Why Software Engineers Make Good Entrepreneurs

Software Engineers are an interesting breed. As Marc Anderson had famously said in a NY Times article, “When you’re dealing with machines or anything that you build, it either works or it doesn’t, no matter how good of a salesman you are.” Tech Engineers deal with machine more than they do with people. Machines don’t lie. A regular honest interaction with machines forces Engineers to focus on the solution rather than presentation.

Here are three reasons why regular honest interactions make Software Engineers a better Entrepreneur.

1) Art of Pivoting

The Lean Startup community has overused the word “Pivot,” an art of changing direction incrementally based on a hypothesis-driven experimentation. With pivoting, products are developed iteratively, tested in the market, and based on early customer acquisition and interaction, further iterations are planned. A majority of the concepts that lean startup community have recommended is similar to the Agile Software Development model, a software development methodology widely adopted in tech companies.

With Agile Development, the early product versions are released in 3 to 4 weeks, and the customer offers feedback on the functionality and evaluates whether the release has met the expectations. The team discusses the feedback, acquires knowledge, and uses that information for further iterations. A similar process is adopted in Lean Startup, which reduces the cost of early product development.

2) Less Ego

Ego is a good thing for Entrepreneurs - to pursue a goal or persist during adverse times, but as an Engineer, there would be times when what you thought would work on paper would have led to failure during integration or final testing. This thought process of not persisting beyond “Critical Points” that jeopardizes relationship with clients is essential for Entrepreneurs.

An interesting example is that of Apple III, which is still regarded as one of Apple’s biggest failures. Steve Jobs persisted and let the sales & marketing team dictate the day-to-day design decisions for the product, finally leading to a clunky product with design faults and overheating problems. A change in action during “critical points” influence the market share, and acts as the foundation for a sustainable Business. Although the Apple III team had a team of some of the best Engineers, they were less influential, leading to a failed product that negatively impacted the brand for three years.

3) Get Things Done

This is the most important quality that Entrepreneurs should possess. You can hypothesis about market share, competitive advantage and create a chart of the latest trends but what really matters in a Business is getting things done to achieve Financial and Brand Goals. Software Engineers are trained to get things done. There are no excuses for a code not shipping on release dates. The knowledge base is widely available with internal documentation and data from forums and other tech blogs.

With an Agile Development model, Software Engineers push themselves to meet deadlines on a regular basis. This can act as a training ground for start-up ventures that require similar time management.

What do you think? Do Software Engineers Make Good Entrepreneurs?