Full disclosure, I grabbed this screenshot from a game I am playing lately – Hipster CEO. I don’t believe they are local, but the game has some great lessons to budding developers in the area.
First off, the game is hard. You start as a bootstrapped single person company. Like most developers I can relate to this. You have to balance your time between creating your company technically, market wise, and sales. This balance is hard, so you start hiring people. If your product launches well, you end up with lots of competitors. They will try and hire your people away. You can offer perks, and bonuses, but eventually you have to take on investors. They may be very “active” including hiring expensive people. Suddenly your site is hacked, you have to refocus, and you run out of cash. Game over!
The second part of the game that I like is that your experience carries over. So you will learn to be better at marketing, or sales, or design, etc. Each of these skills means you can hold off longer to establish your product, or find new niche markets, etc. You learn the lesson over time that you don’t expect to do one startup and knock it out of the park. You have to build up your skills over time. What a great lesson.
I’ve talked to many start ups over the years and am amazed by those who make it big. They are not just strong technically, or market smart…they are well rounded individuals or teams, who know how to grow their skills and their teams. They know what their weaknesses are and focus hard to improve in those areas. So while many people will tell you play to your strengths, I would add, know your weaknesses and focus on those too.