Adam Jordens@littlesquare:~/

I just happen to be watching that reality show about running a New York restaurant called Rocco’s and an interesting point came out.

Someone asked “How do you manage your time?” and the reply was “You have to know when to draw the line between actually building the product and selling it
“. This struck a chord with me because I was in meetings all afternoon hammering on software development processes and attempting to better align the sale
s process with the development process. I see this as a tremendous problem and something integral to building (and selling) successful products. The sale
s process depends on a sellable product, but the product depends on the sales process to ensure that what is being built satisfies the needs of the custome
r.

In a small company you often don’t have the resources, and there isn’t enough hours in the day, to focus 100% on either task. If you choose to go the sale
s route, experiences tend to be that (slightly exagerated) promises are made which place an added strain on the behind-the-scence participants (coders…et
c). As much as I love working overtime, one needs to focus on aligning the development and sales processes, a sometimes daunting task of coordination give
n the inexperience of Developers and sales staff in each others operating domains.

In short, I believe the statement “You have to know when to draw the line between actually building the product and selling it” is correct but just how you
go about drawing that line requires coordination and cooperation from all groups. More often than not it’s an iterative process complete with successes a
nd failures. Sucessful companies are the ones that learn from their mistakes and successes and seek reductions in the former.

Anyways, the reality show seems to be kind of overly dramatic but is kind of interesting in the aspects that relate to being an entrepreneur and running a
successful business entity.