Sometimes reflection isn't a good idea.

[pjam76]

Over the years I've learned one hard fact of life. It's never about how hard you work. I was involved in a start up company years back. A few people I sort of knew, not like we were friends, but we were techies and started a technology company.

It wasn't like we were ground breaking or anything, but we were developing something like YouTube. It wasn't as good and there would be repeat shows and episodes. Even some animated news features and so on. We created the product, put it online, and kept working at it.

But remember, this was 1997, so it was not like it is today. We weren't ground breaking, but it was something different. We tried to get financiers and backers, but it never really panned out. We learned how to write business plans, do this and that, and for the most part, we kept learning as young twenty something year olds.

Well as I read the wall street journal and here of other new, it saddens me that many companies doing something like YouTube are getting venture capital money, private investors, IPO's and so on. It's cool for the new startups as it's a push away from the dot com bust, but at the same time it kind of just makes me hate SA even more.

Because the fact is, the startup i help create had a couple of great tech guys, but not one of us could really be considered marketers or sales people. I'm not sure if the other 2 had SA, but they , like me, were the kind who kept to ourselves and worked hard.

I was only 21 at the time and didn't have much confidence in what I could do, but i had goals, ambition, drive, and i was gonna change the world.

Low and behold the company never made much money, the dot com bust happened, and we were getting older, so the company folded, we never got any money, and we all went our different ways. No hard feelings.

One guy went off into electrical engineering, another into some database type work and I went into varoius computer programming and engineering roles over the years.

What bothers me is not that, "hey we were at the forefront of technology" but in the fact that cause I have SA and neither of the other two could talk, we never had a chance.

Say what you want, but the fact is, if you can't talk, whatever you do is really useless.. You can work hard and learn all you want but if you can't sell it or market it, nobody will ever care.

I mean I lost a lot of confidence when other companies and people seemed to be getting millions of dollars in capital for their products or millions of dollars cause somebody bought them out. I always felt like I didn't learn enough, know enough, what I did wasn't good enough.

But over the years, I've learned that many of these "geeks" who made millions never were really geeks.. Yeah maybe there were one or two, but there was always the main guy who could sell anything.

I mean Apple is still around today because Steve Jobs is a marketing and sales genius.. The guy isn't a tech wizard. .

Hey, back in the day, BetaMax was a far superior technology than VHS tapes, but what happened? BetaMax basially vanishes and VHS tapes are still around today.

But it brings me back to the realization of sales and marketing are far superior than how great your product is and how hard you work...

Cause at the end of the day, if you can't market or sell your product or yourself, nobody will ever care to buy it or you.

So what have I learned?

I don't know, maybe I"'m screwed because no matter how hard i've worked on changing my SA, nothing has ever worked.

 

[someoneelse]

I have tried to look back at myself in the past to see if I have changed and grown in even the most minuscule way. If I look back far enough I see a more prominent change. I tried to think of some other little tid bits of wisdom but I did not come up with any. You are very good at bringing across your point of view. I would say that you are very insightful towards analyzing sa and your past and how sa effected you. But is there anyway that you could look back at your past experiences and take something from it? There must be something.

 

[MarCPatt]

I agree, it is more difficult for us SAs to gain from markets that require communication and sales skills. The fact that the USA is loosing a lot of the SA friendly jobs, the ones that only required repetition is messing us SArs a lot.

 

[laith]

true...its like no matter how hard i try to better myself in life, im always a step behind because of SA. social skills are very important to succeed, not that i dont have decent social skills, i do...but SA makes me hesitant, avoidant, etc..and in a this highly competitive world you cant hesistate or you'll loose. im doing fine so far but it just doesnt seem fair at times. sometimes i feel like my efforts are just a lost cause. but whatever ill find a way.

 

[C_jo]

For me personally, is like trying to climb one of those practice walls in climbings clubs. The goal is always the top, then I get about halfway and theres always one 'rung' that seems out of reach, but is progress. Then I go for it, lose balance and fall back to the start losing any progress I've made. I guess I can always pick myself up and start again, but sometimes it feels like I've reached my peak and I'll always fail at that one 'rung'.

 

[laith]

C_jo- i hear ya. heh, clever way of putting it.