Who can recall the experience of attending a networking event and finding a swarm of bizdev guys all looking for the same thing: developers? Kabir Hemarajani wrote a great piece on how to find a technically oriented individual. What happens after you find your developers and how many times have you witnessed a startup fail to progress when their development support falls out from under them? When starting up a company, it is essential for business oriented/non-technical people to know how to work with their development team.

How to Bridge the Gap Between Developers and Business Development

Understand their ambitions.

What is it that they are really there for? It’s not to code for you, it’s to build something; to see appreciation from not just your target market but from their community of developers, friends and individuals. Find a way to merge your business goals with their personal ambitions of what it means to accomplish something. Have this talk multiple times as it will change on a weekly/monthly basis.

Be rational, but allow irrationality.

There will be times where you will want to scream, shout and demand [things]. Your developer’s sense of rationality is very different than yours, which will make them seem quite irrational in how they work. Keep the knowledge of multiple perspective’s in mind at all times, it will help you choose the right battles.

Be Patient.

Your deadlines will most likely seem arbitrary to your team. If you find yourself running into push back on your deadlines, take a step back and assess how your requests can be modified as it will usually not be set with respect to their pace/logic of development. Many of you will recall Paul Graham's Essay on Makers vs. Managers and it definitely helps in understanding how some developers plan out their work. Having patience and the business skills to juggle business deadlines and requirements around your developers’ progress will help you stay dynamic and reduce risk of startup fatality from tech development dependency.

Balance Ownership and Compensation.

This isn’t the typical point on equity and hourly pay. Whether you are paying or sharing equity. It’s not always paying rent or having equity in what is likely a highly illiquid paper napkin idea. Realize that what you are offering must provide them with continuous fulfillment. Sometimes it’s the satisfaction of building something challenging and new, other times it can be as simple as seeing traffic on their product. Although making money is great, find a way to consistently fulfill your developer/team’s sweet tooth.

Know Their Sweet Tooth.

Diving into this a bit more, if your idea doesn’t instantly light up your developer’s eyes, he will likely not be the best fit for the project. Ask them to share their ideas for how to improve your idea and work to implement it! This will keep them vested and will make sure your product is developed with passion. Let your techie play with strange technology; challenge them with new projects and new functionalities. If you can make them think it was their idea it works even better!

Ultimately, remember that in most early stage startups, you need them more than they need you, treat your developers well and they’ll return the favor when the product is ready to be sold.

Punit is currently the Co-founder and CEO of Zazu and previously the co-founder of BostonBookWorks.com and Coopratings.com where he worked with developers to create and implement technology systems to support various business initiatives. 

Photo Credit: conner395 on Flickr