(really) entrepreneureal

In the age of built-in-your-garage, do-it-yourself internet whizz-bang, we are getting more and more fascinating glimpses into what makes the teams behind such initiatives work.
Some, like Pete Cashmore of Mashable, or Evan Williams at Blogger, are one-man bands, and seem to work best that way.  Pete was an upstart Scott who hit on a topic of great interest (and built a thriving community around it), while Evan saw the future of blogging before anyone else (and managed to scare off all his team members in the process).  One person teams obviously need technical expertise, and a certain brand of personality and perseverance to push on through The Dip.

At the next level up we see two-person teams, such as the guys behind Digg, or Evan again at Twitter with his co-founder, or even Sergey and Larry.  The people who make up these teams usually combine similar kinds of technical expertise, which is useful for hammering away during coding all-nighters.  Like playground buddies back in second grade, or chimpanzees in a zoo pen, so long as there are fun toys around they’ll get along fine.  This kind of skill match may seem like the norm, but what happens when the skill sets don’t match?

Well, we might as well point to the most well-known dynamic duo that exhibits this kind of mismatch: Jobs and Wozniak.  Woz had the technical prowess while Jobs had enough mouth and verbal diarrhea/flair to sell anything (as well as a god-given design eye to boot).  They have obviously proven to be a good match, but apparently weren’t without their own problems – even the most unassuming ego (such as Wozniak’s) can’t find it easy to be trampled on by someone who never takes no for an answer.

It seems, then, that personality plays as much a part as technical skill: even a technically mismatched duo can be successful if the personality types involved don’t clash in the wrong ways.  So to all you techies out there: hang in there, the crazy ideas coming from your partner in crime might have a kernel of truth to them, even if they do stem from an ignorant brain.  And to all you idea guys – and gals: you’d better hope that there’s more to your ideas than pure fluff, or your techie friend might very well leave you up shit creek.

Here’s to finding myself a techie friend