated - a lot. Coming up with a better way to accomplish something difficult tends to be appreciated (mostly). But the key is you're 98% on getting the job done and 2% on suggested improvements.
Next week: What you should look for.