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I just started a developing company. We are 4 partners. Two of us are programmers.
Our start-up is slowly growing — we have a customer and few persons are interested to invest money. Now we need to hire — and here is the problem: While we — the programmer — demanded several times, that we need more coders to implement all the great ideas and projects, the other both keep talking of hiring an advertisement expert or a marketing expert or someone for the financial background or ..or .. or...
I think they are missing the point, that we need to develop much more before we can sell anything.
I want my company to be a small coding company that is doing great projects.

How can I convince my partners not to put to much overhead on it, that stops us from getting things done?

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6 Answers

up vote 4 down vote

Put together a project plan with estimates for development, along with how that relates to your company getting paid. Show how, by adding more developers, you can make money faster. Also, this will give everyone a timeline for when the first project will be done, and when you will need a second project to start working on.

It is all about money to some people, so explain in terms of money how adding developers will help grow the business.

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One could also show slides and projections that by selling more faster one can grow revenue faster. It is all conjecture. – TimJ♦ Sep 27 '10 at 19:05
Yes, but by selling faster and not delivering, your company will be ran into the ground. And I don't know of too many development business (that are project based) that get all their money up front. You still need to deliver something to get all your money. – Martin Sep 27 '10 at 19:14
most companies go out of business from lack of cash, not lack of features or software. Something to consider. – TimJ♦ Sep 29 '10 at 19:38
up vote 3 down vote

This situational is typical in most tech start ups where the core team is divided in terms of skill. The only option is to to be blunt and let your partner know that x number of people can only to y things at a time and y may not necessarily meet the deadline for your product(s). If your planned market is small you do not need a huge marketing/advertising team if its big you need more developers just to build to serve the huge market. Be vocal

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up vote 2 down vote

Remember DEC? All tech, no marketing. Food for thought.

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up vote 1 down vote

Think of a worst-case scenario and show your partner what is his potential personal exposure. If he is a man of reason, he'll understand if not -- you need to bail before it is too late. I wish someone gave me this advise 5 years ago. :)

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up vote 1 down vote

Pay the advertising or marketing expert on commission, not salary. That way they only make money when you make money and there is no overhead.

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up vote 1 down vote

Hiring people can be seen as an investment. You are willing to pay for a service and expect to receive some return for it, right? If you hire more coders, you expect to be able to deliver more software ready to go to production. If you hire marketing people, you expect to attract more clients to your startup...

I truly believe that you and your partners share the same interest: make your startup prosper, deliver good projects and make some money out of this process. So, why not focus on answering the "what can we do to maximise our return on investment?" question rather than on "what skills should my new employee have"?

Though the questions seem to be the same, they face the problem using a completely different approach: investment return over skills.

Try to discuss with your partners what return you expect to have hiring one more coder. Try also to identify what return is expected by hiring marketing experts. Once you have these expectation figured out, it will be easy to prove what is the best choice without unnecessary conflicts.

Keep on working ;)

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