2016: Developers vs Marketing & Sales who wins?

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Within our growing start up community in Nigeria, I feel 2015 was the year of the software engineer. Much of our conversations, thoughts and perhaps recruiting were shaped around software engineering and product. There were more hackathons than ever before and the ‘learn how to code’ flag was flown all year round, :smile: (this is a good thing).

I’m praying 2016 is the year of the unconventional marketer/ growth hacker and sales/business developer. Any startup that intends to grow and succeed will need to search high and low for talent in this area, as I know from first hand experience it’s scarce.

If you are not an engineer and want to make yourself valuable and build a career in a potentially successful start up or even start a startup - become either

  1. A growth hacker - in every sense of the word (not just a SEO/social media manager that can only deliver results with Rocket/Konga type marketing budgets)

  2. Business development / Sales specialist - the type that truly understands and enjoys the entire sales cycle and can close both simple and complex deals.

Think about it, you may be more successful and sought after as 1 of 5 Growth marketing specialists for startups and SME’s in the health care space than… the 2000th average engineer in the e-commerce space?

Anyhow if your looking for an opportunity in either of the two areas mentioned above, holla at me f[at]studysearch.co !! My answer to the question, no one wins, its a combination of skills not a competition.

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Hello Frederik, i guess we are on the same page.

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When you hear growth hacker, be ready for some bullshit. Brace yourself because bullshit is about rain down.

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Any examples of the type of bullshit you’re referring to?

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@akindolu i would also love know more about the bullshit.

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@Frederik what do you have in mind man? am interested full throttle

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Truth is no on read with in the tech space. You need to market and sell your product, developers. And sales guys, growth hackers and marketers need products to sell. So its problem a sysmbiosis.

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I have a lot in mind :slight_smile: what do you have in mind? lets talk more via email !

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Luciusunegbu@gmail.com sent you a mail earlier.

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@Frederik Nah. I totally agree with you. Their isn’t any competition.
I also agree with @luciocorp, the relationship between this two is mutual, Nobody can stand independently.

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You underestimate the power of a good sales person. A good salesman will sell you air if you’re not careful.

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@Frederik Well said. BTW you’ve answered the question too early.
@akinara True, a smart salesman can sell anything but can’t guarantee repeat sales or users satisfaction on the product. In fact, good PR (salesman) is the fastest way to kill a startup with not-so-good product. While a superb product by itself seldom assure the company a positive cash-flow without paying (repeat) users. Both are vital but not necessarily at the same time.

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