HN Explorer

Ask HN: As a business-focused co-founder, what hard skills should I study?

5 points by DtNZNkLN ↗ HN
In my current startup, I'm the de facto "business" co-founder. I want to be investing time in learning hard skills that will help us now and in the future so that I can be better prepared.

Below is the list I have so far. What's missing? I'd also love to know what you recommend I use to learn each topic.

1. Financials 2. KPIs for different areas of the business 3. Hiring 4. People management 5. Fundraising 6. Strategy 7. Marketing

8 comments

[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 34.8 ms ] thread
tikkun
What I’ve observed is more of a:

1) Identify biggest problem/opportunity in the company

2) Learn what is needed to solve it

3) Hire someone to take over what you’ve been doing

4) Repeat

Rather than any kind of topic based learning.

DtNZNkLN
You identified exactly the cycles I’m trying to speed up.

Another way to phrase my question would be: What are the cycles that I will likely encounter and what can I do now to be better prepared for them?

brudgers
Sales.

Everything else lives on its exhaust fumes.

e1g
Absolutely. The #1 competence for the business person at the nascent stage is sales. If you are great at this, almost nothing else matters. Growth fixes most problems. As PG wrote, “…if you get growth, everything else tends to fall into place. Which means you can use growth like a compass to make almost every decision you face.”

If you are great at everything besides sales, that won’t make any meaningful contribution.

DtNZNkLN
That definitely makes sense to me in B2B startups because that’s where I’ve spent my career.

But what does “sales” look like in B2C startups, which is my current project?

tough
becoming the best sales person in your company before you start delegating and forming a sales team
brudgers
I don’t know how sales work at your startup and it doesn’t matter.

It probably matters if you don’t know.

holdodd
Sales and Marketing.

You can get a lot of clients with pure hustle.

But you want a reliable process for marketing too.