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I stumbled upon this quote on Rob Conery's blog, which referenced an old post by Robert Scoble in which the following was stated, concerning why startups don't use Windows:

They don’t want to take s*** from their friends (or, even, their Venture Capitalist). Most of this is just pure cost-control. I can hear the conversation now: “OK, you wanna go with Windows as your platform, but is the extra feature worth the licensing fees for Windows?”

Is this attitude still prevalent? If you're just running (or planning) a small ISV... and you might need a dozen servers, then the cost for Windows vs Linux is fairly negligible, at least comparing EC2 / Peer1.

If it is, I find it somewhat surprising. Even as a "technologist", I don't really care one way or the other about the platform. I do care about the profitability model, but compared to the cost for rent or the salary of even an entry level engineer, I just don't see the hosting cost as being terribly relevant.

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This is a single opinion made 6 years ago. Since then Microsoft introduced the Bizspark program and StackExchange prove .NET can be a good choice – user3997 Jun 24 '11 at 13:16
Here's a somewhat related question you might find interesting: answers.onstartups.com/questions/25171/… – Zuly Gonzalez♦ Jun 24 '11 at 13:36
Technologists absolutely do care. There are almost religious type movements in either direction. Some technologies provide you with a freedom that fosters technical creativity, others well.... Not all technologies are equal. Startup god Paul Graham has written a great essay about this. Its specifically about languages but rings true for platforms too (language and platform are closely related) paulgraham.com/avg.html – tinny Jun 25 '11 at 1:11
This one doesn't. At various times, I've been a Perl/Linux hacker, a C++/Win32 hacker, and an Actionscript/Flash hacker. Not to mention dabbling in countless other languages and platforms. I've seen beautiful craftsmanship produced with a variety of tools. – user5772 Jun 25 '11 at 11:37

1 Answer

up vote 7 down vote accepted

Investors are a diverse group of people, and as such their opinions can vary wildly. That said, I would say you will be likely to see 2 common archetypes:

  • The inexperienced angel: His opinion might be all over the map; if he has just spoken with a celebrity tech guy who praises Python, then he may want you to reprogram everything in Python. Or he might not care at all.

  • The professional VC or qualified & experienced angel: These guys know -- in broad strokes -- what the differences between the various platforms are, and generally don't care much which one you use. They want to feel that you're smart, know what you're doing, and have experience with the platform you're using. The sole exception might be if your product requires massive server resources (think web search or global social network): In that case, they might prefer open source because the Microsoft stack becomes expensive when you're running thousands of servers.

I don't think there is a "investors don't let startups use Microsoft" rule. It's mostly myth IMHO. And besides, if the investor wants to micro-manage the technology stack choice, but doesn't listen to reasoned pro-Microsoft arguments -- then that's a big red flag!

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+1 for "if the investor wants to micro-manage the technology stack choice, but doesn't listen to reasoned pro-Microsoft arguments -- then that's a big red flag!" – Zuly Gonzalez♦ Jun 24 '11 at 13:35

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