Wednesday, November 7th, 2007

Looking to innovate a successful IT business? Get your hands dirty!

Recently in our shared office in SMUBIG, I had a chat with Leonard Lin, one of the key founders and drivers of Tyler Projects (already relocated elsewhere though!), who has brought us Battlestation in Facebook, and Mobile Weapons. Do check their very cool applications out! Anyhow, we discussed very briefly about the business of innovations in the IT world; A theory popped out of my head. Looking at the most successful technology companies in the world - Apple, Microsoft, Google, Oracle, and recently Facebook, they all had a very common similarity.

They all had founders who got their hands dirty.

All of these companies had founders and leaders who did everything themselves, or at least got heavily involved in the developments. Bill Gates hid in his catastrophically-sized room for months while coding; Facebook was almost singled handedly coded by the founder and current CEO Mark Zuckerberg (of course, with a little support from his buddies); Google “Wonderkids” Page and Brin both coded their PageRank algorithm and offered many companies who laughed them off, and the rest they say, is history. There are many more examples in Dell, Creative and LinkedIn. And now, the closest to heart local example whom I mentioned right in the start; Leonard and his team of developers. Now, dont kill me for stating the obvious, but this is exactly what a geek can have in advantage over many people! building a giant business on their computers. My point is, you can’t just have a great IT idea and expect some others to execute it all beautifully and perfectly for yourself. Heres 5 reasons why.

1) IP Issues. Heard of Connectu.com? Mark Zuckerberg was supposed to code this pre facebook social network for them as a paid developer. He is currently facing a lawsuit and charge that he had stolen the concept from his former employers.

2) Failure in translation. This is a classical case of vision mismatch; the CEO articulated his ideas to the CTO. The CTO builds him something. The CEO screamed and ranted. The CTO remains helpless. The programming team scratched their head. The COO shaked his head in disbelief. The designers cried their heart out after learning they had to change the whole design.

3) Lack of ownership. The programmer and his master, the visionary sit down together. The visionary promises 10% equity stake to him. The programmer must finish everything. If everything works out nicely the visionary will be CEO and the visionary will get rewarded. If everything fails, the visionary does not lose anything. The programmer wasted his time. If you are the programmer, you would probably give your all, 110%.. NOT.

4) Misalignment of vision. The developer and the CEO have different ideas and dreams. The CEO wants a cube, but the designer thinks a bubble is nicer. Would this partnership ever work out? Yes, if the CEO force his ideas on the developer, and the developer became grumpy, and finally deliver a half past six job. yay.

5) Inexperienced IT Leader. The CEO thinks technology is magic, and expects the developers to give him the world; 3 months down the road, the team gave him half of what he expected; the least important features which took more time then any other important functions.

Of course, these problems can be mitigated through counteractive measures in each of them. However, that technically-inexperienced leader should be articulative, charismatic and trusted as well. So far, I have found very few examples of such leaders in innovative IT products. Now, the innovation process is very complicated and tedious - clearly, just having an idea is not sufficient; nor does having just the technical skills. If you have a wonderful and killer innovation in mind, I urge you to either pick up the relevant IT skills yourself, or establish a clear rewarding system for your team, properly outlined.

On the first point, I recently heard that a middle aged friend is picking up Ruby On Rails. It did not surprise me a bit; That bloke has wonderful Web2.0 ideas and concepts, and probably want to build a killer web app himself. I applaud him on his efforts. On my second point, no one likes to work with nothing promised, and thus you will get nothing too. If you have some spare cash and want to outsource it, sure, do it, but make sure for your money that company understands exactly what you want, and does not steal your idea somehow. If not for these potential touchy issues, at least, getting your hands dirty will mean saving you some costs (yes yes… theres the opportunity cost… but well…. )

Finally of course, a best friend who is a geek would really help your business idea a long long way. Trust me, if not, at least trust Steve Jobs (: Start befriending one now!