Entrepreneurs, don't forget to have a job

The two things.  There's two things required to be an entrepreneur.  One is to acquire an ability to survive and keep food and jobs on the table (to be practical and focused on the long-term and short-term and your basic needs).  This is probably the fundamental "skill" that is hard for the typical entrepreneur (that they have to cover their bases and can't just go 100% crazy on their ideas).  Beyond skill one is the fun part of skill two, where the sky is the absolute limit for an entrepreneur.  This is the second skill: focus.

The basics.  Survival, as we obviously know, is absolutely key for us all.  Not everyone gets out of here alive!  We can't spend all of our time focusing on our passions, dreams, and ideas if we aren't caring for ourselves, putting food on the table, and doing the basic things that matter to survive, like having a job and some sustainable income source.  Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs tells us that we can't self-actualize if our basic needs (food, cash) aren't met.  This means that the entrepreneur must first be self-aware and focus on meeting these basic needs: get a job, pay the bills, be responsible, etc.  Don't be a bum and don't overly focus on just your passions if you haven't done these basic things.  Learn how to keep jobs, report up to bosses and be a true professional.  Without this you'll never get anywhere and rolling the dice in entrepreneurship is a huge and crazy risk!

The passion.  The second part is the fun and interesting part of entrepreneurship: doing it.  The second part is everything else that has to to with being an entrepreneur: coming up with ideas, sharing with people, building teams, building things, companies, products, plans, etc.  This is seriously the fun and exciting part.  It's all about passion.

So remember entrepreneurs, as my dad always told me, "Don't quit your day job".  Do the basics of having sustainable income and cash and figure out how to integrate total creativity and passion into your life.

Program Managers and Product Managers. What's the difference?

I recently had an interesting conversation with a friend of mine who works at Expedia as a Product Manager. He appears to like it. For comparison's sake, I think we're different in that I have been a technical resource for a number of years and get the engineering side of things perhaps better than he does; I've been a developer, I've built many web sites and software applications from scratch, so I get this engineering-type stuff! The thing is that I think I also get the customer side of things very well, too. I've been making solutions for people for over 10 years and have applied many leadership skills, Voice of Customer, and Use Case / Process Modeling techniques when working with my customers to ensure clarity and quality. My point is that I think I can do either the job of Program Manager or Product Manager but want to pick one. So which one?

Program Manager: I have a technical background. I have been a software, database, and process developer for years. I like the technology for the most part but don't want to get bogged down in too many technical details. There's cheaper labor for that type of stuff! I'd rather manage. I have been both a project and program manager for software and process implementation projects within Siemens. I enjoyed the control of those roles and got to do much the Business Analysis and Product Management efforts on those project, too. I had a really great gig and didn't even realize it. For me in those jobs, the hardest thing to be successful and feel happy was communicating. I've learned some hard lessons and it's really tricky! Respect and "yes, sir/ma'am" go a long ways and force is rarely a good tactic. As a Program Manager you should have a lot of pull and influence in the development organization but functional organizations beneath you in Engineering often get in the way of that. In this case, it's not always about working with the workers, it's about working with their managers...and that can be tough.

Product Manager: So it is definitely my goal to be very customer-driven in what I do. If it weren't for others, why would I be here at all? I want to make products that are for people and valuable customers. I love working with the customer(s), understanding their needs, and working with them, the development community and engineering to define an elegant and cost-effective solution. This is the job (or should be) of the Product Manager but the rub comes in that I've recently experienced Product Managers or Business Analysts not being valued (sure this isn't new) by the development organization. "Oh those business people don't know." But in my case, it simply isn't the case because I do know. In this last case, I appeared to know more about the technology than many of the technical resources. In many cases, they're hired guns trained up "just in time" to solve problems. I'm not going to be the one implementing but they sometimes didn't even get the concepts I was using.

To conclude, I want to be a Product Manager so I can care about and work with the customer to understand their needs AND heavily influence what is built (Program Manager). Do I need to choose one? Is there a hybrid? Is the only way out of this quandary as the CEO? Should I work for a smaller organization in hopes that I will find this hybrid?